Screenshot taken from this Craigslist Ad

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In this economy, the desperate search for jobs can lead people pretty much to do anything. More and more, recent college graduates are seeing the job market get smaller and smaller and are more likely than not working in the service industry or some other field that’s not related to their major and making far less money than they would have say, ten years ago.

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The problems are many and diverse, so much so that, in such a troubled economy, people have found a way to make money off of all those unemployed kids sitting on their parents’ couch. The whole idea of spending six figures on a tuition when you’d be incurring that debt for years to come has to weigh on the minds of many a college student (even the wealthy ones), and fill them with (at worst) crippling anxiety and (at best) the desperate urge to succeed where so many others have failed.

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Or as a student at Tulane or Loyola, you could circumvent your education and just put an ad on Craigslist offering $200 for a 30 page accounting term paper (not including sources) and completely lose the sympathy of any and all people (including fellow students) working hard to pay off debts or string enough freelance part-time jobs together to pay the rent. (Context: One could make more writing a 1,000-word feature story than doing this).

Your day job is safe - unless you collect balls tossed into a miniature hockey rink for a living.

Those curious about robot sports and the engineering prospects of area high schoolers may want to catch the competition at the Alario Center this weekend. NASA staff from the John C. Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis provide mentors, coaches and referees to teams from 36 schools in Louisiana and Mississippi. Local competitors include New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School, Lusher Charter School, McMain Secondary High School, Sarah T. Reed High School, John Ehret High School in Marrero, Mandeville High School and St. Paul’s High School in Covington.

This year’s competition is more like a soccer game involving teamwork. We’re not sure if the robots have become self-aware and learned how to take a dive yet, but keep a sharp eye on them. The finals of the Bayou Regional are Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

Watch highlights from last year’s regional set to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” after the jump. Or highlights set to Cascada’s “Every Time We Touch.” Your call.

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The past few weeks have been chaos for Roots of Music. The program moved down the street from its comfortable space at the Cabildo to a one-room auditorium at the U.S. Mint, and instructors had to get more than 100 students ready for six parades. Add the usual headaches — arranging transportation, feeding 100-plus mouths, tutoring — and a grim reality: If program directors can’t scrape together funding within the next few weeks, March looks bleak. In this week’s cover story, I followed Roots of Music as its 2010 class prepared for its Mardi Gras debut, and hopefully not its last.

The free program for at-risk students ages 9 to 14 helps low-income families get their children on the right track. Derrick Tabb (Rebirth Brass Band drummer and CNN Hero) and Allison Reinhardt founded Roots of Music in 2007, and it includes (among other things) free transportation from school (and back home), meals, tutoring (required) and a world-class music education from Tabb and New Orleans musicians like Edward Lee from Soul Rebels Brass Band, as well as Allen Dejan Jr., Shoan Ruffin and Lawrence Rawlins. Oh, and Trombone Shorty and Phil Frazier serve on the board.

Gambit photographer Cheryl Gerber documented the band’s three-step parade prep: rehearsal, dress, and the finale — marching and playing in Carnival 2010. (Hit the jump for the photos.)

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The Washington Post previews remarks made by Education Secretary Arne Duncan while taping an interview for Washington Watch with Roland Martin, set to air Sunday and Monday on the cable news channel TV One.

Here’s one excerpt:

“It’s a fascinating one. I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, and this is a tough thing to say, but let me be really honest. I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that ‘We have to do better.’ And the progress that they’ve made in four years since the hurricane is unbelievable. They have a chance to create a phenomenal school district. Long way to go, but that — that city was not serious about its education. …”

We’ve all seen our share of urban plans since the levee failures. From the dubiously-titled “Bring New Orleans Back” committee report and the New Orleans neighborhood rebuilding plans to the United New Orleans Plan and the ongoing debate surrounding the city’s proposed master plan, thousands of locals have participated in the planning process for rebuilding New Orleans.

Still, how much do we really know about what goes into a master plan?

