When considering all that the educational landscape of New Orleans has undergone over the years, there has been a high rate of oppression and racism throughout the schools in the city. Although many of the oppression, racism, or privilege may go unnoticed, it is something that is very prevalent among the schools in the New Orleans. New Orleans has been a focal point of the government for 15 years, since hurricane Katrina. Although the schools in New Orleans and the public school system were failing before Katrina, when the storm hit, the schools got much worse in the sense of condition of the schools combined with the apathy of the staff and students to achieve.

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On August 29th, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the state government of Louisiana thought that this could be a chance to rehabilitate the education system.  Prior to Katrina, the state of Louisiana invested very little money in the predominately minority-attended public schools in New Orleans (Harris).  The idea that the government had very little interest in the public schools in New Orleans or investing in the education of the youth before the storm led me to believe that the state had forgotten about New Orleans altogether and decided that maybe Katrina may provide a chance for change.

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"In 2003, the Louisiana State Board of Education declared the Orleans Parish School Board to be in “Academic Crisis” and they asked the Recovery School District (RSD) to take control of five of the failing public schools.  The RSD is a school districted created in 2003 by Louisiana legislation and is designed to transform underperforming schools" (Harris). Having had the opportunity to work in RSD schools, I have seen what the RSD has done to many of the schools in which they operate. "There was always a question as to what the RSD does and what the RSD has done to schools in New Orleans. The Katrina Era of New Orleans brought about the rapid expansion of the RSD, did away with school attendance zones, brought about the rise of charter schools and a large group of teachers and administrators" (Harris). The elimination of attendance zones and the rise of charter schools created much more havoc than help for the residents of New Orleans looking to find a school that was best for them. "The removal of school attendance zone caused confusion among parents and there were few transportation options for students to get to their school of “choice” (Harris). Now, when the government thought that is had solved a problem within the city of New Orleans, a new problem had showed itself within the transportation system. This challenge has been something that I have been a witness to with having some of my students on buses for 2 hours to get from home to school due to the school of "choice."  

After some time, the RSD continued to operate and began the hiring process for teachers, but many of the teachers were told to find new jobs because they were not sure of the state the schools would be in given the tremendous amount of flooding (Harris). Since many teachers had left the city the RSD was forced to hire many inexperienced and unprepared teachers. With New Orleans in the news as much as it was, it was assumed that the government would be able to step in and assist in building the school system back and doing so in a unique way, with charter schools.

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After Katrina, many of the schools in the city shut down and a lot of help was needed to fix the problem with the education system at that time. One solution that was thought of was bring in a variety of charter management organizations to start to convert the cities old and run down buildings into schools that can be used very quickly. With people returning to the city in such a quick manor, the RSD was left without any ideas other than to try to keep opening more and more schools (Harris).

With the RSD doing what they thought they needed to do and the rest of New Orleans in the wake of what they were doing, there seemed to be some positives among the work that the RSD was doing. Before the storm, the New Orleans public school system had suffered from white flight, neglect, mismanagement and corruption, which left the schools in a state of disrepair (Gabor). This was something that many people had already noticed, but what they didn't realize is that when the RSD came in, they began to create waves and show improvements among the schools they were operating. Last year, 63 percent of children in local elementary and middle schools were proficient on state tests, up from 37 percent in 2005 (Gabor). Although this appears to be a great increase in the numbers and the performance of students, there is the issue of New Orleans compared to Louisiana and then further Louisiana compared to the rest of the country.

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The standards for Louisiana are low when compared to the standards of other states around the country. "The average composite ACT score for the Recovery School District was just 16.4 in 2014, well below the minimum score required for admission to a four-year public university in Louisiana" (Gabor). Although there was an increase in the numbers, they were still not where they needed to be for students to go to college. While thinking of what might be the cause of this, many things came into mind, but one of the most important things that is known throughout the city since Katrina is the idea that New Orleans has a very high poverty rate and those people that had money could evacuate during the storm, those without had to stay and possibly lost everything.

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Now we are in a state of confusion in regards to the education in New Orleans. Many of the people with privilege are able to send their children to private schools or out of New Orleans to attend school. These people are usually white, upper-middle class. And those students are taught by a variety of qualified and great teachers. The students in the public schools in New Orleans are predominately minorities and impoverished. And many of those teachers are coming from programs such as Teach for America and Teach NOLA, which hire students in their first year out of college into a profession that they may not have studied in college. Within those programs, the population is a majority white, middle-class teachers. So we are left to wonder as educators, what is best for the children in New Orleans. There have been so many different types of education ideas in the city that have translated into things such as white privilege, oppression, and racism.

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When looking at the education landscape in New Orleans it is very common for a teacher to come from an alternative certification program such as TFA or Teach NOLA. The idea that so many of the members of these groups come from a background of privilege leads me to feel that the city and the charter schools are not setting the students up for any kind of success in the classroom or out of the classroom.

