Cities nationwide are watching the experiment to see if replicating its model might benefit students
As the fight over charter schools continues across the country, the Big Easy is taking a unique approach — New Orleans will begin the next school year with America’s first all-charter school district.
In September, Louisiana’s Recovery School District (RSD) will close the last of its public schools that have not been turned into charters, leaving it a 100 percent charter school district.
There are charter schools — which receive public funding but are privately operated — in every major city, but no city has a higher percentage than New Orleans. Eighty-four of the city’s 89 schools operated by the RSD are chartered, and 40,196 of New Orleans' 44,614 students are enrolled in a charter school.
There will only be six traditional public schools left in New Orleans — three elementary schools, one middle school, a high school and a secondary school encompassing grades 7 through 12 — all run by the locally administered Orleans Parish School District. The OPSD also operates 14 charter schools.
Before Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, 65 percent of the city’s public schools failed to meet standards, according to data from Louisiana, which U.S. News and World Report placed as 46th out of 50 states in a 2013 education ranking.
After Katrina the state created the RSD, a second school district in New Orleans, run by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in Baton Rouge and stripping the OPSD of control over more than 60 schools. Nearly all of them were converted to charter schools.
Also after Katrina, the city fired approximately 7,000 teachers and public school employees, opting to completely start New Orleans home to nation’s first all-charter school district | Al Jazeera America: