“Nobody. Myself.”

November 1, 2006 7:44 AM

The McDonogh library has no books.The stalls in a girls’ restroom have no doors. Fights break out daily. About 50 students have been suspended; 20 have been recommended for expulsion. Several weeks ago, a teacher was “beaten unmercifully” by a ninth grader enraged at being barred from class because he was late.

The principal, Donald Jackson, estimated that up to a fifth of the 775 students live without parents. “Basically, they are raising themselves, because there is no authority figure in the home,” Mr. Jackson said. “If I call for a parent because I’m having an issue, I may be getting an aunt, who may be at the oldest 20, 21. What type of governance, what type of structure is in the home, if this is the living conditions?”

This is John McDonogh High School in New Orleans.
posted by four panels (56 comments total)

In a second-floor cosmetology class...

There's your problem.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:48 AM on November 1, 2006

People are shooting and beating each other because they are in cosmetology class?

.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:54 AM on November 1, 2006

New Orleans is going to be Baghdad on the Mississippi.
posted by empath at 7:56 AM on November 1, 2006

.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:59 AM on November 1, 2006

You know, the handling of the Katrina aftermath is a better case for the ouster of the present administration than Iraq. The fact that we as a country haven't completely restored everyone to a normal way of life, even if that would mean doing so elsewhere, is disgraceful.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:00 AM on November 1, 2006

FWIW here's their state department of education report card [PDF].
posted by rolypolyman at 8:09 AM on November 1, 2006

I don't think you can restore everyone to a normal way of life within a year. However, so much more could be done that it's insane. Did you know that bringing the levees and flood walls up to Category 5 protection level would cost about the same as we're spending in Iraq in two months? How about the water and sewer lines? Fully repairing them would cost about $4 billion, less than we spend in a month. FEMA has granted $120 million or so for that so far, and only that.

The school story is horrible, although it sounds like something you could see on "The Wire" every week, 'cept for the missing parents thing (sort of--plenty of parents seem to be missing on that Baltimore-set show, but they're not evacuees). It's a far too typically American story, just magnified. And the problems were there before the Bush administration, as much as I wish him gone.

The "Baghdad" type comments only allow people to think, Well, this isn't America. Yes, it is. (And that comment came from someone in the DC area?)
posted by raysmj at 8:13 AM on November 1, 2006

New Orleans! Home of pirates, drunks, and whores!
New Orleans! Tacky over-priced souvenir stores. If you want to go to hell then you should take a trip to the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Mississip'
New Orleans! Stinking, rotten, vomity, vile!
New Orleans! Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul!
New Orleans! Crummy, lousy, rancid and rank!
New Orleans!
posted by ba at 8:15 AM on November 1, 2006

God, I miss it. But stories like this give me cause to think my move away was quite reasonable.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:31 AM on November 1, 2006

raysmj: New Orleans may technically be part of America still, but we're not treating it as if it is, and if we don't pay attention to it, it won't be for long. The parallels between the administration's handling of Katrina and the handling of Baghdad post invasion are striking. We're just lucky that NO didn't have any buried sectarian tension when control of the city was lost and the people of New Orleans kept their shit together so well.
posted by empath at 8:35 AM on November 1, 2006

Interesting subject.

But someone's gotta send this writer in paragraph-break-rehab.
posted by Anything at 8:48 AM on November 1, 2006

... and me in Prepositions 101.
posted by Anything at 8:51 AM on November 1, 2006

C'mon, people...the more we focus our attention on the plight of American children and their future the less protected we are against the lurking terrorists. Do you want the red flag to be a mushroom cloud? What good are educated children with bright futures when they're dead?

Besides, as a great man once said, "As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
posted by NationalKato at 8:51 AM on November 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

You know, the handling of the Katrina aftermath is a better case for the ouster of the present administration than Iraq.

You know, if you look past the water stains on the walls, New Orleans looked like this long before Katrina made landfall. This is a story about poor, black America and poor, black America didn't happen overnight.

As much as the Bush administration bears blame for its feckless response to Katrina, the problems of New Orleans go way beyond it.
posted by three blind mice at 8:54 AM on November 1, 2006

But someone's gotta send this writer in paragraph-break-rehab.

Right after you start your stint at in-patient preposition-use.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:54 AM on November 1, 2006

Our educational system here has NEVER been stellar. We have always been at the "back of the pack" in relation to the rest of the nation. If you look closely at N.O., you will find that the lax attidute towards most issues, education, infrastructure, politics all contribute to us being last in all things non-violent. Violence, heh, we RULE! Partying, nobody can touch us! What a shame, I attended public school close by at another *fine* N.O. learning establishment. Trust me you really don't want to know what goes on there.
NOLA's proirities:
#1 Partying
#2 Tourism
#3 Brother-in-law politics
# ... take your pick
# ...
# ...

