Coup D’état of the New Orleans Public Schools

Raynard Sanders has over forty years' experience in education in numerous capacities. Most recently he co-authored Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools: The Impact of Charters on Public Education. Dr. Sanders received his Bachelor of Arts from Dillard University, his Masters of Educational Administration from Southern University, and his Doctorate of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

“The struggle over the fate and future of public education has played out with notable intensity in New Orleans, Louisiana, never more significantly than in recent years as NOLA has become—post-Hurricane Katrina—the laboratory for a thoroughgoing corporate takeover of public education. In this compelling account the educator/activist/scholar Raynard Sanders documents the treacherous alliance that formed between old-school white supremacists and modern-day corporate raiders eager to get their grasping hands on what they perversely perceive as the ‘public education market.’ The Coup D’état of the New Orleans Public Schools illustrates the case in compelling detail, and shows us precisely what’s at stake: education as a basic human right versus schooling as a product for sale in the marketplace; democracy as a vital force for human development or the veritable erasure of the public; a step forward in the abiding and courageous press of Black parents for a full and decent education for their children as a pathway to authentic equality versus a further continuance of the shameful American tradition of apartheid schooling. This is a necessary book.”—William Ayers, Author of several books on education including Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World, To Teach, and Teaching Toward Freedom

• Foreword – Acknowledgments – The Coup D’état – Privatizing Public Education: New Orleans the Perfect Place – Intended and Unintended Consequences: The Assault – School Communities Disenfranchised and Destroyed – The New Orleans Public School Gold Rush – Old Lessons Learned in New Orleans – Glossary – Appendix A: Picard Letter to the Department of Education – Appendix B: Act No. 35 – Appendix C: Charter School Grant Program Amounts Allocated to Charter Schools – Appendix D: Louisiana’s 7th Grade Cohort Graduation Rate – Appendix E: Reasons for Judgement, Eddy Oliver versus Orleans Parish School Board – Appendix F: Carver Civil Rights Complaint – Appendix G: Civil Rights Complaint on School – Appendix H: Data Sharing Agreement – Appendix I: Act No. 91 – Index.