On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall and began its destructive path through the Gulf Coast. New Orleans bore the brunt of the devastation, not only in the loss of homes and lives, but also in the destruction of its public infrastructure, especially its schools. Over the next two decades, the governance of New Orleans’ K-12 public schools underwent a significant reinvention.
This effort produced one of the most innovative and ambitious approaches to K-12 school reform in modern American education: a system of public charter schools funded by taxpayers and independently operated as schools of choice. This reinvention of the New Orleans K-12 public school system sparked a nationwide conversation about public school governance, autonomy, school choice, and accountability.
Now, with twenty years of evidence and the return of schools to a locally elected board, the question is no longer whether New Orleans succeeded or failed. What will U.S. K-12 public education learn from this unparalleled innovation to improve the lives of New Orleans’ young people? While the New Orleans model was born of crisis, the lessons it offers extend well beyond The Big Easy.
Tulane University economist Douglas Harris and his colleagues have led the effort to understand these lessons. Harris is the founding director of the University’s Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, whose reports serve as the primary sources of information for the discussion that follows.
