Author: Leslie Jacobs

Myth 3: Student test scores were improving before the storm at the same rate they are now.

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

Fact:  Since the state takeover, student improvement has more than doubled!

Educate Now! compared the percent of students Basic or above in math and English on the 4th and 8th grade LEAP and the 10th grade GEE tests for 2000, 2005 and 2010.* (For other grades the state changed the tests, so we can’t compare pre- and post-storm numbers.)

  • From 2000 to 2005, the percent of students scoring Basic or above increased from 30% to 37%, a gain of 7 points.

  • From 2005 to 2010, the percent of students scoring Basic or above increased from 37% to 53%, a gain of 16 points! Continue reading →

Educate Now! is Giving Away $3,000 to N.O. Public Schools

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

You could win $1,000 for your favorite New Orleans public school.

Educate Now! is giving three New Orleans public schools $1,000 each through its Share to Win competition. To win $1,000 for your favorite public school, simply go to www.sharetowinnola.com and register. Then use the website to share the contest information with your friends. The three people who generate the most entries will win.

Start sharing today and win big for New Orleans public schools!

After the Deluge, A New Education System

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

Five years ago yesterday, the levees broke. Hurricane Katrina flooded roughly 80% of this city, causing nearly $100 billion in damage. The storm forced us to rebuild our homes, workplaces, and many of our institutions – including our failing public education system.

But from the flood waters, the most market-driven public school system in the country has emerged. Education reformers across America should take notice: The model is working.

Citywide, the number of fourth-grade students who pass the state’s standardized tests has jumped by almost a third – to 65% in 2010 from 49% in 2007. The passage rate among eighth-graders during the same period has improved at a similar clip, to 58% from 44%.

Continue reading →

In the News: A Clipping Service – August 30, 2010

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

In this edition of In the News:

  • New Orleans Schools in the National Spotlight
  • Vigil for Peace at N.O. College Prep on August 31st

New Orleans Schools in the National Spotlight
National coverage of the 5th anniversary of Katrina has included many stories about New Orleans public schools. We know we didn’t catch them all, but here is a sampling of the national news stories from the past week.

Continue reading →

Bold Gamble Transforming Schools

Posted on by Leslie Jacobs

After Hurricane Katrina, state officials faced a choice: Take control of the schools in New Orleans or leave them in the care of the city’s notoriously troubled School Board.  A takeover was risky.  New Orleans Public Schools were among the worst in the nation. Most New Orleans legislators opposed state action. More daunting, any reasonable analysis would have put the state’s chance of success extremely low and of political embarrassment correspondingly high.  Nowhere else in the nation had a state department of education ever assumed direct responsibility for operating local schools.

Yet state leaders, led by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and then-Superintendent Cecil Picard, had the courage to take the gamble. With legislative blessing, they moved decisively to expand the state-run Recovery School District – initially created to handle just a handful of failing schools – to include all but 16 schools in the city.

Five years later, it’s clear that gamble has paid off in ways unimaginable even to the most ardent supporters of the takeover. Continue reading →