Starting on Friday afternoon and continuing through Saturday, Tulane University will host a conference, “New Orleans Under Reconstruction: The Crisis of Planning.” Organized by professors from Tulane’s School of Architecture, the conference is focused on the progress the city has made so far, overcoming obstacles that have slowed rebuilding and advancing future visions for New Orleans. The conference will also tackle a number of other issues connected to planning such as water management, housing equity, contemporary design and green building, cultural landscapes and citizen activism.

A number of prominent panelists — including David Dixon from the Goody Clancy architectural firm, which has been designing the New Orleans master plan and Ray Manning, a prominent local architect, who has also worked on the city plan — will be offering their expertise and insight into the difficult-but-critical process of rebuilding New Orleans in the present and the future.

The conference is free and open to the public. For more information, visit New Orleans Under Reconstruction.

In this week’s Green Matters, I take a look at the New Orleans Solar School Initiative (click the link for the full story). This morning, Entergy Corporation, Nike and the initiative’s partners formally announced (and unveiled) the nearly $1.7 million effort that’s been in the making since 2007.

This morning, Warren Easton Senior High School principal Alexina Medley proudly claimed her school as having the largest social array in New Orleans, and potentially, the state. Medley and partners in the New Orleans Solar school Initiative, in front of cameras, press, and, most importantly, students, offered  a rundown of the program and plenty of formal thank yous and best-of-luck-to-yous.

But on the roof, where only a few days before installers with South Coast Solar were wrapping up the finishing touches, there’s something interesting. Still scribbled on tin roofing and cement are HELP and SOS messages — reminders of being trapped while the federal flood surrounded Mid-City. Now, riding shotgun with those messages, is a $500,000, 6,634-square-feet, 37,000 kilowatt-hours-producing solar panel installation, enough power for three houses. The system is capable of saving the school approximately $4,000 in utility costs, and could reduce emissions of up to 50,000 pounds of carbon a year.

The roof is entirely flat and whitewashed. By noon, it’s blinding. No wonder it’s a prime location. Rod West, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans, says Warren Easton was the first draw for the initiative (three other schools are slated for similar systems — up next is Joseph A. Craig Elementary) for several reasons: the school’s history (96-years-old and still kickin’), central location and “where it was before and after the storm.” The “unprecendented opportunity” for greenovation, he says, is one from Entergy’s commitment to environmental responsibility and fiscal prudence.

At the unveiling, environmental sciences teacher Frank Coco lined up a group of students for a photo. Coco’s classes will get to use the software that reads in real-time the panel’s progress — charts, graphs, real-time statistics, all plainly laid out to see the system at work. “It’s an educational opportunity for real types of projects using alternative energies,” West says. The day was hailed as a great day for young people by coordinators, who see the project as a launchpad for green jobs and kickstarting a green economy as early as high school.

Then again, one needs only to peer over the side of the building and see an endless row of cars parked along Canal Street. New Orleans won the battle today, but its war on carbon is only beginning.

Researching the current Gambit cover story on the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans at Samuel J. Green Charter School was like living out a garden-set reenactment of the Adam Sandler film Billy Madison. The educators behind the Alice Waters-adapted program — school president Tony Recasner, chef/teacher April Neujean, garden teacher Denise Richter and ESY NOLA director Donna Cavato — not only provided testimonials about its proven methodology in building a farm-to-table dining culture, but allowed me to view their living laboratory as it was intended to be seen: through the saucer-wide eyes of a child. Every day was a new grade, every grade a new application of this radically simple form of experiential education. Slipping behind the 10-foot stalks of purple okra growing in the urban oasis, photographer Cheryl Gerber and I saw first-graders gape at their first loofah gourds (”Do they come from an Oompah-Loofah?”); fourth-graders bury their noses in white-flowering ginger (”Best smell in the world”) and chocolate mint (”It smells like gum!”); and sixth-graders harvest wild amaranth grain using the thresh-and-winnow methods of hunter-gatherer civilizations (”How do you get food off of this?”). Throughout the week, I will post the transcripts of my interviews with the principals of the program. Today: Neujean, chef/teacher at Green and the food and nutrition coordinator for FirstLine Schools.

