James Carville: No more denying it -- New Orleans isn't working

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Orleans has given me much. It pains me very much to say this, but our city is, quite simply, not working. I will spare you a depressing litany of details. We all know them all too well.

t seems to me there are three ways that our elected leadership can deal with this situation:

1. Denial. The truth of the matter is we already have our own river. We don’t need another one from Egypt. If we don’t face reality, things will never change.
2. Point fingers and blame one another. I could go back to Washington and get all of that I need
3. Recognize that our city’s strongest asset is the creativity and talent of its citizens. After Hurricane Katrina, citizens demanded major reforms and made them happen organically.

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Mandeville band, Marsalis make music - [www.theadvocate.com - RSS Results in new_orleans/news/communities* of type article]

Educator and drummer Jason Marsalis made music with the members of the Mandeville High School Band recently. The ensemble played some of the jazz pieces they will perform at festival, worked on the basics of jazz style and learned about…
Source: www.theadvocate.com - RSS Results in new_orleans/news/communities* of type article

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New Orleans schools receive more than $60K in computer technology from Kappa Alpha Psi | WDSU

It's nothing new when New Orleans hosts a national convention in the Central Business District. However, one group is making sure it leaves more than just an economic impact downtown.

On Tuesday morning, sporting their crimson and cream colors, members of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity donated three computer laboratories to New Orleans area schools. St. Augustine High School, which hosted the event, Edna Karr High School and Morris F.X. Jeff Community School will receive the technology.

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“Reform” makes broken New Orleans schools worse: Race, charters, testing and the real story of education after Katrina | Salon

Here is all you need to know about the New Orleans schools before Hurricane Katrina hit, 10 years ago this summer: They were awful. The schools were awful, the school board was awful, the central office was awful—all of them were awful. At a recent conference held to tout the progress made by the schools here since Katrina, Scott Cowan, an early proponent of the all-charter-school model that exists here now, described New Orleans’ pre-storm schools as mired in “unprecedented dysfunction.” In other words, they were awful.

The problem with a story like this isn’t just that it leaves out anything that doesn’t fit but that it can be hard to contain once it gets going. Before long, this “awfulizing narrative,” as it was described to me more than once during the 10 days I recently spent in New Orleans, spread past the school yards and central offices, sweeping up in its wake parents, children, indeed the whole hot mess that is New Orleans.

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Interactive map: New Orleans school building siting changes over time | NOLA.com

The state Recovery School District has issued several plans over the past few years to match its New Orleans public school buildings -- all renovated or redone after Hurricane Katrina -- with charter school programs. They are long-term destinations: The charters might have to spend several years in temporary space while construction proceeds. Many buildings have been reassigned as the years pass.

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Jindal announces plan for Louisiana to back out of Common Core | CNN

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Wednesday he plans to pull his state out of the Common Core academic standards, announcing an executive order aimed at blocking the testing program in the state.

At a news conference, Jindal said he's sent a letter requesting his state's withdrawal from the program to the Partnership of Assessments for College and Career Readiness (PARCC) - a conglomerate of states developing the standards for students in the subjects of English and math.

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Sandra Bullock delivers a 'funny & gross' commencement speech in New Orleans | 93.7 The Bull

Sandra Bullock was asked to give the commencement speech at Warren Easton High School in New Orleans. Her speech was both moving & gross at the same time...that's why we love Sandra Bullock!



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New Orleans Jazz Fest Comes Full Circle With Its Mission | Forbes

The building in New Orleans’ Treme area will be
transformed into a state-of-the-art music education center.

New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, its foundation by the same name announced plans that will bring its mission full circle, 43 years after inception. At the announcement Friday morning, foundation leaders and board members revealed that their new education and community center in the New Orleans Treme area, merely blocks away from the festival’s original site, will be named in honor of founder George Wein and his late wife and business partner, Joyce.

The George and Joyce Wein Jazz and Heritage Center will become the permanent home of its Don “Moose” Jamison Heritage School of Music, a free educational program that was founded in 1990 to educate children in the community about the fundamentals of jazz performance and theory. For the past 13 years, however, the program has been operating from Dillard University classrooms on Saturday mornings.


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Harbor Police join search for missing teacher | WWL

Local authorities will again return to Bayou St. John to search for a missing Jefferson Parish teacher Terrilynn Monette. Harbor Police will be joining the search, bringing a 50-foot boat to help in scouring Lake Pontchartrain... Read more via WWL

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NBC's Education Nation tour stops in New Orleans | Gambit

Former WWL-TV anchor Hoda Kotb, who now works
at NBC's Today, will host several panels at the education summit dealing with education reform in New Orleans.

NBC's road tour of three education hot spots — "hot," that is, for good or for bad — lands in New Orleans this week. Along with the other cities (Detroit and Phoenix), the network's third annual "Education Nation" events highlight local issues facing local schools — and NBC is reaching out not just to the recent waves of nationally praised charter schools and their operators, but to the Recovery School District (RSD) as well as teachers and their students citywide.

