Katrina's 'silver lining': a chance to overhaul schools
Associated Press, March 19, 2006

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NEW ORLEANS -- The slimy mildew clinging to classroom walls for years, the termite-eaten floors, the paint peeling from school ceilings - Hurricane Katrina washed all of that away.
The storm that destroyed much of this city also devastated the New Orleans public schools.

But that wasn't all bad.

The system, regarded as one of the worst in the nation, had been rotting for decades. Buildings were neglected. Students weren't learning. Millions of dollars was squandered or stolen.

Now, six months after Katrina, few schools have reopened, but many people see the storm's destruction as a unique opportunity to rebuild a system that had no place to go but up.

"This is the silver lining in the dark cloud of Katrina," says Sajan George, a turnaround expert who began working at the schools before the storm. "We would not have been able to start with an almost clean slate if Katrina had not happened. So it really does represent an incredible opportunity."

But how does a school system reinvent itself in a city when money is scarce and misery plentiful? Boldly.

That's what some educators are proposing with a plan that calls for a major shake-up. Schools would be grouped in clusters run by managers. Students would have choices about where they would attend. Also, most money and hiring decisions would shift from the superintendent's office to the principals, who are considered more attuned to their schools' needs.

"We have to have a whole new mind-set about how we approach public education," says Scott Cowen, president of Tulane University and head of a mayoral committee that developed the plan. "If we can get our heads around true transformation, we can turn it around."

But change won't come easily.

There's a long history here of squabbling among board members, scandal and academic failure. And that was before Katrina. Now there are new headaches. Thousands of teachers have no jobs. Parents are frustrated with the slow pace of school reopenings. Insiders are openly skeptical of plans for the future.

"I don't think you turn around a failing system by changing the structure of the system," says Ora Watson, interim superintendent of the New Orleans public schools.

Watson also says she feels not everyone is being heard.

"Some people are being left out of the conversation," she says. "I'm talking about poor people, people who populated the schools, the African-American community."

The Bring New Orleans Back Education Committee that developed the plan says it consulted a diverse group of more than 1,500 people from New Orleans, including teachers, parents and students, along with experts around the nation, and is committed to creating top-quality schools in every neighborhood.

The Orleans Parish school board has endorsed the plan.

It has been no secret that something had to be done to fix a system so mismanaged that budgets had not been balanced in five years, teachers often received inaccurate paychecks and corruption was endemic.

The system was on the brink of financial collapse when Katrina roared in, severely damaging about a quarter of the schools. Roofs caved in. Fierce winds blew out walls and hurled desks through windows. Floodwaters inundated about 300 buses.

Total losses could reach as high as $1 billion.

Federal dollars will go a long way toward rebuilding, but the schools still face a projected $111 million deficit by June.

Also, the traditional streams of school dollars - property and sales taxes - have shrunk drastically because some neighborhoods still look like post-apocalyptic burial grounds and many businesses remain shuttered.

Yet schools will be a major barometer of New Orleans' success in luring families back home.

"As long as we don't replicate what we had before, I think schools can be a magnet" in repopulating the city, says Jim Brandt, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, a think tank.

George, a managing director of Alvarez & Marsal, the turnaround firm hired to help the schools, agrees. "There is something symbolic about physically opening a school that encourages people to come back," he says.

It took three months for the first regular public school to reopen. Now, 20 schools are holding classes, with about 9,500 students - slightly more than 15 percent of some 60,000 enrolled before the storm. Three more schools may open in April.

Some parents grumble that's not enough, but caution makes sense, says Bill Roberti, another Alvarez & Marsal managing director. "Do you rush and open them the way they were," he asks, "or do you take the time and try to fix them?"

Explaining who's in charge of the schools these days requires a scorecard and some background.

Katrina prompted two drastic changes that have turned the old Orleans Parish school system into a shadow of its former self:

Last fall, the state was given authority to take control of about 90 percent of the city's public schools, those considered "failing" because they fall below a state average based on test scores, dropout rates and attendance.

A handful of schools had been taken over before the storm. Now, 112 of 128 that were in the Orleans Parish system are part of a state-administered "school recovery district" and will remain that way for five years.

The second big shift occurred when some educators - led by a school board member - split off 13 schools in the Algiers area on the less-damaged west bank of the Mississippi River and had them designated as charter schools.

Charter schools have their own boards, so they can design their own schedules and curriculum and choose their own principals and teachers.

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