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Kira Orange Jones has been promoted after almost a decade leading New Orleans operations for Teach for America.
(Handout)
Kira Orange Jones, who represents New Orleans on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has been promoted at Teach for America. After running New Orleans operations for almost a decade, she will be supervising "a cohort of executive directors across the Midwest and South," she told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Sunday (Sept. 11).
Orange Jones will continue to live in New Orleans, she said.
Her territory will comprise 15 regions, including all of Louisiana, she wrote in a letter to her "Teach for America family." Pro-charter activist Peter Cook posted the letter to Twitter and Orange Jones confirmed its validity.
Teach for America places college graduates in low-income classrooms, requiring a two-year commitment. It's been criticized for contributing to a churn of under-trained teachers for children who need the most help, and for taking places that could be filled by career educators. The organization says two-thirds of its corps members continue to work full-time in education.
Orange Jones easily won re-election to the 2nd District seat last year. She has received major financial support from national charter advocates. But her job in New Orleans initially posed a problem, almost knocking her off the board in 2012. In a controversial move, the Ethics Board overturned its own attorneys' draft opinion and permitted her to stay on the board as long as she abstained on votes for Teach for America contracts -- a decision that hasn't satisfied her detractors who have continued to say she has a conflict of interest.
There's no timeline for the changeover because the organization has to find her New Orleans replacement first, Orange Jones said.
