What’s Driving the Improvements We’re Seeing Five Years After Katrina?

This Tuesday I sat on a panel put together by two Loyola University student groups called 5 Years Later: A Forum on the State of Public Education in New Orleans.  I was joined by OPSB member Brett Bonin, Kevin Guitterrez of the RSD, Carol Asher of ReNew Charter Schools, Loyola professor of political science Dr. Peter Burns, and Alexander Hancock of the Institute for Quality and Equity in Education at Loyola University.  Panel members were asked questions addressed specifically to them as well as a series of general questions.

I didn’t do much speaking outside of answering the question addressed to me which was “In your study of public education, where do you see improvement in our schools from where they were five years ago and where does this improvement stem from?” Since I was only allotted three minutes to answer this very interesting question, I thought I would take this opportunity to answer it in a longer format.

First, I’ll address the easy part: operations.  The system (or systems) has seen significant progress since the days of OPSB’s financial insolvency in 2005.  Some important things to note:

• The OPSB has had four years of clean audits and passed a balanced budget for 2010-2011–huge steps from 2005.
• As Brett Bonin noted at the forum, the OPSB went from a general fund deficit to a $50 million balance.
• The RSD has made major progress from the first few years of its operations when there were problems with not paying vendors on time and overpaying employees.
• Lastly, massive amounts of additional funding flooded the system.  Some of this came from one-time federal recovery funds but much of it also came in the form of private investments and grants from foundations.

Additionally, because of the system’s new focus on autonomy and the large number of charter schools, most of the decisions about how to spend money are being made by those closest to the students – at the school level.

Another key improvement has been in school facilities. Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failures severely damaged the majority of New Orleans school buildings, most of which were already in disrepair due to decades of deferred maintenance. .  Since the storm we have seen major strides in getting buildings back online and ensuring that all of our students are attending schools in safe, modern facilities.

• The Quick Start Initiative quickly built or renovated five schools in 2007.
• The community, RSD, and OPSB worked together to draft a School Facilities Master Plan in 2008 which will guide the spending of the historic $1.8 billion FEMA settlement.
• Progress on the Master Plan is well underway (3 new buildings and 3 renovated buildings are complete) and the RSD estimates that within about 5 years about 60% of students will be in brand new or completely renovated buildings.

Of course, issues still remain. Who will maintain these buildings, and who will pay to maintain these buildings, remains contested. (Click here to read all of the Cowen Institute’s reports and publications on school facilities.)

Improvement in these areas is largely due to the dedication and willingness to work together on the part of the adults involved. The RSD and OPSB came together to approve the School Facilities Master Plan and are working hard to implement it.  It took skill, hard work, and a singular focus to pull the OPSB out of its financial quagmire.  RSD central office employees have worked hard to put into place procedures that that assure prompt payment of vendors and accurate payment of employees.

But of course, it’s the improvements in academic achievement that are of most interest.

• Before Katrina, 64% of schools had a School Performance Score of below 60 and were considered failing.  That number is now about 26%–reduced by more than half.
• The percentage of students passing the state’s high-stakes tests(LEAP and GEE) continues to rise at a rate faster than before Katrina.

Identifying improvements is, of course, easy; determining what has driven these improvements is a far more difficult task.  After Katrina there were a number of changes to the system, all of which could have impacted student achievement for better or worse.  One of the largest of these is, of course, the massive influx of additional funding.Other key changes are that charter schools came to comprise the majority of the system, city-wide school choice was implemented, and a veteran teacher force was largely supplanted by a younger, less-experienced corps.

Along with the introduction of all of these reforms, programs, and changes  we have seen impressive growth in test scores city-wide and at a large number of individual schools.  However, it is impossible to tell which of these new initiatives is driving that growth.  All of these changes cost money, however, and much of the money that funded them came from federal recovery funds, federal charter school start up grants, and private donations – money which will not necessarily be there in the coming years.

This reduction in funds will require all schools – charter and traditional alike – to cut back on some of the innovations  and programs that were implemented after the storm.  Once this begins to happen, it will be interesting to watch whether student achievement declines or slows in the rate of growth.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what’s driving the increase in student test scores and School Performance Scores.  Please leave comments with your thoughts.