Tell me about some of Green’s farm-to-table special programs.
One of our early goals was to get local food into the school, which is very challenging through the cafeteria. [Meet the Farmer] was an easy way to accomplish that goal. And it’s great because several times a year everybody in the school is eating fresh, seasonal produce, and loving it. It’s a great way to start teaching seasonality to the kids — why do we have watermelon in September but not January, things like that. Great way for the kids to see that what they’re doing here at school is happening in a much bigger way out there in the world. Ben Burkett, who’s a local farmer from Miss., he comes and brings his family.

[Another] one is the citrus tasting (for fifth-graders). We eat five different varieties of citrus that day. We do tasting parties with everything to get the kids to develop a vocabulary. Is it juicy, is it sweet, is it sour, things like that. That happens right before Christmas, school-wide citrus tasting. The fifth-graders will host that. We usually try to pick a class to be the host for the day. In the spring we do a strawberry tasting. We do different varieties of strawberries, including our own from the garden. They get to decide, is bigger better, things like that. Then we’ll tie all these special events into our classes, both on the kitchen and garden side. We teach the watermelon song, create other dishes with watermelon. There’s watermelon growing out in the garden, so they’ll incorporate that into it.

The kitchen layout is great, being able to see the garden out the window. Was it planned this way?
It was originally on the other side (of the school). It bothered me that the kids thought there was one type of food being cooked at one side of the school, and another type of food being served in the cafeteria. The inequities of that started to become really obvious. We decided at the end of my first year that when we put the kitchen in, it should be next to the cafeteria, it should be the heart of the school, and it should be one big space with one food message being sent. We have seating in here for 36 — 30 kids plus table leaders and volunteers. We’ve also built in space for observations. We can get observed by other school leaders, but also if we have visitors that want to come and observe classes, just like in the garden, we have a space for them. (Pointing at windows) Those were old doors before that were out of code and in bad shape. I really wanted to put a window in there because I wanted the kids to be able to stand in here and see the garden. We’re cooking food from the garden, and I wanted them to be able to feel the whole life cycle when they’re cooking.

What foods have been their favorite?
Things that I never thought were going to be popular have been really popular. Last year we grew a lot of turnips. People think that kids will only eat a certain kind of food, but I’m convinced and have seen time and time again — and it’s the Edible Schoolyard philosophy — if they grow it and they cook it, they will eat it. Turnips were incredibly popular, smashed turnips and turnip greens. All of our greens — we had a lot of kale in the garden last year, and we did sauteed kale with garlic. People would think kids would never eat kale, but they really liked it. Eggplant has been really popular. We have an eggplant caponata dish we serve at lots of special events, because the kids really love it. Kids love anything that’s really tactile. We’ve stuffed ravioli with everything from nasturtium to spinach we had growing in the garden. It seems kind of bizarre to them, but they love the bizarre.

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Researching the current Gambit cover story on the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans at Samuel J. Green Charter School was like living out a garden-set reenactment of the Adam Sandler film Billy Madison. The educators behind the Alice Waters-adapted program — school president Tony Recasner, chef/teacher April Neujean, garden teacher Denise Richter and ESY NOLA director Donna Cavato — not only provided testimonials about its proven methodology in building a farm-to-table dining culture, but allowed me to view their living laboratory as it was intended to be seen: through the saucer-wide eyes of a child. Every day was a new grade, every grade a new application of this radically simple form of experiential education. Slipping behind the 10-foot stalks of purple okra growing in the urban oasis, photographer Cheryl Gerber and I saw first-graders gape at their first loofah gourds (”Do they come from an Oompah-Loofah?”); fourth-graders bury their noses in white-flowering ginger (”Best smell in the world”) and chocolate mint (”It smells like gum!”); and sixth-graders harvest wild amaranth grain using the thresh-and-winnow methods of hunter-gatherer civilizations (”How do you get food off of this?”). Throughout the week, I will post the transcripts of my interviews with the principals of the program. Today: Dr. Recasner, president of FirstLine Schools, Green and the nearby elementary Arthur Ashe Charter School, where plans for New Orleans’ second Edible Schoolyard are already in the works.

