Upholding Community Traditions

Before discussing your assessment of the schools, the meaning of the Mardi Gras Indians tradition, and your well-known book drive, I wanted to get your opinion of the effectiveness of the numerous nonprofits that arrived in the city after the disaster. Some RSD schools are not serving children's needs based on high stakes test scores and other benchmarks used to calculate a school's SPS [School Performance Score] . . . and the state has made those schools available to charter school organizations and labeled them as Transformation Schools, euphemisms for "we did not serve the students' educational needs." All of the schools we work with have committed to using the book drive to support the English language arts curriculum of the state.