# 100 publik edukashun.

Sorry for the rant, I grew up in NO and ran like a scalded dog at the first chance to move to the burbs. My kids are GT/Art students and do eceptionally well in the Jefferson Parish School System. Most New Orleanians know this and bus their kids to school here in Metairie. We do well nationally as far as testing and our public schools offer a "better" education than our private/parochial schools.

BTW, there ought to be a stiffer penalty for crimes against teachers and school guards, kinda like way the law looks at crimes against the elderly or the infirm. My children's school does not have armed guards. They also were taught to respect authority and to question in when the situation dictates it. Whew.....I'm glad my english teacher will not see this post. Sorry, remember I was a student of public education here.
posted by winks007 at 9:05 AM on November 1, 2006

Right after you start your stint at in-patient preposition-use.

And how's your cognitive preview therapy? ;)
posted by Anything at 9:09 AM on November 1, 2006

From the The Age article:

"How can this happen in a school?" she demanded. "They have guards in there. They're supposed to have security."

What to say?
posted by Anything at 9:27 AM on November 1, 2006

“You’ve got shootings everywhere,” said JoAnn Ehlmann, a 62-year-old retiree from Missouri, who was in the Quarter with two old friends.
posted by raysmj at 9:33 AM on November 1, 2006

Just 2 weeks ago at Grace King High School in nearby Metairie....officers tased a 11th grade student because he did not want to wait for his parents to go to the school to pick up his confiscated cell phone. He had been warned earlier in the day that he faced losing it for using it during class. Got fed up with not being albe to retrieve it himself and lashed out at school officials. They call the 5-0 and he was talking to deputies when he decided to get a bit on the aggressive side. They tased him and he now at a school where there are a bunch of others like himself. Those schools are the "real" jewels of La Public Schools.
posted by winks007 at 9:55 AM on November 1, 2006

I can't tell you how much I respect teachers who continue to try to work in these conditions. My visceral response on reading such stories is "Boy, I'm glad I'm not there, and if I were I'd get out pronto." I know people who used to live in NO, and yeah, it's always been bad, but Katrina made it all a lot worse.

Thanks for posting this. It's important to be reminded of what goes on in these Untied States.
posted by languagehat at 10:07 AM on November 1, 2006

Unknowingly, winks007 typifies what's really messed up about New Orleans. Most people with money here think by crossing a canal or lake, they have nothing to do with this city. I hate to break it to JP, but as goes New Orleans, so goes Metry.
posted by Pacheco at 10:21 AM on November 1, 2006

Pacheco, this could possilby be discussed in greater detail, 1 on 1. I may have come from there but, there is a stigma that comes with being from/living in New Orleans. I don't see it as the decline of my city because of the NO thingy. I do feel that the crime is running rampant there and history has shown that the crime will follow the opportunity. And....I know we are not insulated against the crimes of the "Big Easy". It all comes down 1 LCD, BLACK ON BLACK crime. No wasy way yo put it and look at what happens when Sherrif Harry Lee makes another one of his "attention-grabbing" headlines like this NEWB&coll=1">http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-3/116227829993810.xml?NEWB&coll=1 .

Had he said men standing on the corner no problem. Instead he made a statement and now paying the price for his candor. When in reality checking the pulse of the city would indicate that what he wants is really what needs to be done. I don't hang out on street corners at night.

I don't share your opinion of "as goes - so goes". I don't have a good reason why, I just don't agree!
posted by winks007 at 10:34 AM on November 1, 2006

Stupid link thingy!
posted by winks007 at 10:34 AM on November 1, 2006

I react pretty strongly to people quickly pre-judging the attitudes of New Orleanians and passing it off as "stigma." This accomplishes nothing and its particularly disappointing when it comes from someone who actually lives in the area.
posted by Pacheco at 10:49 AM on November 1, 2006

Pacheco, people are going to pre-judge your attitudes no matter where you are from.

Quickly, tell me what you would think about the personality of someone from,

LA?

Brooklyn?

Paris?

Basra?

Larwenceburg, Tennessee?

That's prejudice.
posted by nyxxxx at 11:07 AM on November 1, 2006

Several weeks ago, a teacher was “beaten unmercifully” by a ninth grader enraged at being barred from class because he was late.