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In the educational landscape of New Orleans, there has been a new development in the ways of alternative certification processes. The idea of hiring young, fresh out of college people to come in and become teachers for students with the highest needs has been the norm in the recent years since Katrina. The programs like TFA and Teach NOLA being in students that have had their share of privilege to instruct students that are extremely at risk and in desperate need of a quality education.

Although these programs have shown to be successful in many different areas across many different demographics of schools, the people they hire generally come from some type of privilege upbringing. While thinking of the amount of people in New Orleans that are not entitled to any type of privilege and the types of things they have to go through, I realized that there is a lot more obvious areas of oppression and racism. Many of the students in New Orleans are forced to go to schools that may not be in the same neighborhood in which they live. The idea that was applied of getting rid of the school lines and giving students school of choice options makes those students with privilege have a wider range of schools from which to choose. They can essentially go to any school in the city whereas those with less privilege may have to settle on schools based on things like location and transportation.

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When a family has the privilege to move around to different schools in the city, there is a lack of diversity among the schools. Many of the white families have the privilege to send their students to private schools or to schools completely out of New Orleans. With this idea in mind, there is then a large concentration of minorities in the schools within the city, many of them being African-American, that creates a lack of diversity.  With the city having a lack of diversity, the students are not given the opportunity to experience things that are more similar to the real world, thus creating more of the same issue for the future students in the city.

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As for TFA and the other alternative certification programs, they have developed a more prevalent idea of oppression and racism.  Although TFA has hired more people of color, the oppression that occurs happens with people of all colors against the students in their classrooms. Teachers that are coming to New Orleans through TFA don't always come from New Orleans. While some of them do, most of the teachers through TFA are not from New Orleans and are forced to figure out a brand new culture and find a way to relate to the students that is appropriate.

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Many teachers find themselves in situations that may be considered normal, but are in fact areas of oppression. For example, many of the teachers in New Orleans speak to the children in a certain type of way that is unacceptable in other areas in the country. But in New Orleans, they have a mind set that it is ok to embarrass, demine, or humiliate a student in front of the entire class. When teachers of any race are doing this, it shows an example of hidden privilege and oppression. The idea of possible hidden privilege that the teacher had to not only had the opportunity to attend college, but they also were selected to the TFA program. The program puts them in a place of power over students they are instructing. The oppression is a little harder to pick out. Because of the culture within New Orleans, it is the norm for parents to treat their children in a certain way, although the parents are treating their children in a way that may be inappropriate, that does not give the teacher the right to do the same. These different types of oppression that happen within schools create a culture within a school that may make students feel uncomfortable with coming to school or speaking up to the proper authorities. The types of actions the teachers take put them in a position of intimidation and makes students feel uncomfortable about their learning. Many of the teachers were proud of these types of behavior. They will brag about how they humiliated a child or about how they made a child cry (McKenzie). Even though we may have those feelings, we need to understand what we could be doing to the children and their self-esteem within the classroom.

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Since there are so many different types of ways for teachers to earn their certification, it can create a unique sense of oppression within the schools and within each of the certification programs. The combination of hidden privilege and the alternative certification programs has created a learning environment with students in at-risk situations being taught by teachers coming from places that they cannot relate well with the students. Because so many of the teachers in the teacher workforce are white and teaching non-white students, it is creating a downward trend in the classroom that will result in many of the future teachers to be white as well (Delpit). This trend leads to more oppression and leads to more white privilege in society. Teachers will lack diversity and will lack a sense of how to relate to their students in a meaningful way.

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Teachers in New Orleans are faced with a unique challenge with the students they have to teach. Many of the students are far different from students in other areas and cities in the country. Especially during this time, the students that are currently in upper elementary and up grades are considered to be the "Katrina Babies." These students are old enough to have been born before Katrina or in the following years. Due to those circumstances, many students suffered PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. A survey done from 2012-2014 of students ages 10-16 showed that 20% suffered from PTSD, the survey also showed that 48% of students knew someone who was murdered and 49% fear they may be shot, stabbed, beaten, or murdered themselves (Lipinski). This survey was done with mostly African-American students. In a city like New Orleans, there is violence all around and the people that are brought in from other places, such as myself, do not know how to appropriately account for the dramatic change in the dynamic of the city. With teachers that are in their early twenties, mostly white, and just graduated college with little to no teaching experience put into a situation like that, there hidden privilege shows through in a way of not being able to connect with students, not being able to relate to student experiences, and not having the ability to communicate with students all reflect from where the teachers came.

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In the world of education in New Orleans, many things have affected the dynamic between the students and the schools that they attend. Students have had more exposure to violence and depression than the average student in America (Lipinski). This has created a situation that has made the students in New Orleans feel oppression from many different sources. They have oppression within their own classrooms based on the teacher and the way the approach the class or individual student. They feel oppression within the schools and charter networks being public, but still having an application process for them to go through just to get into school and get an education. They have also felt the oppression from the government by having many charter schools and the RSD come into New Orleans to create a landscape of education that is not designed to serve the students in need, but to fill a void left by the national government after Katrina.

