Are the schools right?

Hey look Mitch Landrieu was on a panel about cities and "leadership" with Dean Bacquet and Walter Isaacson and... *yawn*....

What? Oh yeah, here's the thing.  I'm always amused at the way Mitch defenders are quick tell you to STFU about the mass charterization of our public schools that happened during his time as a "leader" here. "#Actually the mayor doesn't control the schools!" they will tell you. This is technically true. But we all understand that the mayor is a powerful figure and a policy thought  leader in his own right. It matters which side he takes on a question like that.  Mitch was always a vocal supporter of the charter movement. To this day he still touts it as a success story.

Anyway the thing that gets me here is the minute his fans find themselves in front of a friendly audience, they're all too happy to throw him some credit for this thing he supposedly doesn't control.

Walter Isaacson, a former Time editor and best-selling author, credited many of the improvements in New Orleans to progress during the last eight years, saying that Landrieu took over a city “so financially messed up.” A friend of Landrieu, Isaacson called Landrieu “the best mayor we had probably in the history of New Orleans.”

“He got the budget right, he got the schools right and what we need in this country is people who solve problems the way mayors do,” Isaacson said.

Are the schools right? A lot of parents, students and teachers who don't happen to be extremely wealthy media figures would disagree.  More specifically, did Mitch Landrieu get the schools right, himself? His own defenders might not even agree that this is possible... if they listen to their own arguments.