They must be doing _something_ right if kids want to get into class that badly.
posted by triolus at 11:34 AM on November 1, 2006

No child left behind. Okay, maybe a few.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:35 AM on November 1, 2006

> No child left behind. Okay, maybe a few.

But we need more. Absolutely nothing can be done about situations like this until we let the ones who don't want to be in school leave and devote our entire effort to those who do want to be there. Consider public community and junior colleges. Lots of low-income people there, lots of people from bad backgrounds, but they're quiet places full of hard-working students because there's nobody there except people who want to be there. Mustn't use schools as day care, because that guarantees they'll be insane asylums with the worst of the criminally insane inmates in charge.
posted by jfuller at 11:51 AM on November 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

Thanks nyxxxx. Pacheco....try going abroad and saying you're from here. I just couldn't think of a better word for "stigma". Sry.
posted by winks007 at 11:52 AM on November 1, 2006

In a second-floor cosmetology class...

There's your problem.

hoverboards don't work on water, I don't see your point. What is wrong with vocational training that you think it's causing issues with school discipline?
posted by Karmakaze at 11:55 AM on November 1, 2006

I'm continually amazed at myself by how much more liberal-sounding I get as I age.

A few years ago (back around the Terrel Bell "rising tide of mediocrity" era) I was saying that the breakdown of education and the rise of cultural illiteracy was ultimately more of a strategic national-security issue for the USA than protecting nukes, propping up erstwhile dominoes or preventing Fulda Gap.

Now I'm starting to feel the same way about marriage and family issues -- not in the Donald Wildmon sense, but about keeping coherent structures of parents and children together. Not by control-freaking from on high, but mutual support from within communities. We USians seem to really suck at this unless it's used as a prop for GLBT-bashing.

Has anywhere else ever faced these kinds of challenges at any time? If so, how did they try to address it, and how well or badly did the attempt(s) fare?
posted by pax digita at 12:00 PM on November 1, 2006

In a second-floor cosmetology class...
Karmakaze - ... What is wrong with vocational training...

Ohhhh. I originally thought that was cometology class spelled wrong. Or it was some sort of class teaching about the cosmos or something.
posted by porpoise at 12:27 PM on November 1, 2006

I don't prejudge anyone, except those pig-f'ers from Lawrenceburg, TN.
posted by Pacheco at 12:51 PM on November 1, 2006

jfuller,
That's really not a solution to this problem. Focusing efforts on only those who wish to be there will help those people, but the ones who chose to leave will be a problem. You migh say, "Well, screw them, they made their choice," but if you create a group of people who started off poor and angry and are now a perptual virtually unemployable underclass thanks to their lack of education, do you think this will help lower the crime levels and violence in the city in the future? I'm not saying schools need to be a daycare. Something needs to be done with these disruptive elements, but I don't think just cutting them loose will help the overall situation.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:25 PM on November 1, 2006

jfuller, unless your plan ends with the disenfranchisement and forced creation of an (admittedly self-selected) underclass, then that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a very long time.

Because the *completely uneducated* WOULD outnumber the smart in very short order.

If you believe otherwise, you're deluded.

And if it DOES end in disenfranchisement, you're a scary, scary person.
posted by InnocentBystander at 2:53 PM on November 1, 2006

I can't explain the violence, but I have a pretty good idea about why they may not be learning.

The principal, Donald Jackson . . . [:]
"...What type of governance, what type of structure is in the home, if this is the living conditions?"

I think a good first step would be finding educated professionals to teach and to serve as role models. I know how hard that can be (boy, do I), but I think it has to be the first priority.
posted by booksandlibretti at 4:02 PM on November 1, 2006

New Orleans may technically be part of America still, but we're not treating it as if it is...

Amen. I took this photograph in the Lower Ninth Ward in June.

You know, if you look past the water stains on the walls, New Orleans looked like this long before Katrina made landfall. This is a story about poor, black America and poor, black America didn't happen overnight.

It's difficult to hold these two awarenesses in one's head simultaneously: that the storm did such incredible damage, and that the city was already so devasted. When the aid workers I know in New Orleans speak of Katrina now, they don't mean the hurricane. They mean the existing patterns of neglect and poverty and racism that the hurricane uncovered. Katrina is happenin--has been happening--in poor black neighborhoods all over this country.
posted by hippugeek at 4:10 PM on November 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

Pacheco, people are going to pre-judge your attitudes no matter where you are from.
LA?Brooklyn?Paris?Basra?Larwenceburg, Tennessee?That's prejudice.

