We’ve heard talk of New Orleans’ privatization being a model for Kansas, but we’re listening to this parent advocate (as well as many other reports debunking the New Orleans choice myth).
“If New Orleans is being held up as a model for the schools in your community, I have some advice for you. Fight harder than you’ve ever fought to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you. Because once you’re in it, it’s so hard to get out of. Fight tooth and nail. If people come to your community and try to sell you bull crap, come down here and talk to us first. Read anything you can get your hands on. They’ll tell you that your input matters, that your schools are going to be run according to a community model. Don’t believe it. At the end of the day, they could care less about what kind of schools you want. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we said that we wanted arts and music in our schools—that those were really important to us in a city like New Orleans that’s build on arts and music and culture. Instead we got prisons.” http://edushyster.com/?p=4356