A Plea for a Fact-Based Debate About Charter Schools | New York Times: David Leonhardt wrote a follow-up piece to his opinion on the New Orleans education turnaround looking at some of the ways we should think about the national education debate.
Local nonprofits receive $5 million in Walton grants since 2016 | NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune: Eleven location education groups have received grants from the Walton Family Foundation over the past two years.
The Children of Central City | NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune: The six-part series and documentary followed a local youth football team as part of the larger story exposing the crisis of chronic exposure to violence and its devastating effects on children.” The Times-Pic also followed up with editorials on July 21, July 22, and July 25.
Orleans School Board demands industries seeking tax exemptions earn them | Opinion | NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune: In a move that could put an extra $3 million per year into its bank account, the Orleans Parish School Board approved new rules Thursday (July 19) for industries seeking an exemption from paying parish property taxes.
Post-Katrina school reforms in New Orleans led to widespread improvements, report says | The New Orleans Advocate: “After the state seized control of most of the city’s public schools in 2005 and began turning them over to charter operators, test scores shot up by as much as 16 percentiles, researchers at Tulane University’s Education Research Alliance for New Orleans found.” Read NSNO’s recap of the report here.
A tiny hop in LEAP: New Orleans area public school systems mostly see gains on state test scores | The New Orleans Advocate: “St. Bernard and Orleans parishes remained stagnant, with 37 percent and 26 percent of students clearing the “mastery” bar, respectively, in each of the past two years. Orleans, where public schools formerly overseen by the Recovery School District and the Orleans Parish School Board were all unified under the school board’s control this month, was again the lowest-scoring parish in the region.” Read NSNO’s recap of the LEAP scores here.
New Orleans charter schools add parents to boards to increase parent involvement | The Lens: As part of their return to Orleans Parish School Board oversight, schools are now required to have student and parent involvement on Boards.