Recovery School District superintendent resigns
20th March 2017 · 0 Comments
By Kari Dequine Harden
Contributing Writer
Patrick Dobard, superintendent of the Recovery School District (RSD) for the past five years, is leaving his post to take a job as Chief Executive Officer of New Schools for New Orleans.
Promoted by State Superintendent John White in 2012, Dobard led the RSD as it handed over all schools under its jurisdiction in New Orleans to private charter operators, creating the country’s first urban all-charter district.
“Under Patrick’s leadership, RSD schools have made extraordinary strides. In his new role, he will continue his mission to improve New Orleans schools,” White said in a news release.
Dobard, a New Orleans native and the first African-American RSD superintendent, graduated from Southern University in New Orleans and spent 11 years as a classroom teacher.
In his tenure, 49-year-old Dobard has been simultaneously heaped with praise by charter supporters and criticized fiercely by advocates for traditional public neighborhood schools.
In that time, the RSD has been both exalted as a model for the nation and scorned as an abject failure.
Whether history will judge the New Orleans experiment in public education as a success to be replicated or a fiasco to avert remains to be seen.
Those who give Dobard accolades point to improved graduation rates and test scores.
According to the state, “Student graduation rates in New Orleans schools increased from 54 percent in 2004 to 75 percent in 2015 [and] the average ACT score in the city grew from 17.0 in 2005 to 18.9 in 2016.”
His critics point to the state’s infamously tricky habits of data manipulation and ever-changing benchmarks, and a system that has left the most vulnerable children behind while disenfranchising communities.
Nearly 12 years after the state takeover, the RSD remains at the bottom of the state’s district rankings, and Louisiana’s education system remains at the bottom in national rankings.
In 2015, the RSD in New Orleans’ graduation rate was 61.4 percent (last in the state, next to RSD Baton Rouge), while the OPSB’s was 92.1 percent. From 2004 to 2014, Louisiana’s average composite ACT score went down, from 19.8 to 19.2, and the state kept the same ranking of 48th in the nation. The RSD New Orleans’ average ACT score for 2016 was 16.7 (one of the lowest absolute scores in the state).
But Dobard is the first to say, “There’s a lot more work to do in New Orleans.” In terms of creating a system in which every child attends an excellent school, “We are about halfway there,” he said.
And if other districts are looking to New Orleans as a model for creating a “portfolio district,” Dobard identities the following elements as critical: Ensuring a third-party quality charter authorizer; clear rules for strong accountability and autonomy; a strong leadership and teacher pipeline; and a nimble approach to policy and structure with a flexible mindset.
Dobard also stressed the need to “seek community input in a very deep way,” and admits that was something missing when he became superintendent. As he worked to solicit more input from the community several years into his tenure, Dobard said it absolutely changed his perspective, and “made me a better leader.”
There’s also the issue of push out. When he took the job in 2012, the remaining direct-run RSD schools had become a “dumping ground” for the students the charters didn’t want. If a child was deemed too expensive or too challenging to educate (or if they weren’t going to boost the school’s test scores), they were often denied admission on the front end or pushed out once enrolled, which included many children with special needs.
Dobard compared the practice to housing discrimination, and said creating a centralized enrollment system (OneApp) was the key to addressing the discrimination practices by charters, as well as creating a way to better track the movement of students.
All New Orleans schools are slated to return to the OPSB by 2018, though as privately operated charter schools with appointed boards, thus retaining their autonomy and leaving the publicly elected board with a much diminished role in the city’s public education.
There is currently a push to charter the city’s remaining handful of traditional public schools.
Dobard’s statewide role will be assumed by current Assistant State Superintendent Kunjan Narechania, who will also oversee the reunification of New Orleans schools back under the governance of the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB).
Dana Peterson, current state deputy superintendent, will oversee the district’s “achievement zone” in Baton Rouge.
“During his tenure as Superintendent for the Recovery School District, Patrick Dobard was able to guide our area schools with the confidence and tact of a seasoned leader,” said OPSB Superintendent Dr. Henderson Lewis, Jr. in a prepared statement. “His dedication to our city’s students, staff and the community at large will not be forgotten. We at OPSB wish him all the best and look forward to continuing to work alongside him as he transitions into his next role as CEO of New Schools for New Orleans.”
Dobard said he has several areas of improvement on which he wants to focus in his new role. First, he said he wants to improve diversity – not just racial and socio-economic diversity within the student bodies, but also increase the diversity in curriculum and program offerings among schools.
Another priority for Dobard is to work with local colleges and universities to train more teachers and entice them to stay in New Orleans.
“I have worked with Patrick since I joined the Department of Education six years ago,” Narechania wrote in an emailed interview. “During that time, he has provided me support and guidance, and proved to be a leader with a strong moral compass and a dear friend. I admire him tremendously, and I look forward to working with him in this new capacity, as he takes the helm at New Schools for New Orleans, where I know he will continue his great work.”
With a stated mission to deliver excellent public schools for every child, New Schools for New Orleans is responsible for doling out tens of millions of dollars in grant money to support charter schools and leadership and teacher training. According to tax documents, the non-profit organization received over $75 million in grant funds between 2010 and 2014.
Dobard said he is determined to stay here and “double down on the work that’s been started.”
“I just love my home,” he said. “I love what I am doing, and I want to continue to improve the system in a number of ways, and continue to contribute to education in New Orleans.”
This article originally published in the March 20, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
