The Harvard Educational Review hit upon a novel idea recently when its editors proposed that America should look to the international community for guidance in delivering education to the roughly 370,000 students displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In particular, the journal says we should learn from international relief agencies that routinely deal with educating refugee children displaced by war, famine, and other disasters.
A close reading of the five lessons-to-be-learned, however, finds several not-very-novel thoughts, such as securing high-quality teachers and ensuring that minority and poor children are not marginalized and forgotten. No arguments there. But why look to the Third World, when ed reformers in this country, such as KIPP, Aspire, and Teach for America, have for years been testing and refining successful models that address these problems?
The recommendation that caught my eye, however, is that officials "integrate displaced students within community schools, and not in schools erected specifically for them." Don't be duped by this well-meaning sentiment-it's a shot at charter schools.
Most students displaced by the hurricane have been integrated into their adopted communities and schools, so there's no reason to believe, as the editors hint, that America is creating refugee camp schools. In fact, the editors can cite only one example of a school, New Orleans West College Prep in Houston, established solely for educating hurricane victims. NOW College Prep, a KIPP school, came about not as government policy, but the desire of KIPP Schools to do something positive for those who need it. It's an (excellent) option available to those interested in taking it, no more. To suggest, as the editors do, that by hosting this school in its district Houston is advancing a policy of herding victims into refugee-style schools is, to put it kindly, disingenuous.
We can, in fact, learn a great deal from international aid agencies. But why look to the Third World when America is bubbling with education alternatives that fit the Gulf States' needs perfectly? Perhaps in ten years, Harvard can play host to a conference of international aid workers who flock to New Orleans to learn how the best ideas in American education rose to meet the challenge of educating hundreds of thousands of children there, and across the nation, well.
