Inequity in New Orleans public schools persists, report says
10th December 2018 · 0 Comments
By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer
New Orleans-based non-profit The Data Center released its latest in a series of tricentennial reports on November 30 documenting issues of inequity in the city. Called “New Orleans Public Schools: An Unrealized Democratic Ideal,” the research outlines hundreds of years of inequity in the city’s public schools, and concludes with steps the community can take to improve educational outcomes in the future.
“There is value in seeing New Orleans public schools as they emerged, developed, and changed over nearly two centuries and to remind ourselves that public education in our city existed, and mattered, long before 2005,” the report, written by Brian Beabout at UNO and Kyshun Webster at the University of Holy Cross, says.
New Orleans was one of the first cities in the south to establish a public school system in the early 1840s, educating white children and free people of color, but not slaves. After the Civil War, freed slaves began attending school and some institutions were integrated during the Reconstruction period, but the re-establishment of white supremacy and Jim Crow laws in the latter part of the 19th century disenfranchised many students of color.
“African American students were included as part of the tax-supported system of public schools, but due to racial segregation policies and chronic underfunding, they would be provided with separate and inferior public education,” the report noted.
In November 1960, four young African-American students integrated two white New Orleans public schools. The response from the white community was instant and violent – similar to three days of riots against integrated schools in 1874.
“The ugly white-led riots in response to these events made national news and initiated a mass exodus of white families in the 1960s and 1970s to private schools and suburban public schools. In 1960, white students comprised 42 percent of the public school enrollment. By 1970, this number shrank to 30 percent and only 15 percent by the 1980s. The demographics of the district have fluctuated only slightly over the intervening 38 years,” the report said.
Loss of political and taxpayer support accompanied white and middle class flight, and many public schools struggled across the city, fueling a state-led takeover after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The district now has more charter schools than any other in the United States. Outcomes at these schools have been mixed, and the transition from traditional public schools to charter schools remains contentious. On the whole, academic performance in New Orleans has steadily improved since 2005, but evidence also shows that inequities persist and disproportionately impact students of color and those with disabilities.
“Despite generations of educators – black and white alike – working with devotion, we have been unable to create a system of public education that does more to foster social mobility than it does to prop up the existing social hierarchy,” the report notes.
Orleans Public Education Network Communications Director Nahliah Webber praised the report’s release.
“What we see here is a continuum, and it makes it clear that we are not addressing underlying structural inequality. We are applying technical fixes, and problems continue to emerge, so we know we need a more adaptive approach that acknowledges the social, political and economic consequences of racism,” Webber said. “We have to be able to face that head on.”
Both The Data Center and OPEN emphasize that for future reform to work, control of school boards has to be local and decision-making must be transparent. The state-run Recovery School District has agreed to return charter schools to local governance this year, but most schools have self-appointed, non-elected boards, and many charter school boards do not reflect the demographics of the students they serve.
“We have seen massive changes in the way things look, but we are not seeing changes in the attitudes people have about Black people in this city,” Webber said. “We see parallels between this report and other Data Center studies on income inequality in New Orleans. Administration in charter schools skews white, and some of these professionals make six figures, and they are setting the tone for cultural enforcement.”
“How do we create institutions that do not mimic the inequity that we see in larger society?” asked Webber.
This report is one of several The Data Center has released this year, taking stock of New Orleans as the city celebrates 300 years. Other available studies examine inequities in the healthcare system and the real estate market, as well as race and class discrimination in New Orleans’ jails and system of bail bonds.
The full public schools inequity report and the other reports in the series are all available on the center’s website at www.datacenterresearch.org.
This article originally published in the December 10, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
