In The News › Schools

With contract negotiations between the Jefferson Parish School Board and its teachers union set to begin next spring, the two sides agree on at least one issue: Teachers need to be more involved in decision-making. “We feel that teachers are left out of decision-making,” interim schools Superintendent James Meza said Tuesday at a breakfast briefing of the Bureau of Governmental Research at the Sheraton Metairie Hotel. “Teachers should have a voice not only in terms of curriculum but of resource allocation.”

The same business and nonprofit groups that knocked a previous set of plans for rebuilding New Orleans public schools came out Wednesday in favor of the revisions unveiled last week. That’s an important endorsement of the so-called master plan, the city’s blueprint for spending the rest of almost $2 billion in FEMA recovery money earmarked for school construction, which heads to the local Orleans Parish School Board Thursday.

James Meza, acting superintendent of the Jefferson Parish Public School System, will be the featured speaker at a Bureau of Governmental Research program on Tuesday.

A group of civic, public policy and business organizations led by the Bureau of Governmental Research sharply criticized the proposed plan this month, calling for a “more utilitarian approach” with fewer “architectural dreams and luxuries.”

It was clear from Monday’s press conference that White is already making his pitch to the BESE and Orleans Parish School Boards. The votes were originally scheduled for late summer, but last week, think tank, the Bureau of Governmental Research, asked them to delay the votes because their research showed what they perceive as problems with the funding and scope of the schools included in the plan.

A group of business and nonprofit leaders is questioning whether the current plan accomplishes that purpose. They say the roughly $2 billion in federal funds earmarked to fix city schools should be enough to put every student in a new or renovated classroom. That may mean eliminating architectural luxuries that have characterized new schools built since the flood.

A group of New Orleans business and nonprofit leaders is calling for city and state education officials to head “back to the drawing board” on plans for spending what’s left of about $2 billion in federal aid earmarked for rebuilding the city’s public schools.

“The amended plan would create gross inequity in the quality of school facilities across the city. Some school facilities would be built at a cost that far exceeds national norms. Others would get nothing, even where repairs are urgently needed,” states the letter signed representatives of the Bureau for Governmental Research, the Business Council of New Orleans, the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, the New Orleans Regional Black Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana, Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, Common Good and the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University.

The proposition would renew the current 2.91 mills and increase the millage rate by a scant 0.59 mills — to a total rate of 3.5 mills. While renewal of the tax would produce a marginal property tax increase — literally pennies a day for a typical homeowner — failure to renew the measure would leave the Department of Juvenile Services without a dedicated funding source. The nonpartisan Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR), which supports this measure, noted that without it the department’s work would “fall to a thinly funded state office.”

The Cowen Institute’s review draws from information in a recent report from the New Orleans watchdog group, Bureau for Governmental Research, as well as other studies. The institute does not agree, however, with BGR’s call to eliminate the homestead exemption in New Orleans, saying too many exemptions for nonprofits and too many unfairly assessed properties are the major issues.

The report, titled “Managing Innovation: Models for Governing the System of Public Schools in New Orleans,” was released by two watchdog groups: Tulane University’s Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives and the Bureau of Governmental Research.

It comes at an opportune time; the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education must decide by late this year whether to extend state control over most of the city’s public schools beyond 2011 or return them to local control.

The Orleans Parish School Board Financial Working Group is an independent group consisting of experts in education, law, facilities and finance put together by the Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives in October 2008. The Working Group members include Grover Austin, Rick Conway, Leslie Jacobs, Janet Howard, David Marcello, Farhad Patel, Cleland Powell and me.

Louisiana’s board of education unanimously approved a $2 billion school facilities plan for New Orleans, paving the way for the largest school building boom in the city’s history.

As planners create a blueprint for the future of public education in New Orleans, questions have arisen about where to find $1.2 billion to build it. But education leaders say ongoing construction projects are helping streamline the process and point to an affordable school building strategy.

School officials on Monday will unveil a revised school facilities master plan that shifts more projects into the first, five-year phase — the only portion of the sweeping plan currently fully financed — and defers decisions on closing four currently occupied campuses for several years.

BGR questions the School Facilities Master Plan.

Recovery School District officials say they don’t need to have financing in place for their entire 20-year school construction program to start replacing aging and flood-damaged buildings.

Two independent groups on Wednesday raised red flags about the long-term financing behind the city’s ambitious and unprecedented school construction plan.

Three of the four candidates for the 3rd District Orleans Parish School Board seat agree that finding ways to settle the board’s half-billion-dollar debt is a priority for the district.

New Orleans voters renewed four millages dedicated to public education on Saturday, recommitting about $32 million annually in tax money for purposes such as dropout prevention and teacher salaries.

New Orleans voters go to the polls today to decide whether to renew four property tax millages that bring in about $32 million annually for the city’s public schools, including charter schools.

Public education in New Orleans is improving. The latest LEAP test results show improvement across all school districts, ACT scores are up, charter schools offer more choices for parents, and in many schools the academic day and year have been extended. We need to keep this momentum going. Gambit Weekly therefore urges New Orleans citizens to go to the polls this Saturday (July 19) and vote FOR the four property tax renewals for public schools.

This newspaper makes the following recommendations for propositions on the ballot Saturday.

In just two years, a mix of new and veteran educators have done what no educational reform movement had been able to do in Orleans Parish in over 30 years: They changed the landscape of public education and gave us hope for the future of our children and city

A diverse coalition of supporters is trying to generate interest in an upcoming midsummer vote to determine whether public schools in New Orleans will continue to collect about $30 million annually in taxes for such purposes as dropout prevention and teacher salaries.