Charter schools rush to fill void in Big Easy

NEW ORLEANS - The storm that swamped this city three years ago also effectively swept away a public school system with a dismal record and faint prospects of getting better. Before Hurricane Katrina, educator John Alford said, he toured schools and found "kids just watching movies" in classes where "low expectations were the norm."

Now Alford is one of many new principals leading an unparalleled education experiment, with possible lessons for troubled urban schools in the District and elsewhere. New Orleans, in a post-Katrina flash, has become the first major city in which more than half of all public school students attend charter schools.

For these new schools with taxpayer funding and independent management, old rules and habits are out. No more standard hours, seniority, union contracts, shared curriculum or common textbooks. In are a crowd of newcomers -- critics call them opportunists -- seeking to lift standards and achievement. They compete for space, steal each other's top teachers and wonder how it is all going to work.

Some cities are moving in this direction, but none has ever moved so far, so fast. Three in every 10 D.C. public school students are in charters, a much larger percentage than in most cities. The New Orleans charter school penetration rate is much greater: 53 percent of the post-Katrina enrollment of 33,200 students, according to school officials. Before the hurricane, charters had about 2 percent of the city's 67,000 public students.

Many parents in the years since the storm have sought spaces in Roman Catholic and other private schools, but charters have become the most popular option because they are free. Charter leaders acknowledge that their schools must produce achievement gains or the experiment will flop.

Some critics call the charter invasion of New Orleans a challenge to democratic values. Writing about New Orleans in a new book, Leigh Dingerson, education team leader for the Center for Community Change in the District, says Louisiana school authorities have "opened a flea market of entrepreneurial opportunism that is dismantling the institution of public education in New Orleans."

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