Katrina Reform (Cause/Effect Paper)

Here you go mom, this is the tentative Final Draft of my paper.




Hurricane Katrina: The Educational Clean Slate


The physical scars of Hurricane Katrina are still evident in New Orleans. The widespread destruction of homes and property is only a small fraction of the devastation. The public school system itself, already laboring under the stresses of low income neighborhoods, corruption at high levels, and a lack of funding, was nearly irrevocably destroyed. However, even as the damaged areas are rebuilding, the blank slate left in Katrina’s wake has afforded educational reformers an opportunity to rework the basic idea of schooling. After years of being ranked as one of the poorest districts in the country, New Orleans public schools now have the opportunity to advance alternative methods of education. In effect, the destruction Katrina caused is now an opportunity to determine if charter Schools and magnet education will prove successful.

In an educational system that was previously ranked one of the lowest in the state and that was riddled with felony fraud convictions in 2006, New Orleans seemed to have given up on education (Tillotson 1). This was true especially in the poorer districts where the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) was “stripped of authority over all schools that were below state average on standardized tests” (Tillotson 1). The government instituted a new order in Katrina’s wake; it created the Recovery School District (RSD) which now offers a decentralized potluck of charter, magnet, and public schools (Maxwell 1). Many schools are now privately funded, or even backed by management corporations that fish for prospective students within the community. It is still questionable whether this “new paradigm of market based education” will cause a reemergence of social and poverty segregation that riddled the previous school system (Dingerson 9). Hopefully, the program will allow parents and students to make informed decisions about their educational needs. “In 2007, approximately 11 OPSB overseen Charter schools, 5 OPSB traditional schools, 18 RSD traditional schools, 19 RSD Charter schools and 2 Charters overseen by the State Board of Education will be the start of the changing New Orleans’ educational landscape” (Tillotson 2).

While the opportunities for education have evolved, it is questionable whether an emphasis on free market competition among providers is in fact best for the students and parents. Currently, there is no centralized database of choice for parents and without a “coordinated and honest broker of family information and an enforcement mechanism for discrimination, families will not be informed choosers, instead schools will do the choosing” (Tillotson 3). Charter and magnet schools function, theoretically, on the idea that “schools will respond to competitive pressures by reorienting their attention toward educational consumers” (Lubienski 1). Thus far, there is little progress in standardized test scores and New Orleans is still ranked as one of the lowest school districts in the state.

Before Katrina, educational options were mandated by wealth and location. Schools are now relying on the ‘educated consumer’ to fill the classrooms. Without a centralized system in place to monitor educational and admission standards “there is a lack of consistency in the quality across the schools” (Maxwell 3). While fourth and eighth graders in the RSD posted bigger gains in several categories than their peers statewide, the cities scores remain among the lowest in the nation (Maxwell 3). Do these small gains signify that the educational reforms are destined to work? Do they represent a new need to focus on consumer based educational opportunities and free market standards? Educators have been given a clean slate to answer these questions. New Orleans must wait out the next few years and see if the results and scores revolutionize schooling in general or succumb to the segregated and apathetic ways of its’ past. If schools rewrite educational standards based on market economy, then inevitably there will be successes tempered with utter failure. New Orleans has become an experimental staging area that could take decades to see the results.







Works Cited

Dingerson, Leigh. "Dismantling A Community Timeline." High School Journal 90.2 (Dec. 2006): 8-15.

Lubienski, Christopher. "Public Schools in Marketized Environments: Shifting Incentives and Unintended Consequences of Competition-Based Educational Reforms." American Journal of Education 111.4 (Aug. 2005): 464-486.

Maxwell, Lesli A. "As Year Ends, Questions Remain for New Orleans. (cover story)." Education Week 27.39 (04 June 2008): 1-13.

Tillotson, D. “What's Next for New Orleans?” The High School Journal v. 90 no. 2 (December 2006/January 2007) p. 69-74.