Become a part of New Orleans schools’ voice of the next. OPEN is seeking a skilled Executive Director who can craft strategic issue campaigns and work collaboratively with other nonprofit leaders in New Orleans, and across the state, to build and fund a powerful education advocacy network.
Click here to access the job description and instruction applications!
Deirdre Johnson Burel and 100 Black Men’s Jonathan Wilson appeared on WBOK’s Good Morning Show with Oliver Thomas to talk about the call for unification in bringing New Orleans schools back to the community, equitable funding, and the critical anchors of equity, transparency, and accountability.
Click here to listen to the full interview:
Deirdre Johnson Burel
Executive Director, Orleans Public Education Network
Deirdre appeared at January’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) Oakland Portfolio Network meeting, speaking at the “Group Action: Race, Localism, and the Portfolio Strategy” panel.
Portfolio implementation has too often been seen as an outsider strategy that displaces local people, particularly people of color. The panel examined how can city leaders address local needs and sensitivities when it comes to implementation, and how can they work to mitigate the negative impacts of interventions like downsized central offices and school turnarounds on local communities. Deirde appeared alongside Deborah McGriff, Managing Director of the New Schools Venture Fund, in a discussion facilitated by Paul Hill, CRPE’s Founder.
The StoryCorps is in New Orleans! This independent radio project has a mission to “preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world,” and in December our own Saundra Reed and Deirdre Johnson Burel went on the mic to talk about parent leadership, the Louisiana Children’s Museum and the vital importance of a safe space for family-first learning.
The voices in StoryCorps’ work build connections between people and reveal the importance of narrative. Every person’s story is unique and precious: listening to them promotes compassion and reminds us all of our shared commitment. Thank you to the team for having us on!
We’re proud to announce that our Executive Director Deirdre Johnson Burel participated in an Education Research Alliance for New Orleans equity panel entitled The Distribution and Isolation of Students across Schools by Race, Income, Special Education, ELL, and Achievement. Does choice lead to greater integration or segregation across schools based on race, income, special education, ELL, and/or achievement? How does the distribution of students across schools under the reformed school system compare to schools in New Orleans pre-Katrina? How important is integration as a goal for the New Orleans community?
For democracy to work, citizens must be engaged and speak up in ways that encourage — indeed require — our elected officials to respond in alignment with our values. They do, or fail to do so, at their own peril. So, perhaps more disconcerting than the 4-3 bloc is what it says about the fissures that divide our broader community.
OPEN’s Executive Director Deirdre Johnson Burel recently travelled to Tulsa, OK, to serve on the 2015 Brock International Prize in Education jury.
The Brock International Prize in Education recognizes an individual who has made a specific innovation or contribution to the science and art of education, resulting in a significant impact on the practice or understanding of the field of education. The innovation or contribution must be specific and must have the potential to provide long-term benefit to humanity through change and improvement in education at any level, including new teaching techniques, the discovery of learning processes, the organization of a school or school system, the radical modification of government involvement in education, or other innovations.
OPEN Executive Director Deirdre Johnson Burel appeared on WBOK to give an overview of our summer film series and talk a little on the history of public education in New Orleans.
“So many New Orleanians seem to think of public schools as places of last resort, campuses they’d send their children to only if they lacked the money to send them somewhere else. The repulsion seems to be reflexive: What good, people ask, can come from a New Orleans public school?
Plenty, Deirdre Johnson Burel says. The executive director of the Orleans Parish Education Network says New Orleans has a “rich history of public education” and a roster of accomplished adults who were prepared for their careers at schools that charged them no tuition…
