Education board backs return plan for RSD schools

A complex plan that will allow some state-run schools in New Orleans to return to local control by 2012 won approval today from the state education board, temporarily settling a dispute expected to end up in court. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education concurred with Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek’s recommendation for returning schools taken over by the state’s Recovery School District. Approval came despite criticism from New Orleans residents and local school board leaders that the plan creates too many hurdles. Orleans Parish School Board officials say Pastorek’s plan violates the law creating the recovery district and likely will be subject to a lawsuit. No school will be returned before the 2012-13 school year, and only then after meeting a series of requirements or performance standards and getting individual approval from BESE. The issue mostly affects New Orleans, where 68 schools were taken over because of poor performance. However, schools around the state, including 12 in East Baton Rouge and one in Pointe Coupee Parish, are also under RSD oversight. Pastorek says it’s “a clear and fair policy” under which schools that have boosted academic achievement in the recovery district return to local oversight when it is clear they will stay on course and continue to improve. “I’m struggling to understand why citizens of the parish that I live in are being usurped this way,” says BESE member Louella Givens, who represents the board’s New Orleans-based district and is one of only a few board opponents to Pastorek’s plan.