NPR – Anya Kamenetz
“On Sept. 15, 2005, two weeks after Katrina and the levee breaches, I drove with my parents into New Orleans. It was my 25th birthday. We used my press pass from The Village Voice to get past a military checkpoint so we could assess the damage to their home near Tulane University. It turned out to be minimal: a few slate tiles off the roof, tree limbs downed, a putrid refrigerator full of rotting food to drag to the curb. I stayed on as the city blinked back to life in fits and starts. Most public schools remained officially closed for months. New Orleans students descended on schools in Houston and Baton Rouge. Many missed months of classes. Some never went back. Thousands of teachers were pink-slipped. Makeshift one-room schoolhouses popped up — I volunteered for a few days at one run in a room at Loyola University.”(more)