- MENU
- HOME
- SEARCH
- WORLD
- MAIN
- AFRICA
- ASIA
- BALKANS
- EUROPE
- LATIN AMERICA
- MIDDLE EAST
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Benelux
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Korea
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Poland
- Russia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Taiwan
- Turkey
- USA
- BUSINESS
- WEALTH
- STOCKS
- TECH
- HEALTH
- LIFESTYLE
- ENTERTAINMENT
- SPORTS
- RSS
by Alexandra Fenwick
New Orleans is the first major city in the nation with the majority of its students in charter schools
In New Orleans, home of the most charter schools per child in the country, advertisements for the vast array of available educational options compete for attention with everything from "Lost Pet" fliers to signs for political campaigns. Posters advertising new schools are tacked to telephone poles and plastered on the sides of the city's iconic streetcars. Charter officials have set up booths outside
For parents in the new New Orleans, selecting a school is a dizzying process. More than four years after Hurricane Katrina swept away much of the city, parents who return find an almost unrecognizable school system where charters have replaced traditional schools in unprecedented numbers. In the 2009-2010 school year, these privately run, publicly funded hybrids are serving a staggering 61 percent of all students, up from 57 percent in 2008-2009. New Orleans is the first major city in the nation with the majority of its students in charters.
Many traditional schools also have changed to meet the needs of returning families. The entire Orleans Parish district is now "open choice" -- students can choose to attend any school in the district and, by law, be provided transportation. This privatized education model has become the centerpiece of the Obama administration's education policy, aimed at closing the achievement gap between white and minority students. This year, $4.3 billion in Race to the Top stimulus funds is available to states that enact reforms tying teacher pay to student achievement and removing caps on the number of charters. This, in turn, has sent state lawmakers scrambling to alter legislation in order to be eligible.
In that context, New Orleans has become the crucible for the charter movement's ultimate failure or success. So far, the numbers show it has been mostly successful. A recent
If the free-market argument for charters is to be borne out -- that students benefit when schools compete and that the best schools will rise to the top and the rest will shut down for lack of enrollment -- the consumers, or parents, need to understand what exactly they're investing in. "I think there's still a lot of confusion about what 'choice' is about," says Aesha Rasheed, director of the New Orleans Parent Network, a nonprofit group that helps parents navigate the balkanized patchwork of charter and noncharter public schools.
A study in August by
Filling seats. When Katrina hit, New Orleans schools were known as some of the worst in the country. At that time, according to
Today, the district runs only slightly under its much-reduced capacity, with about 37,000 students. "There is some competition and animosity and a fear that schools are trying to put each other out of business. And that fear is not all false," says Thelma French, an administrator with the
As of June 2007, the population of New Orleans was 76.4 percent of its pre-Katrina level, according to the New Orleans Index, which monitors the social and economic recovery of the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, although combined public- and private-school enrollment reached 78 percent of pre-Katrina levels by spring 2009, growth in school enrollment has slowed, increasing by only 3,800, compared with 7,513 in the previous year. And in September, only four charters opened, compared with eight the previous year. "In New Orleans, we are pretty much at our saturation point," says Caroline Roemer Shirley, executive director of the
For some, it was a struggle just to open. This summer at New Schools for New Orleans, a nonprofit group that works to launch and support new charter schools, St. Claire Adriaan and Niloy Gangopadhyay were hustling to enroll enough students to launch
And the recruiter's need for creativity doesn't necessarily end when a child is signed up. During a June visit to the home of Will Etheridge and Virgie Celius, parents of three girls on the roster at
But they almost didn't stick with Mays because of confusion over the system. A month after Bradley's visit, landlord woes led Etheridge to pack up his family and move 20 minutes away. He assumed his kids would not be allowed to go to Mays anymore. The school noticed something was amiss when mail to the Etheridge address was returned. "I went over to their house, and they were packed up and nobody was there," Bradley says. He quickly got in touch with Celius, who said her husband happened to be at Mays picking up a report card. "I hurried back to the school and was able to catch him, and I said, 'Don't worry about it, we'll do what we have to do.' "
Other parents simply stumble upon the answer. At the only school left standing by Katrina in Terri Gibson's neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward -- a public one -- her storm-traumatized son Zion started misbehaving and failed second grade. She says her prayers were answered when she spotted a poster for
That it was serendipity that sent her in Wilson's direction, not a calculated choice, would not be music to the ears of charter school leaders. Especially those publicly touting statistics and research in school choice while privately spending considerable chunks of their budgets on the voodoo of clever advertising -- hoping to snag one more customer.
Alexandra Fenwick was a fellow of the News21 program, an effort to advance journalism led by 12 research universities with the support of the Carnegie and Knight foundations.
© U.S. News & World Report
Education: Charter Schools Rise in New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina | Alexandra Fenwick
© U.S. News & World Report