ABSTRACT
Leslie Jacobs speaks with promise about the fresh start provided by a different educational model in New Orleans. As a former member of the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), and member of New Orleans' white business elite, she commands attention and is able to circulate a number of claims about what is best for the "minority community." Paul Hill, a nationally recognized conservative who leads the Center on Reinventing Public Education, echoes Jacobs. He writes with his colleagues:
[A] "portfolio school district" is ... based on a simple set of ideas: a district that provides schools in many ways—including traditional direct operation, semi-autonomous schools created by the district, and chartering or contracting to independent parties—but holds all schools . accountable for performance. ... Many things traditional school districts were originally built to do ... are at odds with operation of schools by diverse providers and replacing schools and staff that do not perform. Adopting a portfolio model means rebuilding a school district from the ground up. ... Traditional educators, and citizens who do not want their schools to change, inevitably feel insulted and dispossessed.
(Hill et al., 2009, pp. 1–2)
