BrianGarst.com

I’ve often wondered what it would take to dislodge the government monopoly on education. Apparently it takes a catastrophic natural disaster:

NEW ORLEANS The storm that swamped this city three years ago also effectively swept away a public school system with a dismal record and faint prospects of getting better. Before Hurricane Katrina, educator John Alford said, he toured schools and found “kids just watching movies” in classes where “low expectations were the norm.”

Now Alford is one of many new principals leading an unparalleled education experiment, with possible lessons for troubled urban schools in the District and elsewhere. New Orleans, in a post-Katrina flash, has become the first major city in which more than half of all public school students attend charter schools.

For these new schools with taxpayer funding and independent management, old rules and habits are out. No more standard hours, seniority, union contracts, shared curriculum or common textbooks. In are a crowd of newcomers — critics call them opportunists — seeking to lift standards and achievement. They compete for space, steal each other’s top teachers and wonder how it is all going to work.

“Opportunist” is intended to be an insult, but I think it should be considered praise.  It is a good thing that people are looking for an opportunity to provide quality education where previously government monopoly ensured there was none.

…Some critics call the charter invasion of New Orleans a challenge to democratic values. Writing about New Orleans in a new book, Leigh Dingerson, education team leader for the Center for Community Change in the District, says Louisiana school authorities have “opened a flea market of entrepreneurial opportunism that is dismantling the institution of public education in New Orleans.”

You know what I call “dismantling the institution of public education?”  Progress.