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New Orleans Recovery School District Test Scores: A Closer Look Doesn’t Look Pretty

Governor Nathan Deal is pushing hard on his Opportunity School District (OSD) proposal which is modeled after the New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD).  In a reply to a letter sent by Mr. Ed Johnson, Deal claimed that the New Orleans RSD was a success pointing to percentages of students who performed above the state average.  He failed to give real data that is available on the Louisiana Department of Education website about ACT scores for every school district in the state.

Seventy school district ACT scores are available for you to see here. The average score for the 70 districts in the state on the Act in 2013 was 19.5 and in 2014 it was 19.2.  The Recovery School District is one of the 70 districts.  It’s averages were 16.3 and 15.5 in 2013 and 2014 respectively.  The RSD ranked 66 out of the 70 districts, with only 4 districts scoring lower.

According to Mercedes Schneider, a teacher and researcher in New Orleans, “the RSD Class of 2014 was in third grade when Katrina hit. The state has been in charge of their education since then, and this is what they have to show for their test-score-driven, charter-friendly, Teach-for-America-friendly, so-called “education.”

Governor Deal can tell you over and over that the RSD has been a successful attempt, but the facts show otherwise, especially when we use test scores, which is what the Opportunity School District will use to check the progress of “chronically failing” schools.