The Legacy of George Washington Carver Senior High School in New Orleans

• In Event: Disrupting the Discourse on "Bad" Teachers and "Failing" Schools: Why the History of Black Educators Is Critical for School Reform

Abstract

The third and final papers draws on oral histories of past students and teachers of G. W. Carver Senior High School, a historic black public school in the New Orleans’ 9th Ward, to illuminate a half century of transformative educational practices. In addition to oral history testimony, material from the Orleans Parish School Board archive at University of New Orleans and the personal collections of Carver community members informs the analysis.

Opening its doors in 1958 near the Desire Housing Project, also home to New Orleans' Black Panther Party, Carver educated generations of youth, fostering a remarkably strong sense of identity among community members; to be a "Carver Ram" meant lifelong access to forms of community cultural wealth through a network of comrades. Veteran teachers—many with histories of civil rights activism and union organizing—worked intimately with students, some attaining near-legendary reputations for their skill and mentorship. Despite a long history of inequitable treatment of black public schools by white policymakers, Carver teachers developed an extensive array of curricular and extracurricular offerings, catapulting many graduates into technical and professional arenas across the city.

In this paper, Carver is revealed as an intergenerational tradition of educational excellence rooted in New Orleans' culture and history, particularly the Afro-Creole-inflected struggle for Black self-determination. From the members of the first graduating class to teachers who spent their lives teaching in the Desire area to those who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina and returned to graduate as proud "Carver Rams," all attest to culturally situated, anti-racist pedagogies that inspired countless students and sustained veteran teachers who were indigenous to the community and fought for decades against ongoing forms of racism.

Notably, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans' veteran teachers were fired and Carver was reopened under the state-run Recovery School District and ultimately closed. At the same time, schools in a charter network operated by white entrepreneurs adopted Carver's name, but not the fundamental elements of liberation education that it embodied. This glaring betrayal of the legacy nurtured by teachers and students of the historic Carver and other longstanding black public schools must be challenged. This presentation thus concludes with an audio-recorded interview clip with three Carver teachers reflecting on Carver’s past as well as present concerns about the direction of education reform in New Orleans.

Author

• Kristen L. Buras, Georgia State University