In Louisiana, we have created a “charter-school system” with broad latitude, with the permission of BESE, to be unaccountable to our families, our tax-payers, and our local school districts. The losers in this unaccountable system are our students.
There is a caste system that exists where children of color, and their families, are forced through a system that demands their mindless and complete submission to a mostly majority-run system of charter schools. Charter schools, at their inception, were meant to give control to local communities to invite families and local educators to change the circumstances of their students. Christopher Columbus “found America,” very similarly Bobby Jindal, big business, and TFA “found” New Orleans’ Schools. A city, in tragedy, that they could manipulate for the interest of making money on the backs of children and their families. This takeover, coupled with the manipulation of a city of people in crisis, is the most critical and grotesque use of government authority to economize education and children in this country.
Our families across this state are now ripe for the plucking. The children the chattel for sale to charter schools intent on “fixing” them. The problem is the lack of real accountability that exists at these educational “plantations.” Mostly uncertified “educators” operate as “task-masters” to children are expected to act in the way prisoners do in prison. Children are asked to remain completely silent in class, in hallways, on buses, and in the cafeteria. They then are given “yard-time” where they are allowed to operate as children should have the right to do. Children are forced, by a group of “overseers” to walk on lines with their hands on their side. Much like a prison, they are not trusted to have full control of their bodies.
The ironic part is that these educational profiteers do not send their children to these schools. Montessori schools better suit their ideal that their children should have creative rights and freedom to socialize. It is a dual caste system where the haves expect the minority group to conform to their ideal of their worth, while the majority group enjoys freedom. The irony is that people are blind to their environment. If these charters were so incredible, why are they saturated with children of color? When has the majority ever given something so amazing to the minority first? Oh, I forgot they are there to save us, much like Columbus.
These actions happen all while constrictive “accountability systems” have been in place at our traditional public schools. The unseen goal is to ensure that the “fake bar” is consistently raised to dismantle public education across this state. Our system can then be replaced with a network of charters that are allowed to experiment on the poor and/or children of color. The same people rebrand those charters that fail and can then reapply to have another chance to carry out trials on children. These schools operate outside of the authority we grant our tax-paying electorate to elect school board members to hold these schools accountable. Whatever happened to the idea of no taxation without representation? I guess that it is only for the people in charge with a wanton disregard for those that are not.
If you are a voting member of our state, I implore you to give our schools, our children, our families, and our stakeholders their voice back.
It is time to erase the damage done by the Jindal Administration, a broken Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and an amateur who is trying to play the role of State Superintendent of Education. It is time to flip BESE, oust John White, and put real accountability back in our state education system.