Interviewing your staff, I was surprised to find they come from all over the country, from Alaska to Colorado to New Orleans to New York. What sets them apart from the average schoolteachers?
I think what makes the program staff unique is they really have expertise in the areas in which they work. We’re really lucky in that they have expertise and experience, as well as passion for the work and commitment to the ideals of the program. So we’re sort of extraordinarily fortunate in that sense. They bring in a wide range of knowledge — programmatic, work with kids, fundraising, ideas — along with the folks who are on the Task Force, who really make this an extraordinary team. These are all people who are friends of Alice, and have supported her ideals and her foundation, and clearly have demonstrated support for kids and this kind of curriculum in their respective communities across the country. What I’ve learned is, this is about our garden and what we’re doing, but it’s also related to a broader movement, which is that their partnership and friendship with Alice in other places furthers our efforts here — because they’re talking about what we’re doing, they’re celebrating what we’re doing, and they’re able to point to our school as one of the shining examples of how all of these elements come together.

In a 2006 interview, at the start of the Edible Schoolyard NOLA, you talked about how institutionalized curricula such as this have the ability to spread quickly. Three years later, it seems FirstLine is still unique in its approach. Are others following your lead?
I think we are the only program with as many elements, and I think that’s just because people came together to support this effort. It was the perfect storm — the board (and) folks on our Task Force are gardeners and chefs who are committed to the whole food-farm-table concept, sustainable regional farming. They were already involved in organized efforts like Market Umbrella, Slow Food, Town Gardeners. We didn’t have to build every organization from scratch. It’s individuals who represent organizations that have been pursuing these ideals for a long time. We got lucky with Alice in that she becomes the perfect head of the table, so to speak, and really provides the catalyst to build this coalition around this effort. There are other schools, like Lusher, working to improve food service. We certainly have inspired others to believe that kids will eat healthier, and we have partnered with others conceptually to demonstrate the power of this particular curriculum. April has worked with the schools in St. Tammany parish to plan menus for the year, all because we’re demonstrating that kids will really eat healthier foods.

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If you were planning on spending Saturday afternoon (Sept. 12) at the Sankofa Marketplace in the Lower 9th Ward, you’ll have to take a rain check — but only for a week. The Marketplace (5500 St. Claude Ave.) at the Corner of Caffin and St. Claude avenues has postponed its monthly farmers market and a special school-supplies giveaway until next Saturday (Sept. 19) because of forecasts of inclement weather.

The marketplace will be open next Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with fresh produce, Louisiana shrimp, crafts, artist demonstrations and music from DJ Ro of radio station Q93 (WQUE-FM).

Children can pick up a book bag and notebooks, journals, paper, folders, erasers, rulers and other school supplies, then enjoy activities including print-making, face painting, coloring, playing with hula hoops and other games.

The school-supply giveaway was made possible by local businesses including Mickie Bee’s Lounge, H&R Block, House of Dance & Feathers and dentist Dr. Kendall P. Parker; the All Souls Episcopal Church & Community Center; and community groups such as the Healthy Heart Prevention Project, Big 9 Social Aid & Pleasure Club, Lower 9th Ward Lady Divas, Lower 9th Ward Steppers and the Original Lower 9th Ward Ladies.

When the state took over New Orleans’ failing public schools after Hurricane Katrina, those with ties to the old system predicted — some say hoped — that the nation’s most aggressive experiment in education reform would fail. When it became clear that the state’s commitment to change was unshakable, opponents of the new order shifted course and started demanding a quick return of the improved schools to the local school board.

That’s going to be the next big fight over education reform. Next year, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) must decide whether to allow the RSD to continue operating 70 public schools in New Orleans or turn them back over to the Orleans Parish School Board.

The stakes are high: control over the schools as well as their budgets, contracts and hiring practices — and the future of more than 36,000 kids.

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