Katrina Leads To Charter School Boom
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BELLE CHASSE, La. – The charter school movement, already bolstered after Hurricane Katrina devastated public schools in and around New Orleans, got another boost yesterday: Federal officials announced a $23.9 million grant to create new charter schools in the state.
Charter schools get public money but have greater freedom than most public schools in budgets, hiring and purchasing. They can be opened by nonprofit groups, churches, universities, community centers, parents, groups of teachers, and school districts.
At the start of the 2005-06 school year, just before Katrina hit, only four of New Orleans’s 128 public schools were charter schools. Now, 18 of the 25 public schools operating or are preparing to open are charter schools.
“Charter schools were not something that New Orleans or Louisiana was very high on prior to Katrina,” the founder of the Center for Education Reform, Jeanne Allen, said. “New Orleans is such a great example of what you can do if you start over.”
Widespread hurricane destruction and the New Orleans School Board’s inability to reopen schools rapidly gave new impetus to the movement.
