The Economist – Staff Writer
“When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, right at the start of the school year, thousands of students across Orleans Parish saw their classes delayed. Teachers were displaced, and so were parents; the schools themselves were festering, where they were not destroyed….More than two-thirds of pupils in the public system attended schools that were officially failing. In the high schools, fewer than half could pass their graduating exams….At the end of the last school year, more than two-thirds of public-school students in New Orleans were enrolled in charter schools of one form or another. The shift has led to some gains.” (more)