NBC’s Harris-Perry Blames Charter Schools for New Orleans Problems

HARRIS-PERRY: "Maybe the only thing I agree on with Malcolm Gladwell in this assessment is that’s a tough question to answer and depends on where one is standing. So the answer is if you’re a Ninth Ward resident, whose home was destroyed, whose community was not rebuilt, and whose home was destroyed, importantly as you point out, not by Katrina, but, rather, by the federal levees that failed in the context of Katrina, then, no, it simply is not better off. I would also suggest that for many who are African-American it’s not a better city in part because this so-called success story in the schools also included charterizing the entire system, which also meant deunionizing all teachers. Whatever people feel about teachers unions, one important thing to remember is that it is the heart of the black middle class, particularly in New Orleans. And so, that loss of income and of economic stability for the black middle class there has been meaningful, so it’s not just the schools but also the people who work in schools. And I think — the final thing I would say is, yes, there are some ways in in which the city has had a huge amount of federal investment it deserved before the storm, but also remember that that — that stands on whether or not you are living in a community and a neighborhood that can take advantage of it."