重建工作困難 受災學區頭大
策劃、編譯■成怡夏
Troubled District Faces Unprecedented Recov-ery Task
摘要
紐奧良的公立學校原本就已經是走在鋼索上了，現在又受到卡崔娜颶
風致命一擊，狀況更加雪上加霜。
這座城市的某些地區正泡在20英呎深的水中──在其交通運輸系統
、水管、電話線和電力系統都無法修復下──沒有任何穩當的估計可
以算出，這個有7萬名學生的公共教育體系到底何時才能恢復？
對任何一個學區來說，颶風與洪水過後的清理工作是相當困難的，但
是觀察家指出，紐奧良學區其實早就因為財務不穩定、政治混亂，政
治腐化，以及領導人更迭不斷而蹣跚許久。
「學校重建將會非常困難。」美國教師協會財務秘書納特‧拉寇爾這
麼表示：「事實上問題重重，去問他們是否能夠全部重建，這樣的問
題是很實際的。」
大城市學校會議的執行長麥克‧凱撒里表示，紐奧良人面臨的，比起
2001年9月11日恐怖主義攻擊紐約後，甚至1989年加州舊金山大
地震後的學校重建問題，還要更加嚴峻。「紐奧良人面臨的是相當悲
慘可怕，以及特大號的問題，與之前任何人遇到的問題都不同。」他
說。
颶風後，在今年春天取得紐奧良區域合約，插手干預該學區財務問題
的紐約市危機處理公司Alvarez & Marsal的經理人威廉．羅伯提表示
，他們與該州首府巴頓魯治的居民電話訪談，並與路易斯安那州學校
督學長西塞‧皮卡德會面，另外也和當地教育領袖如紐奧良聯合教師
會會長布倫達‧密特歇爾談話，以確認如何讓該地的學校體系重新運
作起來。
「最優先的問題是對現狀做實質的評估，」羅伯提表示：「以及評估
需要花多長的時間才能讓學童、教學與學習等回歸正常。」
8月31日，羅伯提和其他人獲得警方和國民兵的允許得以進入學區
總部。他們發現5層樓高的建築已經受損，地板上有相當多的積水，
在主要的電腦教室天花板上也有滲水的現象，羅伯提從電腦系統中取
下資料，希望至少可以讓他的公司保留某些學區的運作情況。他們還
找來電腦硬體的提供者，將卡帶與學區其他需要用到的資料彙整在一
起。
在等待學校重新開張的這段時間，皮卡德鼓勵受創學區的教職員領取
失業津貼。儘管重建計劃甚為艱鉅，羅伯提表示他歡迎所有有用的意
見。他說：「對路易斯安那州的居民來說，這是個巨大的悲劇，我很
高興自己在這裡，可以在他們面臨危機時支持他們。」
Alvarez & Marsal原本預定在今年7月接手管理該學區的財務運作，
這是該州教育部門質疑該學區如何花費掉7千萬美元預算後的行動。
該州查帳員過去一年不斷抱怨該州的會計帳務不清；聯邦檢察官過去
12個月也目前和過去學區職員詐欺的紀錄。上個月，Alvarez &
Marsal表示，學區的預算經費應從原先的4億美元中刪減4千8百
萬美元。
種種困難都源自於學區最高領袖的分裂立場，學校董事會之間角力不
斷。在颶風來襲前，這座城市的許多學校建築建年久失修，很多都興
建於二次世界大戰後，沒有空調設備，也不符合現代安全與健康法規
。近幾年有幾個學校不斷遭到抨擊。
（資料來源／教育週刊）
原文
The New Orleans public schools, already on the ropes, were dealt a
knockout blow by Hurricane Katrina.
With some parts of the city under 20 feet of water-and its transportation,
water, telephone, and electrical systems inoperable-no firm esti-mates of
when schools in the 70,000-student system might reopen were available.
For any school district, cleaning up after a hurricane and flood is a
Herculean task. But the New Or-leans district, observers noted, already
was hobbled by financial instability, political infighting, allega-tions of
corruption, and turnover in leadership.
『This is going to be difficult," Nat ?LaCour, the secretary-treasurer of the
American Federa-tion of Teachers, said of restoring schools in his native
city. "Given the fact that there are so many problems, it's a legitimate
question whether they can do it all."
