Betsy DeVos Visits 2 New Orleans Charters Preferred by NOLA’s White Population

When it comes to almost-all-charter New Orleans, if a school has a notable white population, it also tends to have a higher school grade.

I wrote about this reality in this July 22, 2018, post, in which I include the following chart I created to show where New Orleans’ white students overwhelmingly choose to attend:

School	Total students	Black	White	% at-risk	2017 grade
New Orleans Center for Creative Arts	228	60	123	17.98%	A
Bricolage Academy	443	191	207	41.33%	B
New Orleans Military & Maritime Academy	763	341	224	64.35%	A
Morris Jeff Community School	826	449	235	58.35%	C
Audubon Charter School	797	362	312	41.41%	A
International School of Louisiana	1,389	571	345	57.31%	A
Edward Hynes Charter School	691	225	363	48.64%	A
Benjamin Franklin High School	970	293	368	24.54%	A
Lycee Francais de la Nouvelle-Orleans	765	129	449	35.69%	B
Lusher Charter School	1,761	460	997	16.98%	A

The one exception is Warren Easton High School, which in 2017 had a school grade of A and enrolled 958 black students, 24 Hispanic students, and 2 white students. Furthermore, only one D-graded school could be added to this list: Homer Plessy Community School, which enrolled 73 white students out of 251 (29 percent).

The remaining 33 out of 85 D-F-graded schools all have majority black populations and negligible white populations, mostly in the single digits, if at all. (See my NPE report for more details.)

On October 05, 2018, US ed sec Betsy DeVos visited two New Orleans schools, both A-graded, and both preferred by white students: New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy (NOMMA) and Edward Hynes Charter School.

Betsy DeVos

DeVos liked what she saw, and that was by design; as DeVos told Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes in March 2018, she “intentionally” avoids visiting “schools that are underperforming.”

She did not visit any one of the majority of New Orleans charter schools, which tend to be graded D and F and are populated by overwhelming majority of New Orleans’ black students.

And she could have visited the single A-graded school with a majority black population, Warren Easton High, but for some reason, she did not.

She did say that almost-all-charter New Orleans “should be replicated far and wide.”

And even though she chose to *intentionally* shun New Orleans’ majority of D and F charter schools (where mostly black students get stuck attending), she “encouraged others to look to success and find ways to emulate or replicate what is being done well” (where most white students prefer to attend and get to).

With Betsy DeVos, school choice always wins, even if it illustrates incredible racial inequity.

Note to the rest of the country: When you hear DeVos, remember that she is an ideologue who doesn’t let reality interfere with her opinions.

Exercise critical thought:

Don’t emulate New Orleans school choice.

US ed sec Betsy DeVos’ visits New Orleans’ majority-white Edward Hynes Charter School

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Want to read about the history of charter schools and vouchers?

School Choice: The End of Public Education? 

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Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of two other books: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education and Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?. You should buy these books. They’re great. No, really.

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