New Orleans has become ground zero for education reform. This is the second in a three-part series on what might be coming to a school near you.
As a history teacher at a New Orleans charter school, Kim Frusciante puts in a long day, spending as much time outside of the classroom as in it.
A typical day at the New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy begins about 7:15 a.m. and ends 12 hours later. And what then? “Go home, grab a bite to eat, say hello to my husband and my dog, and then I’m typically working until I go to bed,” said Frusciante, who is 27 and in her fifth year of teaching.
By the end of the week, she estimates, she clocks between 80 and 90 hours — teaching, grading, planning, meeting with co-workers and calling her students’ families.
“But to be honest with you, even though sometimes I’m tired because I’m sleep-deprived — not most of the time, but sometimes — I would say the amount of energy that I get from working on this team and working for something that I really believe in is pretty phenomenal,” she said.
Hours like Frusciante’s figure prominently in the debate over urban school reform, as some wonder whether such intensive intervention can make up for the deficits in the children’s lives or even be sustained by the teachers.
One prominent critic of the current reform movement, Diane Ravitch, argues that if reformers ignore poverty, the root of poor academic performance, they will continue to fail.
The Louisiana state teachers’ union accuses Gov. Bobby Jindal of starving public education by freezing funding. Teachers cannot do their job well with less, says the union’s president, Joyce Haynes. When letter grades were released for public schools last month — and most New Orleans schools got a D or an F — the teachers blamed Jindal’s policies.
But the Republican governor is moving forward with reforms, and Frusciante’s principal, Ben Marcovitz, rejects the idea that what his teachers do is not sustainable.
Their jobs require a great deal of training and many hours, he acknowledges. But, he says, “I actually don’t think it’s different at all from training to become a physician or an engineer [or] a lawyer.”
Society accepts that those professionals must work hard to become good at what they do, and it will come around to perceiving teachers that way too, he predicts.
Marcovitz knows the poverty of his students’ lives, but believes the close relationships they have in school can help ease some problems.
“So what we’ve effectively done is taken the type of relationship that can exist in an urban school, where one teacher goes above and beyond because of an emotional connection to a kid, and made sure that that happens for every kid in this school,” he said.
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The second in a three-part series on educational reform in New Orleans.
PART 1: New Orleans' new start
PART 3: Coming Monday
As a history teacher at a New Orleans charter school, Kim Frusciante puts in a long day, spending as much time outside of the classroom as in it.
A typical day at the New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy begins about 7:15 a.m. and ends 12 hours later. And what then? “Go home, grab a bite to eat, say hello to my husband and my dog, and then I’m typically working until I go to bed,” said Frusciante, who is 27 and in her fifth year of teaching.
By the end of the week, she estimates, she clocks between 80 and 90 hours — teaching, grading, planning, meeting with co-workers and calling her students’ families.
“But to be honest with you, even though sometimes I’m tired because I’m sleep-deprived — not most of the time, but sometimes — I would say the amount of energy that I get from working on this team and working for something that I really believe in is pretty phenomenal,” she said.
Hours like Frusciante’s figure prominently in the debate over urban school reform, as some wonder whether such intensive intervention can make up for the deficits in the children’s lives or even be sustained by the teachers.
One prominent critic of the current reform movement, Diane Ravitch, argues that if reformers ignore poverty, the root of poor academic performance, they will continue to fail.
The Louisiana state teachers’ union accuses Gov. Bobby Jindal of starving public education by freezing funding. Teachers cannot do their job well with less, says the union’s president, Joyce Haynes. When letter grades were released for public schools last month — and most New Orleans schools got a D or an F — the teachers blamed Jindal’s policies.
But the Republican governor is moving forward with reforms, and Frusciante’s principal, Ben Marcovitz, rejects the idea that what his teachers do is not sustainable.
Their jobs require a great deal of training and many hours, he acknowledges. But, he says, “I actually don’t think it’s different at all from training to become a physician or an engineer [or] a lawyer.”
Society accepts that those professionals must work hard to become good at what they do, and it will come around to perceiving teachers that way too, he predicts.
Marcovitz knows the poverty of his students’ lives, but believes the close relationships they have in school can help ease some problems.
“So what we’ve effectively done is taken the type of relationship that can exist in an urban school, where one teacher goes above and beyond because of an emotional connection to a kid, and made sure that that happens for every kid in this school,” he said.
**********************************************************************
The second in a three-part series on educational reform in New Orleans.
PART 1: New Orleans' new start
PART 3: Coming Monday
