Hurricane Katrina Saves New Orleans Schools

File this one under "someone had to say it, I just didn't think it would be the New York Times." In an astonishing editorial on October 15^th, the New York Times explains how to save a failing school system.

Before Hurricane Katrina, more than 60 percent of children in New Orleans attended a failing school. Now, only about 18 percent do.

Five years ago, less than a quarter of the children in a special district set up by the state to manage the lowest performing schools scored at or above the "basic" level on state tests. Now, nearly half do.

Anyone who pays any attention to the school reform debate will recognize this as an impressive turnaround. School reform is something that policy makers have chased after for decades, mostly without result. It is not unusual to hear a story about a single school or a few schools rebounding, but effective reform over an entire urban system is rather rare. So what was the secret? The Times tells us:

There are three important things to consider about the New Orleans experience: Many of the structural changes occurred because the hurricane essentially destroyed the old system, allowing the city to begin fresh. Charter schools, while a foundation of the system now, did not by themselves improve achievement. And finally, New Orleans has done the hard work of changing the school culture while embracing new instructional methods.

The Times singles out three "important things to consider". It concedes what is glaringly obvious: Hurricane Katrina is the only thing that made reform possible by destroying the existing school system. Neither of the other factors would have been possible without the Hurricane. The Times is careful to warn us that Charter schools "did not by themselves improve achievement" while implicitly acknowledging that they did in fact improve achievement. Finally, New Orleans did take advantage of the opportunity, which is saying a lot.

Why did it take a once in a century storm to make school reform possible? The Times, to its credit, doesn't bury the truth.

By the time of the storm, the state and the city were fully intent on strengthening the teaching corps. With its schools empty, New Orleans took the extraordinary step of laying off the entire teaching force, requiring basic skills tests for those who wished to return to their jobs. By some estimates, only about 20 percent of the original force returned to work.

Katrina gave the city an unprecedented chance to do what it wanted to do: get a better staff of teachers. We cannot assume that 80% of the old staff couldn't pass the basic skills test. A lot of folks left for good. Nonetheless, only one out of five teachers in place before the storm did return and pass the test. Apparently, the old school system was carrying a lot of incompetent teachers. Why? The Times gives us what is surely the most important answer to that question.

Meanwhile, schools that had been failing for years came under the control of the Recovery School District, a state entity that opted out of collective bargaining agreements with teachers' unions. The district, which now oversees an overwhelming majority of the city's schools, streamlined the central bureaucracy, and pushed money and policy authority down to the school building level. It also recruited new talent from around the country, making New Orleans a magnet for young school leaders.

The biggest pre-Katrina obstacle to effective reform in New Orleans was the teacher's unions. The teacher's unions would have worked vociferously to protect the now missing 80% of teachers and otherwise block any effective change. The unions would also have pulled out all stops to protect the "central bureaucracy". Katrina swept that obstacle away, making reform possible.

The Times goes on to grudgingly acknowledge the role that Charter schools are playing in the reform while explaining carefully that Charter schools "are often no better than traditional schools, and are frequently worse." The Times loathes the very idea of Charter schools. But the evidence in this case cannot be denied.

This is, as I say, an astonishing editorial. It acknowledges implicitly what conservatives have argued for a long time: that public unions in general and teacher's unions in particular, are formidable obstacles to reform.

This is not irrelevant to the attempts by governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to break the power of public unions in their respective states. Unfortunately, most states cannot count on a hurricane. They have to depend on political storms. One can only hope that more of those are on the horizon.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

Reminds me of the history of the Great Fire of London. Or for that matter, some of the paintings and poems I've started. Sometimes the best thing to do is just start over. Actually, I think Jefferson made that suggestion about our Constitution. It should be reconsidered with each new generation (every 20 years or so.)

[Donald Pay]

The problem is the population of students changed. It is a statistical artifact, not a real change.

[Ken Blanchard]

That's right Donald. No contrary evidence is ever real. Go to sleep.

[Jimi]

Donald,

"The problem is the population of students changed."

O.K. Fine....but that still supports the point of the post. the point is that it took and act of god to ensure less students so that structural change could happend. On that note, the secondary point being.....how many other areas are going to have the opportunity to have structual change, which is most certainly needed to fix the education system, without a Hurricane?

[Donald Pay]

KB,

There are so many changed variables pre- and post-Katrina that focusing on one of those changes and attributing all the change to that one variable is more like faith than science. The biggest change is that much of the low income population has not moved back.

Jimi,

It is wrong to attribute the devastation in New Orleans as "an act of God." Much of the devastation resulted from environmental changes attributable to humans.

[duggersd]

Donald, do you mean like broken levees?

[Donald Pay]

Let's look at one variable KB doesn't see fit to mention:

"While the Orleans Parish district spent $7,877 per student in the last full school year before Hurricane Katrina, the state-run Recovery School District, which runs more of the city's schools than any other single entity, will spend, conservatively, about $12,900 per student this school year -- not including many disaster-related expenses. That's an increase of 65 percent."

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/recovery_school_district_incre.html

So, if you put lots more money into schools, you get better results. Kind of cuts against the arguments of conservatives, doesn't it? These charter schools are spending quite a bit more than the schools were spending before Katrina. Money buys better books and equipment and better teachers. If conservatives are willing to pay teachers almost double, then they probably don't need unions. Is that what you're suggesting, KB?

[Jimi]

Donals,

"Much of the devastation resulted from environmental changes attributable to humans."

This makes me giggle! If I thought you were serious, I could hammer this idiocy into dark corner, but since you are not....Thanks for the laugh!

[Donald Pay]

Jimi,

Anyone paying attention to the environmental problems of our rivers and estuaries or the engineering problems of the Missouri and Mississippi River, which are interrelated, wouldn't be giggling. The laughter of ignorance is the laughter of a fool.