Google “New Orleans charter school success” and you’ll find cheers for New Orleans charter schools everywhere from Newsweek to NPR to President Obama.
Here’s another side of that story. It is about 1) selective admission policies; 2) extraordinary suspension rates (as we’ve often observed, it’s easy to succeed when you toss out all the hard cases); 3) unusual new security and disciplinary procedures (one student was shackled to a radiator for three hours and minor offenses bring serious punishment); 4) young, cheap and inexperienced teachers.
School reformers will want to take a look. The article includes a number of links to deeper research on the subject.
ALSO: Timely report because state officials who blew the whistle on problems found at New Orleans charters have been fired. Mustn’t get in the way of “reform.”