Michael D. Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great
City Schools, said New Orleans faces even tougher prospects in trying to
recover than did the schools in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist at-tacks, or those in San Francisco after the 1989 earthquake.
『Whether New Orleans is in strong shape operationally or not," he said,
"the situation there is so dire and so outsized, so unlike what anyone has
seen before, that it's hard to com-pare what they are going to be facing to
almost anything else."
Setting Priorities
In the aftermath of the storm, the New York City crisis-management firm
that won a con-tract this past spring to run the district's fi-nances stepped
in.
William V. Roberti, a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal who is
leading the New Or-leans work, said in a telephone interview from Baton
Rouge that he had been meeting with state Superintendent of Schools
Cecil J. Picard and talking with local education leaders such as Brenda
Mitchell, the president of United Teachers New Orleans, to determine how
to get the school system going again.
『The first priority is to get a physical as-sessment of the situation," Mr.
Roberti said, "and how long it's going to take us to be able to get the
system back up and running to support children, and teaching and
learning."
On Aug. 31, Mr. Roberti and others received police and National Guard
permission to enter district headquarters, he said. They found the five-
story building standing, but damaged, with several inches of water on
some of the floors. As the ceiling leakedin the main computer room, Mr.
Roberti retrieved tapes from the computer system that he hopes will allow
his company to keep at least some of the district's business operations
running.
『Now we've got to see if we have the infor-mation we need to meet
payroll," he said. He added that his team was doing business from the
Louisiana Department of Education's of-fices in Baton Rouge, but was
talking with sup-pliers of computer hardware to put together a system so
the tapes and other district records could be used.
With the opening of schools potentially months away, Mr. Roberti said Mr.
Picard was urging employ-ees in the affected school dis-tricts to apply for
unemployment benefits.
Even though a recovery plan was far from complete, Mr. Roberti said he
welcomed the chance to be of use.
『This is a gigantic tragedy for the people of Louisiana and for the people
of New Orleans," he said. "I'm glad we're here to be able to assist them
through this crisis. We are a crisis-inter-vention and -management firm.
That's what we do."
History of Turmoil
Alvarez & Marsal assumed control of the district's fiscal operations in
July, under an agreement pushed by the state edu-cation department in the
wake of a federal audit that questioned the district's spending of some $70
mil-lion in Title I money.
State auditors had been com-plaining for more than a year that the
district's overall poor account-ing had made it impossible to get a clear
picture of its finances. Federal prosecutors also have indicted scores of
current and former district employees on fraud charges over the past 12
months. Last month, Alvarez & Marsal said the district needed to cut $48
million from its $400 million budget. The system also had to seek a loan
of $50 mil-lion to make payroll, and announced the first of what was
expected to be a series of layoffs just before Katrina hit.
Compounding the difficulties have been the fractious relations among its
top leaders. Super-intendent Anthony S. Amato called it quits in April
amid tensions with the school board. Since then, board mem-bers have
quarreled a-mong themselves over the hiring of the private contractor and
other issues.
This past summer, the board reportedly al-most replaced its acting
superintendent,and the panel has yet to hire a search firm to find a suc-
cessor for Mr. Amato.
Even before the hurricane, and the ensuing flooding of the low-lying city
after critical lev-ees were breached, the city's school buildings were in a
state of disrepair, plagued by For-mosan termites, mold, and rot. Many
were built before World War II, lacked air conditioning, and didn't meet
current safety and health codes. Several schools had been condemned in
recent years.
The Knowledge Is Power Program, which has been in the process of
converting a low-per-forming New Orleans school into a KIPP char-ter
school called Phillips Preparatory, received an e-mail message from a
regional official that embodied the uncertainty hanging over all the city's
schools. The Aug. 30 e-mail from Shani Jackson said that she had reached
the school's director of opera-tions and "been able to account for most of
the staff," who are scattered from Baton Rouge to Atlanta. But information
about students and their families, many of whom live in a nearby housing
project, was "hard to come by."
『Our concern is for our the safe-ty and well-being of our families, and
for the time be-ing education takes a back seat as ?school staff members
focus on coping with this disaster," said Stephen Mancini, a spokesman for
KIPP, which is based in San Francisco. "But we are committed to get it up
and run
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