Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA)
The 90 percent-charter New Orleans Recovery School District is
a model for Louisiana, according to Gov. Bobby Jindal. Because charter schools!
“I’m proud we’ve increased the number of charter schools, nearly doubling them,” Jindal told an audience on Capitol Hill. “I get so frustrated when people tell us to wait for incremental gains. We have seen remarkable gains.”
Gains in the number of charter schools, yes. Educational gains, not so much.
The district’s test scores were extremely low prior to Hurricane Katrina and the charter school conversion, but despite Jindal’s claims of “remarkable gains,” there has been only a 0.2 point improvement in New Orleans, and a 0.6 decline statewide.
At
11 out of the 16 Recovery School District high schools, less than one percent of the 2014 graduating class got ACT scores that would allow them to be admitted to a Louisiana four-year college or university.
Louisiana ranks second to last on AP exam scores, ahead of only Mississippi.
Recovery School District schools have failed to keep data on student transfers, meaning we don't know how many students who leave those schools are transferring to other schools or are actually dropping out of school.
And that's not even getting into the intense corruption of Jindal's other educational pride and joy, Louisiana's voucher program. In short, Bobby Jindal's favored model for education involves segregation, teachers fired en masse, and state money going to Christian schools that teach creationism, but not real educational results.