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Moving forward into the future, looking at New Orleans schools and their biggest areas of need in order to attempt to get rid of the oppression, I feel that it would be best for the city to "start over." Many people thought the Katrina was a way to start over with the devastation left and the amount of schools that were damaged, but it would appear that the government came in and brought the city back to where it was before the storm. With charter schools moving in and taking over all of the cities schools, it created a competition among the charter networks. Each charter network is competing for schools as if they were properties to help fuel their business, which in some aspect they are. I feel that the charter networks need to focus more on the education that needs to happen rather than making a quick dollar off of the students they are supposed to be servicing.

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With the city the way it is, schools can open and close very quickly. When schools open it can happen in a few ways. For example, schools can be taken over and a charter network can come in and take control over the school in the school's building. This can be troublesome in the sense that the school has been there already for a while and now something completely brand new comes in and shakes everything up. Another way for schools to open is to start from scratch, which I feel is the best way. Schools open one or two grades at a time and slowly grow the school, then eventually they have created a brand new school with a culture that is positive to the learning environment and students want to be at the school.

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In these ways, it is difficult to try to solve the problems of oppression and privilege within New Orleans schools because in either case students are being oppressed on a variety of levels. Which students go to which schools? What about students that aren't in the grades for the school opening up fresh? With many of these questions, the city needs more help from the government with funding and getting teachers into the schools that are qualified and prepared to teach the population filling the schools in New Orleans. There will always be a struggle in the school system and I feel that the government stepping in in a more serious way will help to alleviate the oppression that is seen or felt in the schools in New Orleans.

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New Orleans is in need of quality teachers from a variety of backgrounds in the classrooms. They also need quality leaders in each of the schools helping to turn the education system around. I know that race will always be an issue in the schools, but there are other ways around that issue. Many of the students respond differently to the way that people speak to them. I think that something that is lacking in New Orleans schools that could be beneficial for teachers to have at their disposal is the ability to speak to children from the city in a way that they can relate. So many of the students react differently to different types of people based strictly on the way they are spoken to. So for teachers coming to New Orleans, it would be a help to create a course that teachers would take prior to their first year of teaching in New Orleans to give them tools to communicate and relate with the children they are teaching.

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Along with the children, the parents and families of the students also respond differently to different people they encounter in the school. Some parents and families will only speak to certain people at the school based strictly on race or gender. Another potential solution would be to educate families on the education in New Orleans and why certain decisions are being made and how it will affect them. Many families may not understand what is happening in schools across the city and why certain schools are performing differently from other schools. Many of the families feel that they can easily switch from one school to the next and I think that the more information provided to the families will allow families to make a more educated choice on what is best for their student.

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All in all, the best way to fix the problem of oppression and privilege is not cut and dry. There are a lot of aspects to the education system that must be addressed. Furthermore, there are mind sets among people that need to change for the better to allow for less oppression and privilege. The more change that happens to people's opinions, thoughts, and feelings about the schools, the more chances there are for changes to happen within the schools themselves. Many people don’t realize that the biggest victims are the children and losing their education based on some things that people do not fully understand.

 

Works Cited

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Amatea, E. (2009). Building Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education

Cohen, Ariella. (2010, Nov. 15). 50 Years Later, Schools Still Effectively Segregated. The Lens. Retrieved from http://thelensnola.org/2010/11/15/resegregation/

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Delpit, L. (2006) Other Peoples Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New Press.

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Gabor, Andrea. (2015, Aug. 22). The Myth of the New Orleans School Makeover. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-the-new-orleans-school-makeover.html?_r=1

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Harris, Caroline. (2012, May 3). Was Hurricane Katrina Good for the Education of Students in New Orleans? Retrieved from http://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/2012/05/was-hurricane-katrina-good-for-the-education-of-students-in-new-orleans/

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Lipinski, Jed. (2014, Nov. 18). Black Teens in New Orleans Four Time Likely as to Have PTSD, Survey Shows. The Times-Picayune. Retrieved from  http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2014/11/black_adolescents_in_new_orlea.html

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Lipman, P. (2003). Chicago school policy: Regulating Black and Latino youth in the global city. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 6(4), 331–355.

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Matthews, Dylan. (2013, Sept. 10). Teach for America is a Deeply Divisive Program. It Also Works. The Washington Post. Retrieved from  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/09/10/teach-for-america-is-a-deeply-divisive-program-it-also-works/

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McIntyre, A. (1997). Constructing an image of a White teacher, Teachers College Record v 98 (4)

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McKenzie. KB. (2009). Emotional Abuse of Students of Color: The Hidden Humanity in our Schools. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

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Rosenblum, K. & Travis, TTM. (2013). The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex, and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability. New York: McGraw-Hill.(6th Edition).

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Sensoy, O. & DiAngelo. (2011). Is everyone really equal: An introduction to key concepts in social justice education. New York: Teachers College Press.