if they fail to produce students who can perform at grade level or above. More than 80 percent of New Orleans schools are now governed by their own independent boards. Within a few years, virtually all of the city’s 42,000 students will be enrolled in charter schools because the Recovery School District, which took over most of the schools after Hurricane Katrina, has been systematically divesting itself of direct-run schools. Osborne gives credit – rightly – to visionaries such as: Leslie Jacobs, a former member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education; former Louisiana governors Mike Foster and Kathleen Blanco; Paul Pastorek, former state Superintendent of Education; and Paul Vallas, former superintendent of the RSD, for the system’s turnaround. The path started with a pre-Katrina constitutional amendment that set up the RSD, a state agency created to take over failing schools statewide. That amendment gave state officials a way to take over most of New Orleans’ schools after the storm. The Orleans Parish School Board, which was already under federal scrutiny for mismanagement and later corruption, was left with only a handful of successful schools. Most of the schools were flooded, and there was little money available to get them open. Many of today’s charter schools developed by necessity after Katrina because there was no other way to get schools opened fast. Osborne says that charters also got a foothold because U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu succeeded in acquiring $30 million of federal money that was designated for charter start-ups. Vallas, known as a school district turnover specialist, moved the trend along by giving as many failing schools as he could to successful charter operators before he moved on to another challenge. Fortified by empowered principals, an infusion of foundation grants and well-educated new teachers supplied by nonprofit teacher recruitment organizations such as Teach for America, these charters started showing results. By 2009, 37 percent of RSDeducated students were testing at grade level, an increase of 14 percent in two years. In 2012, the percentage had increased to 51 percent, according to Osborne’s report based on state education figures. In five years, the percentages of students scoring at grade level had increased by 28 percent. In an introduction to the Osborne’s study, Elaine C. Kamarck, of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Jonathan Cowan, president of Third Way, a Washington D.C. think tank, said that New Orleans’ charter dominated school system is the nation’s “first system-wide experiment in public education reform.” Kamarck and Cowan said New Orleans’ “all charter model” provides a more effective system for the 21st century. “The lessons and principles contained in the charter experiment in New Orleans provide the greatest hope for every school district – rich, middle class or poor – to make their school far better,” they wrote. In the report’s final section, Osborne poses a question: will the New Orleans Model spread? Only the future will bring an answer to this question, but Osborne says that many are watching New Orleans and “a few are already emulating it.” He reports that Michigan, Tennessee and Hawaii have already set up systems like the RSD. The New Orleans model could spread, he says. “Because it harnesses the power of decentralPercentage Increases at ization, choice, competition, Grade Level or Above on All contestability and accountStandardized Tests, 2007-’12 ability for results, it’s simply a Recovery School District: 28% superior form of governance. Orleans Parish School Board: 16% As such, it is capable of proState-run: 8% ducing better results almost Source: Osborne, Louisiana State anywhere.” Department of Education myneworleans.com
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