Choice, Choice, Choice and Choice: 4
…The same themes emerge in the fourth part of Sarah Carr’s series: “misinformation,” application woes, multiple meetings and deadlines, the haves and the have-not-so-muches.
[Michelle] Mosby, who lives in Central City, wasn’t complaining about the changes, exactly. She liked the idea of the new charter “prep schools” which she believed had smaller classes and more one-on-one instruction than traditional schools. She heard about the new schools all the time — on billboards, radio ads and signs dotting the city’s neutral grounds. [emphasis added]
But getting La-Aarea, a smiley 6-year-old waiting for her adult teeth, into one was another matter.
Unlike some other parents, Mosby, who works the cash register in a cafeteria, did not have a flexible work schedule or well-placed contacts to help her navigate the complicated new landscape.
…
In the new environment, she relied on neutral ground signs, word from friends and family, and her own instincts to find La-Aarea a good school.
Can anyone say it is easier to get into a good school in NO post-reforms? Can you explain what exactly is wrong with bringing a child to a neighborhood school, filling out a form or 2 and simply enrolling that child, and the school educating that child regardless of race, socioeconomic status, learning style, gender, neighborhood crime rates, etc.?
It doesn’t take much for the first charter school to not work out for this family:
But when the bus showed up late a couple mornings in a row, Mosby pulled her granddaughter out [of Akili Academy]. Both she and her daughter started their jobs early in the morning; transportation delays threatened the family’s precarious income.
All Mosby wanted “was a good school close to where she lived and worked.” She tries again:
When Mosby stopped by Success Preparatory Academy one morning, however, a sign on the door notified parents the first grade was full.
A staff member told Mosby she should still fill out an application, because the waiting list wasn’t too long. Mosby asked if she could fill it out right away. She would probably not be able to come back later because of work.
The woman said Success only accepted applications between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.–hours Mosby almost always worked.
“I said, ‘I’m here, can’t I just do it now?’ They said, ‘No,’ ” recalled Mosby.
“I’m like, ‘It doesn’t make sense. I’m here. You’re here.’ ”
The school’s principal told The Times-Picayune that an intern worked on processing applications between 1 and 4 p.m., but the school accepted applications all day long. He wondered if Mosby had gotten the misinformation from a staff member at Wicker, which shares the same building.
In any event, the family never made it back to Success.
Once applying becomes complicated, fear of and “misinformation” seem to follow. “Misinformation” was a concern for Audubon in the 3rd part of the series and the reason behind parts of their application process. There’s a theme of not wanting to disseminate “misinformation” but not a whole lot of concern about disseminating “information.” How does a parent know when applications are to be submitted? If one person has the wrong answer, how can she tell? And in this system, one wrong bit of information or “information” is all it takes. Well, not just all.
Complicating matters, everything had to get done between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., when Mosby met the bus dropping her granddaughter off from school.
Something had to give.
“Not everybody has the Internet,” said [Mosby's] daughter, LaToina. “Some people don’t get off until 5. I think they need to extend the hours for registration or come out to the parents’ houses, or maybe just mail out registration forms.”
“I know no one likes to work weekends,” her mother added. “But having registration then would make all the difference for us who work every weekday from 9 to 5.”
…
This winter, [Mosby] plans to keep her ears and eyes open so she won’t miss deadlines or information about enrollment fairs.
“You’ve got to be listening,” she says.
Otherwise, she’s learned, you might miss your chance. [emphasis added]
Is this the intended result of the reform—if you are lucky enough, you get a halfway-decent education? How is that democratic? Fair? A reform or improvement over the old broken system we had where luck—of birth, of residence—was also the deciding factor? Does this not matter to BESE? RSD? OPSB? Arne Duncan?
If the system is not made for families like this, if it cannot or will not accommodate people who care and are trying but who face obstacles set because the obstacles can be set, if families who want a good school for their children are hampered by “misinformation” and business hours…what the hell IS all this for? And for whom?
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“Deadlines, job schedule limit opportunities.” Sarah Carr. 11/11/2009. A1, A9. Print. [Web version is only available through paid archives at nola.com.]
