20 years after Katrina, New Orleans schools are still ‘a work in progress’

When charter schools began replacing public schools in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary was one of the city’s holdouts. In his book, Charter School City, Harris says deteriorating social and economic conditions played a role, but the school system was also at fault. “If you close low-performing schools, students end up in better schools and they do better,” Harris says. Photo by La’Shance Perry / The LensIn recent years, New Orleans’ school board has closed an average of about two charter schools a year. Zervigón points out that charter schools in New Orleans are more closely regulated than they were in the beginning, and they have far fewer freedoms than charter schools elsewhere.