Are new Orleans' schools beyond repair?(GULF COAST UPDATE)

POST-KATRINA, New Orleans has become a battleground in the national struggle over how to fix public school systems. As contentious debates about charter schools and teacher unions rage across the country, families and educators who want to privatize education are hoping that New Orleans will set a model. Those who want real institutional reform are worried and ready to fight for a better vision.

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"The framework has been exploded since the storm," said New Orleans-based education reform advocate Aesha Rasheed. "It's almost a blank slate for whatever agenda people want to bring."

Before the storm and displacement, New Orleans had 125 public schools, 4,000 teachers and 60,000 students. The system was widely regarded as broken. Three quarters of eighth graders failed to score at the basic level on state English assessments. In many schools, JROTC (the high school military recruiting program) was a mandatory class, mostly because funding wasn't available for other programs. In the last decade, 10 school superintendents were fired or had quit. Many parents, especially white parents, had pulled their kids out of the system. Almost half of the city's students were enrolled in private or parochial schools.

The state seized control of New Orleans's schools after Hurricane Katrina struck. This past spring, five schools were run as public schools, but both the ...