The politics of post-Katrina recovery
Life in New Orleans is far from normal 

New Orleans was the backdrop earlier this year for the AFT Higher Education program and policy council meeting, where leaders learned firsthand about how city residents and school employees are faring 29 months after the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.

During their Jan. 17-20 meeting, the PPC members left the thriving downtown and French Quarter districts to tour the Ninth Ward. The leaders saw block after block of devastation, with few signs of recovery under way. Their guide was Idell Arnaud, an organizer with the United Teachers of New Orleans, who told stories of what happened after the winds and rains of Katrina receded on Aug. 29, 2005. The levees broke, 80 percent of the city flooded and a re-engineering of the city's social and economic fabric ensued. All the 5,000 teachers and other school employees UTNO represented were fired and strongly discouraged from reclaiming their jobs. Likewise, city leaders have discouraged the poor residents from returning to a city many have called home for generations. Nevertheless, more than half the population has returned.

The following day, Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research, delivered a riveting analysis of the current reorganization of the city. Hill, a community activist and labor organizer-turned-academic, described the before- and after-Katrina school system, which is on a rapid course to privatization.

The PPC also met with UTNO president Brenda Mitchell, who spelled out the challenges the union has faced in the past two years, from members' loss of homes, jobs, health benefits and bargaining rights to the continued attempt of the Orleans Parish School Board to keep experienced teachers out of the classroom. The board touts the success of charter schools, which are selective and don't serve special needs students. At the same time, its refusal to rehire experienced teachers has caused difficulties for new teachers who need mentors and guidance in dealing with the culture of New Orleans schools and the trauma of students buffeted by physical, political and economic storms. In the past year, UTNO has signed up 1,051 new members. Today, 82 public schools in New Orleans serve 33,500 students, down from 67,000 before Katrina. More than 50 percent of the teachers working in state-operated (known as Recovery School District) schools have fewer than three years of experience. A plan by PPC members to spend a morning going door to door to teachers' homes had to be abandoned when a heavy rainfall caused flooding in the targeted neighborhoods.

For most of the PPC leaders, this was their first visit to New Orleans since Katrina, and they were struck by how the current reality has receded from public and media attention. Sandra Schroeder, AFT Washington president and chair of the higher education PPC, said the visit was "sobering and enlightening."

Earlier, the 20 PPC members in attendance made plans for the next phase of the national legislative campaign known as FACE-Faculty and College Excellence. Last year, legislation was introduced in 11 states to address the overreliance on part-time faculty, their lack of adequate pay and benefits, and the dwindling full-time tenured faculty lines. This year, the campaign continues with beefed-up campaign materials, more flexibility on bill language and the inclusion of graduate employees. The leaders also made plans to heighten their locals' political action involvement in this election year. And the council had an extended discussion about ways unions can work more actively to ensure faculty diversity in hiring.