The 2005 storm brought with it an opportunity to reinvent public education in the city of New Orleans, and the education reform model that has emerged bears little resemblance to the former New Orleans public school system. This new innovative model – comprised of state-operated, local district-operated, and charter schools – is changing the paradigm for the delivery of public education in the United States. Never has a failing urban public school system in the country experienced such a total destruction of resources and responded with such radical change.

The emphasis on innovation and autonomy has seen the birth of a hybrid model of public education, with charter schools rubbing shoulders with district- and state-run schools. Since Hurricane Katrina, nearly half of the students have returned – and those who have are part of an entirely new system, characterized by autonomy, choice, and multiple school operators. The once centralized, district-run school system is now fundamentally different. More than half of public school students now attend charter schools, making New Orleans the district with the highest proportion of charter schools in the nation.

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, nearly all of the public schools in New Orleans were controlled by the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), a locally elected 7-member body.  The New Orleans Public Schools (NOPS) system that they oversaw was widely recognized as one of the worst performing school districts in Louisiana, itself one of the lowest performing states in the nation on education indicators.  Test scores and graduation rates were dismal.   In addition to low student achievement, the management and governance of the system had significant problems.  The OPSB and its individual members regularly engaged in ineffective, and sometimes illegal, practices while governing the district.  The high turnover of the superintendent’s position, as well as the lack of steady leadership in the administration’s central office departments, allowed poor performance to continue for years.

The severity of the system’s problems was acknowledged by some public officials, and state legislators attempted to take control of schools from the OPSB on more than one occasion.  Legislators filed several bills before 2005 to allow the state or mayor to gain control of the district, none of which became law.  While takeover legislation specific to New Orleans was never passed before Katrina, in 2003 voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing the state to intervene in school districts and schools identified by the state as failing.  In addition, the state passed legislation in 2004 that limited the OPSB’s power and gave control over financial management and personnel strictly to the superintendent.

By the time Hurricane Katrina struck, at the start of the 2005-2006 school year, the situation in New Orleans had reached a crisis point.  The school system was declared broke and a turnaround firm was hired to overhaul district finances.  While the storm destroyed facilities, displaced students, and disrupted school operations, it also served as an opportunity for a major overhaul of the operations and governance of NOPS.  Governor Kathleen Blanco promised after Katrina that the state was not going to re-create NOPS as it was before.

With Governor Blanco’s support, a special session of the Louisiana Legislature passed Act No. 35 in mid-November 2005.  The Act increased the power of the state to intervene in school districts labeled “academically in crisis” by raising the performance threshold to consider a school failing.  With this expanded authority, the state was then able to shift over 100 low-performing OPSB schools into the state-run Recovery School District (RSD).  The RSD was charged with opening and operating the schools under its control for an initial period of five years and was given all “rights and responsibility of ownership regarding land, buildings, facilities, and other property” of the schools it took over.  The OPSB retained control of only a small number of the schools it operated before Katrina.

The political leadership of public schools in New Orleans is currently divided between the OPSB, RSD, and a number of charter schools.  Schools are either directly run by the OPSB or RSD, or are charter schools that are overseen by either the OPSB or BESE and run by a number of operators.