N.O. loses school reins on La. foul

Exactly what is Louella Givens' nightmare?

Earlier this month, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education held hearings to determine whether underperforming schools in East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes would be taken over by the recovery school district.

"Well, welcome to my nightmare," Givens, a BESE member representing New Orleans, said at the time.

Some observers assumed that Givens was simply opposed to the fact that failing schools in Orleans Parish were being subsumed by the RSD after the failure of the federal levees flooded the city in 2005.

But Givens' comment had as much to do with the manner of the takeover as with the takeover itself.

"The schools were taken over without a hearing at a time when people weren't in New Orleans," Givens told me in an interview.

"That's what I meant when I said nobody came to our defense," she said.

--- Unlevel playing field ---

Indeed the hearing about East Baton Rouge and Caddo Parish schools was remarkable merely for the fact that it occurred.

When New Orleans schools were taken over, no such hearings were held.

"Nobody sat down and looked at anything other than the fact that New Orleans was under water and here was a chance to take over these schools," she said.

"There have been no public hearings pre- or post-Katrina concerning school takeovers in Orleans. The manner in which takeovers around the state are being handled is completely different from what happened here," Givens said.

"While some of us were still on rooftops, the decisions were already being made to take schools over," Givens said.

Givens is not the only BESE member to feel this way. Linda Johnson of Plaquemine concurs.

"If you are asking me did Orleans have that opportunity, the answer is no they did not," she said....