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New Orleans Musicians Start Young and Learn Fast | My New Orleans

Jack Stewart recalls the beginning of his music education in Orleans Parish Public Schools: He was handed a “Tonette” in fourth grade. “It was a hard, plastic recorder. They would give them out at the beginning of the year – they had been boiled and sterilized but they still had teeth marks on them.” Ken Kolb had the same experience at De La Salle School: “I still remember: you had to put your fingers on the right place to play a tune – one, two, three, two, one, one, one …”


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Hearing set in post-Katrina school worker firings | The Daily Advertiser

A Louisiana appeal court has set a May 16 hearing for arguments over a judge's ruling that thousands of New Orleans school employees were wrongfully fired after Hurricane Katrina shut down the city and its schools in 2005.

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Terrilyn Monette, Missing New Orleans Teacher, Seen Driving Alone | Huffington Post

A popular teacher who disappeared after a night of partying more than two weeks ago was seen driving alone away from a bar on surveillance footage that New Orleans police found.

Witnesses said they last saw Terrilyn Monette around 4 a.m. on March 2, in a parking lot talking to a man near the bar where she'd been celebrating her nomination for a teacher of the year award in her district. By daybreak, she and her black 2012 Honda Accord were gone.

 

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New Orleans Teacher, Terrilynn Monette, Still Missing | Global Grind

Terrilynn Monette, a second grade teacher in New Orleans disappeared on March 2. The dedicated teacher went missing after a night out on the town where she was celebrating her Teacher of the Year nomination with a few acquaintances.

Monette uprooted her life in California a few years ago to move to New Orleans to join teachers in the effort to educate children in impoverished areas with the "teachNOLA" program. In a 2011 video, she explained her excitement to be joining the program to educate those who need her most...

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Support New Orleans Music Education by Watching A Brief Video | Relix

The Roots of Music “promotes self-sufficiency, working directly with economically disadvantaged at risk youth in New Orleans, developing the talent of young musicians while helping increase academic achievement and decrease at-risk behavior.” For every view of the clip below through Super Bowl Sunday, the StubHub Foundation will donate $1 to the organization (up to $50,000).

The Roots of Music Program fills a void in music education programs in New Orleans educational institutions. Where marching bands were always an integral part of the New Orleans middle schools, this has changed drastically after Katrina and many schools don’t offer music programs anymore. Today the program serves over 100 students, making up a full marching band that is successfully parading the city since Mardi Gras 2009.

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$700000 grant for School of Nursing at Loyola University of New Orleans | Businessweek

The School of Nursing at Loyola University of New Orleans has received a two-year, $700,000 federal grant from the Health Research and Services Administration...

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Boil-water alert forces some New Orleans schools to cancel classes | NOLA.com

At least a dozen public schools in New Orleans have decided to cancel classes after officials warned residents that the city's water supply may have been contaminated by an unexpected mechanical failure. As of Monday evening, a boil-water alert remained in place and could last until early afternoon Tuesday, forcing another decision for school leaders on how to make up lost time after Hurricane Isaac took a week out of the schedule earlier this year.

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New Orleans schools training students for burgeoning digital media field | NOLA.com

At least two local colleges are preparing students to enter the digital media field as Louisiana draws more businesses that perform post-production work for the film and entertainment industry. Delgado Community College launched a Digital Media Education Center in June to help train people in the growing industry. And the University of New Orleans Department of Film, Theater and Communication Arts says enrollment in its program has grown during the past decade.

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Top 15 Field Trip Spots in New Orleans | onlineschools.com

New Orleans has a reputation for being an adult playground, but visitors and residents of all ages can find a dazzling array of museums, historical homes, theaters and zoos and aquariums in the area -- all offering unique family and field trip opportunities. While New Orleans attractions number in the hundreds, let this list of 15 get you started on your tour of the Big Easy...

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School closures in prep of TS Isaac | Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB)

OPSB Website Tropical Storm Isaac Alert

Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) Interim Superintendent, Stan Smith, announces that the direct run schools for OPSB will be closed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, August 27th, 28th, and 29th. All Central Office and all School Site personnel including teachers should report to work as usual on Monday, August 27th to aid in preparing the facilities for the storm. It is expected that storm preparations will be completed by noon and employees will be released to handle their personal preparations.

The following charter schools will follow the OPSB decision to CLOSE Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday:

• Audubon Charter School (both locations)
• Hynes Charter School
• Warren Easton Charter School
• Lusher Charter School (both locations)
• Science and Math Charter High School
• Einstein Charter School
• Encore Academy Charter School
• Alice Harte Charter School
• Edna Karr Charter High School
• Ben Franklin Charter High School
• Robert Russa Moton Charter School

PLEASE NOTE that directives for staff members at each charter school will come from each school's Chief Executive Officer.

Read more via OPSB Website

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