The Problem With New Orleans’s Charter Schools
A legal complaint alleges that the Big Easy’s schools discriminate against children with disabilities. What good is the charter revolution if it doesn’t reach the students who are most in need?
Michael Democker / Times-Picayune-LandovKelly Fisher holds up a photo of her special-needs son at a meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in New Orleans on Sept. 14.
New Orleans, where more than 70 percent of public schools will be independently chartered after this school year, has been placed on a pedestal as a shining model by education reformers. The new documentary Waiting for “Superman”, which hopes to serve as a call to arms for education reform, devotes a page of its Web site to touting