The president of the American Federation of Teachers is calling on all supporters of public education to protest the refusal of school officials in New Orleans to register hundreds of would-be students in city public schools that were taken over by the state in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

• LINK: www.aft.org/topics/neworleans

"Where will these children receive an education?" asked Ed McElroy, president of the 1.3-million-member AFT, a national affiliate of NYSUT. McElroy was responding to reports in the New Orleans Times-Picayune that at least 300 children seeking spots in the city's so-called public schools have been turned away - "wait-listed" - and told that the campuses "would have no room."

"These recent events make a mockery of the promise, made soon after Hurricane Katrina, that a state takeover of New Orleans' public schools would create a 'new birth of excellence and opportunity'" for children in the city's long-troubled school system, McElroy charged.

He said the 17 schools that are part of the state-run Recovery School District are resorting to the same tactics - enrollment caps and selective admission standards - that many of the locally operated charter and non-charter schools have long used to turn away applicants.

McElroy noted that a charter school group called "Teach NOLA" recently sponsored a number of teacher recruitment ads on several Web sites, including Job.net and Idealist.org, that included the proviso: "Certified teachers will teach in charter schools, and non-certified teachers will teach in the state-run Recovery School District."

While President Bush is calling the federal response to rebuilding New Orleans "very robust," McElroy said some state officials are apparently all too willing to tolerate "the shameful realities of public schools without enough teachers and children with no place to learn."

NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi said education officials in the state must be held accountable.

"The right to a free, public education for our children is one of the most basic and fundamental responsibilities of government," he said. "No official should be allowed to abdicate that responsibility."

Members of NYSUT - the AFT's largest statewide union - have contributed money, supplies and their time to rebuilding New Orleans and its schools and helping out the many AFT-affiliated teachers and support staff who have lost their jobs in Katrina's aftermath.

In the wake of the latest reports about conditions in New Orleans schools, McElroy urged supporters of public education to:

• Contact Louisiana's two U.S. senators, Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, and urge them to "put ideology aside and work with parents, teachers and community leaders to ensure that never again will the city's children be turned away from a public school."
• Get the word out to activists and refer them to www.aft.org/topics/neworleans .
• "Recognize the rhetoric" of some right-wing, anti-public school groups that, McElroy said, are circulating inaccurate or incomplete information "that glosses over the ugly realities of the post-Katrina public schools."

- John Strachan