October 27, 2006

Charting a better course

In 2004, 66% of the New Orleans schools were academically unacceptable, compared with 8% for the rest of Louisiana. Ninth grade children were reading at the level of fourth graders.

Over half of elementary school children failed minimum standards in math and english. School buildings were unkempt and smelly in the humid climate. One high school spent 10 years selling candy bars to pay for an air conditioning system.

Over the decades, factions in the school system created an immovable bureaucracy. Indifference and incompetence ruled in an atmosphere of corruption and union gridlock. There were 10 Superintendants over a period of 10 years.

Hurricane Katrina provided an opportunity. It blew away the infrastructure of the worst public school system in the United States. The buildings were useless, the teachers were gone, the students scattered everywhere.

A new kind of teacher arose out of necessity. The kind who rolls up their sleeves, looks around the neighborhoods to rent classrooms and looks for money to start a new enterprise.

Tony Recasner is one of those kind. That's him holding the mike. He runs the SJ Green Charter School, one of 25 now spread over the New Orleans area. He not only came up with resources to create the school, he also restructured classes so kids could comprehend the coursework. His innovation and perseverance characterizes the new school "system".

New Orleans is the first city in the US whose schools are predominately chartered and the system now competes for the best teachers, the best curriculum, the best college testing scores.

Judging by the reports and results of other charter locations, the Big Easy should be an interesting test case.

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