You forgot texas, every time it gets mentioned here there is a wave of snark and the accompanying indignation from those who live here. I'm going to start asking people: "So, tell me, are you also a racist?". Now that should start a nice 'discussion'.
posted by IronLizard at 4:30 PM on November 1, 2006

When asked recently how I best felt we could make America a better place, I had one very simple solution: Double the pay of police and firefighters and triple the pay of teachers. Make the jobs have value above and beyond that of personal fulfillment, and you will draw more and better people to those jobs.

By paying teachers so little, only those that really love it stay with it for more than a few years, and those that don't love it become little more than prison guards for 8 hours a day.

It seems that the people at the top have missed the point that the most important thing we can offer someone is a good education. It shouldn't be forced on them, but every child at every economic strata should have access to the ability to learn. Without offering this, we are essentially condemning them to another generation of ignorance, which will inevitably lead to another generation of poverty.

I loath children, but even I know that if we are ever going to compete as a country again, we need educated masses.

I had a couple of other ideas that were related: All fines collected by police for traffic infractions would go to the local schools. This would discourage police departments from using traffic stops as a source of income and what money was brought in would directly benefit their community. Another ideas was that if someone wanted to be an elected official, one of the requirements is that any children they had would have to spend at least one year in the school that was ranked lowest in their district. (I thought this last one was clever; as it would force politicos to actively work towards making bad schools better for the most selfish of reasons: to protect their own kids.)

I think in my system, places like John McDonogh High School, would look a lot different.
posted by quin at 4:48 PM on November 1, 2006

Ugh: apply commas where needed.
posted by quin at 4:51 PM on November 1, 2006

quin : "It seems that the people at the top have missed the point that the most important thing we can offer someone is a good education"

They didn't miss it, have a look where they send their kids to school.
posted by fullerine at 5:25 PM on November 1, 2006

They didn't miss it, have a look where they send their kids to school.

Exactly, which is why I like the idea of requiring them to send their kids to the lowest ranked school in their district for a year. Watch how fast that school gets all sorts of funding. Do this enough times and you make all the schools better.
posted by quin at 5:53 PM on November 1, 2006

Consider public community and junior colleges. Lots of low-income people there, lots of people from bad backgrounds, but they're quiet places full of hard-working students because there's nobody there except people who want to be there.

Have you ever actually been in a community college? Hard-working students...hilarious...
posted by kigpig at 5:55 PM on November 1, 2006

kigpig, CC grad here.
Nice to meet you
posted by winks007 at 8:04 PM on November 1, 2006

Americans should be focusing on fixing their own ruined cities instead of spending unGodly amounts of money ruining others.
posted by cmacleod at 8:21 PM on November 1, 2006

Oh my fucking god. I'm so sick of the "New Orleans was totally ruined!" misconception. Most of the city looks just fine, and crime is a little higher than it used to be, but overall it's the same damn place. The only thing that bothers me more than that brand of ignorance is the way Orleans schools have been treated in this article. McDonogh was like that before the storm. McDonogh was hell before, it's hell now, and the chances are good that it's the same hell you find in every city in America. Hi. I am a teacher in New Orleans. Due to a desire to not be fired, I'm not going to associate myself with any one system, school, etc.

McDonogh 35 (that's the actual name of the school, as there are lots of McDonogh shools; currently 4 though there used to be many more) has always been like that. The Orleans system has been for the most part a miserable failure for at least twenty years and that's all anyone has come to expect of it. All that Katrina did was shrink it and shake up the population a little bit. I have friends that used to teach at 35, one friend who's still there, and lots of friends who went there as kids. Two or three years ago (it's hard to keep track of things that happened before Katrina), the school board announced in April that they had exhausted their budget for the year and simply had nothing left to make ends meet for the rest of the year.

The school board has consistently been a problem with Orleans Parish. We've had incidents of janitors being paid 400,000 a year because they were related to school board members (New Orleans is historically corrupt). And right now, what's the school board worried about at 35? Gettiing the football back up to par. But understand, this is not something new. This has been going on for my entire life.

Private education is virtually the only option in New Orleans (save a few magnet schools, like NOCCA). Most of our public schools have not reopened after the hurricane. The majority of the more functional ones have instead become charter schools: the Lusher system, the Audubon school - which offers both french immersion and montessouri for no tuition, Ben Franklin, and so on). Lusher is a damn fine school, and Ben Franklin has been rebuilding steadily. There are about 20 schools under Orleans administration right now, and about the same number of charter schools.

