Race-neutral solutions will not transform race-based inequities.

In 1940, the number one profession for Black males was teaching - 36% of Black males were standing in front of the classroom delivering instruction to Black children. Over 70% of the educators working in New Orleans Public Schools before 2005 were African-American women with an average of 15.4 years of experience. The mass termination of teachers in New Orleans post-Katrina was the second largest loss of Black teacher talent since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

76 %
of New Orleans Public Schools Students are Black

53 %
of New Orleans Public Schools Teachers are Black

37 %
of New Orleans Public Schools have a Black CEO

We Need Black Educators to Advance Educational Progress in Our City

A robust body of research has established that when students are educated by professionals who look like them, there is an increase in cultural competency, student engagement, and academic success. Today, just 26% of Orleans Parish public school students are scoring at grade-level on state assessments. Youth of color in New Orleans suffer from PTSD at four times the national average. Nearly a quarter of the 48,000 students in Orleans Parish public school missed 15 to 18 days of class during the 2017-2018 school year. If we are going to enhance the pace of educational progress in New Orleans, we need to ramp up support for Black educators who can produce profound impacts on Black children.

Black-Governed, Black-Led Standalone Schools are Part of the Solution

Many of these schools are doing an excellent job of educating children. In 2017-2018, a Black-governed, Black-led standalone school had the highest percentage of 3rd-8th grade students scoring Mastery or above on LEAP tests when looking at combined grades and subjects. Another had one of the most significant achievement gains in the city in 2018-2019. Yet as a whole, these schools have struggled to access the human, financial and political support needed to grow their positive impacts.

Strengthening Black-led Schools Improves More Than Academics

The firing of Black educators and other Black staff after Hurricane Katrina had a devastating impact on the economic, social and political fabric of the New Orleans Black community. While the last 15 years of reform has brought some incremental progress, we are nowhere near being the world-class example of public education that was hoped for. The work to “fix our schools” is not enough to address the conditions that wreak havoc on the lives of the poorest Black citizens of New Orleans. No community can be strong without strong institutions. If the positive reforms of the last decade are going to stick, there must be real efforts to build Black institutional capacity to educate Black children.

Structural Racism is at the Root of Our Challenges

The devastation of Katrina was a watershed moment for education in our city - but it has distorted our horizon. For nearly 140 years, a two-tiered education system based on race and class has provided an inequitable education to generations of Black students in New Orleans. To give children in New Orleans the education they deserve we need more than programmatic solutions or oversimplified comparisons of progress “pre-and Post-Katrina.” BENOLA’s approach is an opportunity to focus on addressing what Dr. Gloria Ladson Billings has coined the “education debt,” or the cumulative impact of fewer resources and other harm directed at students of color. Addressing this debt in New Orleans requires a commitment to building assets in Black communities, eliminating resource inequities, and centering Black education stakeholders in decisions governing their schooling.