Giving Compass' Take:

•  Jessica Campisi, writing for Education Dive, discusses the progress of New Orleans' public schools as they utilize charter networks as well as help from other local organizations that joined The Recovery School District effort. 

• How can other struggling school districts replicate the efforts of New Orleans? 

• Read more about New Orleans school district recovery. 

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, it took many years to replace what vanished. The city had learned its lesson from the hurricane the hard way, but officials used its widespread devastation to construct better buildings and systems that were as good and as strong as they should have been in the first place.

But when the storm raged through, taking most of New Orleans’s schools with it, “there was no place to go but up,” she said.

“It literally shut down a city, which therefore shut down a school system,” Roemer said. “And it gave us an opportunity to really rethink how we were delivering education to New Orleans families and their children."

Thirteen years later, the system is barely recognizable. The Recovery School District (RSD), a state entity created in 2003, swept in after Katrina and brought New Orleans’ underperforming schools under its wing, aiming to turn them around and “deliver on a promise to give quality education to all New Orleans kids,” said Patrick Dobard, CEO of nonprofit New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO).

To do that, educators decided to experiment with a new idea: charter schools. “Charter schools became a vehicle for change, because it was something that could quickly develop, but it also offered the opportunity to make decisions as close to classrooms as possible.”

For several years, the RSD governed most of the schools in New Orleans, running as a traditional school district while authorizing the autonomous schools that met its uniform accountability and equity standards — and cracking down on those that didn’t.

At the same time, other local entities joined the effort: Organizations like the NSNO and LAPCS stepped in to support the districts, advocate for school choice policies, and help fill in the gaps.

Read the full article about New Orleans school districts by Jessica Campisi at Education Dive