Education is the issue!
Why run for elected office if you don’t want to govern?
That is the question we pose to incumbent members of the Orleans Parish School Board who sought re-election in November, but failed to support a bill by state Sen. Joe Bouie that would have removed the onerous and unfair burden of requiring the Board to have a two-thirds majority to overrule the school superintendent on charter school approvals and revocations.
John Brown, Sr., Ethan Ashley, Leslie Ellison, Nolan Marshall Jr. and Grisela Jackson, who was selected to fill the unexpired term of Ben Kleban, were all on the Nov. 3 ballot to hold on to their school board seats. Where you won’t find their names is on a letter of support of resolution in favor of SB 42, which would have returned the threshold for overruling the superintendent on school charters to a simple majority.
Sen. Bouie reached out to the board members in search of such support before he introduced the bill. No one answered the call, Bouie said in a Nov. 2 radio interview on WBOK 1230 AM, except for a reply he received from Board President Ethan Ashley, explaining why he would not be lending his support for the bill.
Brown won the election for the District 1 seat outright. And Jackson lost her bid for the District 5 seat, leaving her two challengers to face each other in a runoff. And Ashley, Ellison and Marshall are in runoffs. That means there is still an opportunity to bring significant change to the Orleans Parish School Board. And change is what is needed.
It can start with electing individuals that actually want to lead and govern a PUBLIC school system.
We believe education is the most important issue facing our community, it does not make sense to vote for individuals who are clearly NOT interested in governing and leading our education system.
As for Bouie’s SB 42, it made it through the state Senate Education committee on Oct. 7 and passed the full Senate, with 33 yeas and 0 nays, on Oct. 12. However, it failed to get out of committee in the state House.
Meanwhile, most schools operating in Orleans Parish are still C, D and F schools—schools that are failing our children. And if Supt. Henderson Lewis gives his stamp of approval to any of those failing operators, the very people elected by the voters of Orleans Parish would have to vote with a super-majority of five members to overrule his decision. There is no other school board in the entire state that must meet that standard.
Only a dozen and half of the nearly 80 charter schools operating in Orleans Parish have earned an A or B in the most recent academic performance assessment by the state. The rest of the schools are either mediocre or outright failing with D and F assessments in the state’s performance rating system.
Here at The New Orleans Tribune, we have been screaming from the rafters for the better part of 15 years that the so-called reform that has gripped public education in Orleans Parish post-Katrina was a failure and a farce. We have been noting for years that most of the schools that serve OUR children were failing under this new model. We have been saying for years that the students, parents, voters, and taxpayers deserve true representation and local governance of schools. We will NOT get tired of telling that TRUTH!
Just so we are clear, the foundation for the arguments against Bouie’s bill come down to this: only requiring the school board to vote with a simple majority to revoke a charter would make it too easy to put charter operators in jeopardy.
News flash! It should be easy to revoke charters of poor-performing school operators! Their contracts ought to be in jeopardy! The contracts of every operator running a school with a D or F grade should be revoked immediately, and the men and women elected by the people should be able to do it with the vote of four members of the board—not five.
Why is that the reformers and even current school board members seem more concerned about charter operators in peril than they are about putting the mostly poor, mostly Black students that are stuck in failing schools in jeopardy? If any of them were interested in governing the system and serving students, they would have supported Bouie’s SB 42. The fact that they didn’t is telling.
“We have a serious issue that we are constantly exposing our children to failing schools,” Bouie said. “This is a governance issue. Taking their school board power and giving it to the Superintendent actually makes (the school board) null and void when it comes to making decisions about charters.”
Bouie was joined by bill co-sponsor state Rep. Jason Hughes on the WBOK show that aired live Monday, Nov. 2. Both pointed to the efforts of charter school lobbyists as well some BESE members who spoke against the bill.
Of course, it is one thing to have charter schools and members of BESE, many of whom had their campaigns heavily financed by the same forces that have pushed and funded the privatization of our public school system, fight against Bouie’s bill. That was to be expected.
But when elected members of the school board refuse to stand up for the people who elected them, something is truly awry. It makes us wonder whether these school board members recognize that they work for the children and residents of Orleans Parish—not the charter lobby or the corporate reformers.
Remind them on Dec. 5!!
CRIMINAL DISTRICT COURT
Judge Criminal District Court Section K
MARCUS DELARGE OR STEPHANIE BRIDGES
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Orleans Parish District Attorney
NO ENDORSEMENT
JUVENILE COURT
Judge Juvenile Court, Section A
CLINTON “CLINT” SMITH
Judge Juvenile Court, Section F
RANORD J. DARENSBURG
ORLEANS PARISH SCHOOL BOARD
School Board District 2
CHANEL M. PAYNE
School Board District 4
NO ENDORSEMENT
School Board District 5
ANTOINETTE WILLIAMS
School Board District 6
ERICA MARTINEZ
School Board District 7
KAYONNA ARMSTRONG
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS & PROPOSITIONS
CA NO. 1
Allows out-of-state resident to serve on a public postsecondary education board of supervisors
VOTE YES
PARISHWIDE PROPOSITION NO. 1
Would levy 2.619 mills ($10.5 million in projected revenue for 2021) for infrastructure and maintenace, including streets, drainage, buildings, vehicles and equipment
VOTE YES
PARISHWIDE PROPOSITION NO. 2
Would levy 0.987 mills ($4 million) for public libraries and early childhood education
VOTE YES
PARISHWIDE PROPOSITION NO. 3
Would levy 1.05 mills ($4.3 million) for affordable housing facilities and alleviating blight and 1.164 mills ($4.6 million) for economic development VOTE YES