For those of you shocked at the metal detectors, the violence, the lack of parenting, the police officers in the classroom, the fear: have you ever actually been inside a low-income city school, especially in a crime-ridden area? This is not some nightmare brought upon the world by Katrina; this is the reality of American urban education. There is a fucking reason that teachers keep whining year after year after year. There is a reason that the turnover rate for teachers in underfunded systems is so high, and there's a reason that those teachers aren't as effective. Something is wrong with the system. Public education in America is sick, and the symptoms show most drastically in these poor schools. Argue all you want over evolution vs. creationism, but take a look around you. Go into the high school in the middle of your local gang district. If you don't have one, get over to Detriot, New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, and take a look. We are not unique. Don't you fucking blame this on Katrina. Don't point your fingers at us. Look at your own children, and you think real long and hard about where you ought to be pointing.


This is not one of my finer pieces of writing, but I'm tired and still have work to do. (Teacher, remember?)
posted by honeydew at 8:21 PM on November 1, 2006 [5 favorites]

Bottom line: America has failed its poverty-level children, in New Orleans and in your city as well. We've asked the powers that be to do something before. Are they going to do something now?

I don't expect them to, and I don't think any of my students do, either.
posted by honeydew at 8:32 PM on November 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

quin : "It seems that the people at the top have missed the point that the most important thing we can offer someone is a good education"

fullerine: They didn't miss it, have a look where they send their kids to school.

Somebody has to mop the floors.

(see Anyon, 1980)
posted by oflinkey at 9:50 PM on November 1, 2006

the Neighborhood Story Project also came out of McDonough/UNO.

Through one of the stories, I was reminded that the Upper Ninth suffered economically after the desegregation of parish schools caused many white folks to move away (to Jefferson Parish?). Further reason to worry that these problems are not solved by running away from the people involved.

check um.
posted by eustatic at 10:36 PM on November 1, 2006

God bless you, honeydew. I can't say I agree with you on all points, but I'm glad to hear from a teacher in the area who's impassioned and realistic and angry.
posted by hippugeek at 10:46 PM on November 1, 2006

eustatic: Mostly, to St. Bernard Parish.
posted by raysmj at 10:48 PM on November 1, 2006

This is not one of my finer pieces of writing

It worked for me.

Thanks, honeydew.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:06 AM on November 2, 2006

"I hate to break it to JP, but as goes New Orleans, so goes Metry."

Is that actually true, though? I had a friend whose family moved to NO in high school, and he talked about the disparity in school quality across different areas. That was 15 years ago. If "as goes New Orleans, so goes Metry", when is it going to "go"? It's already been a decade and a half...
posted by Bugbread at 10:12 AM on November 2, 2006

You know what?

I actually read this item, the whole thing and not the sensationalist crap towards the top. Doors on the girls room bathrooms aren't the only thing missing. There are no books in the school library. Sure, things are bad, but it is clear that the administration is making no attempts to educate them, but rather to cage them and keep them off the streets for a year. They are treating the kids like animals, and then wondering why the kids live up to their pathetically low expectations. The Principal says he has a problem that he calls home and there's not a real adult to talk to? Well then maybe he should suck it up and BE a real adult for these kids, cause he may be the best thing they've got. Maybe he should see what resources he can muster to make sure these young people at the very least have a grown-up who checks in on them now and then. He's got lousy facilities, maybe he should organize work parties. He's got no damn BOOKS for crying out loud, maybe he needs to organize a freaking online charity drive. I think most of us could afford to send him a fiver.

And if he's not man enough for that, admit the place is a failure and lock the doors for good. Maybe he can get a nice new job in the suburbs next year.
posted by ilsa at 5:04 PM on November 2, 2006

ilsa: "I actually read this item, the whole thing and not the sensationalist crap towards the top. Doors on the girls room bathrooms aren't the only thing missing. There are no books in the school library."

I actually read the sensationalist crap at top. You know, the part that says: "The McDonogh library has no books."

ilsa: "Well then maybe he should suck it up and BE a real adult for these kids, cause he may be the best thing they've got."

You're a parent. You have to realize how insane this is. If there's one thing that parents agree on, it's that being a parent is hard work. With a kid who gets in trouble at school, it's very hard work. 3 kids who get in trouble at school? Nigh unmanageable, but possible with lots and lots of really hard work.

You're telling the principal that, in addition to his job and in addition to parenting his own kids, he should "suck it up" and be a foster parent for 155 more kids?

Maybe you should just suck it up, be a real parent, and go down there and adopt 50 or 60 of the kids yourself? And if you're not internet commentator enough for that, just admit that you're demanding of others something that you'd never do yourself. Maybe you can find a nice thread about puppies next time.
posted by Bugbread at 10:25 PM on November 2, 2006