Educational Trek at New Orleans Charter School System

I have never been to New Orleans before, so this trek was a really great opportunity for me to not only learn about different educational organization in New Orleans, but also experience a unique culture in the city. New Orleans is an interesting place to visit regarding education because of its structure which had been changed radically after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A majority of schools in the cities was destroyed by the hurricane, but instead of rebuilding every school to be in the same conditions as they were before the hurricane, the city and The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) used this opportunity to create an entire new school system which based on the charter school model in order to progressively improve the education system in New Orleans. Because of this vision, most schools in New Orleans are currently charter schools and a majority of students enroll in charter schools. Specifically, only 6 out of more than 80 schools in New Orleans remains traditional public schools. This allowed us to study the possibility of creating the entire education system based on charter schools. The result was incredible which leaded Arne Duncan, the Education Secretary, to call Hurricane Katrina “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.”

Holy Cross High School, a catholic private school in New Orleans

However, New Orleans’ education system would not survive simply by the government itself. It required the whole ecosystem of the government, various non-profit organizations, and individual school boards to make this radical change to become successful. During this trek, we visited several non-profit organizations that helped the system, Recovery School District, which is a government entity to oversee the progress and two different schools: Lusher Charter School (one of the top charter school) and Holy Cross High School (a catholic private school). One of my favorite places during the visit was Recovery School District. Dana Peterson, the deputy superintendent, gave a nice overview of the state of New Orleans’ education system and what is the role for the government in this process. One thing that I learned from him was three equally-important parts for creating a successful charter school system which was getting rid of low achieving schools, strong accountability system, and centralized enrollment system.

Another place that I really like during the visit was a Lusher Charter School. After listening to the overview about the school and asking questions about the school in general, we had a chance to visit the classroom which subject is related to our interests. Personally, I got a chance to visit an honor Calculus class for seniors with a teacher who graduated from Brown University with a math major. Even though we only had fifteen minutes to observe the classroom, I could feel lots of passion and enthusiasm coming from the teacher and lots of energy and curiosity coming from students. Honestly, before going to this trek, I have not thought about becoming a science teacher in high school since I do not think I have an ability to control and manage the classroom. However after this visit, I think that becoming a high school teacher in physics might be one possible path for me. I love the energy I experienced in the classroom.

Mississippi River, New Orleans

Even though the education system has been improved drastically in the last couple years in New Orleans, it is still a long way to go before we can provide a great education for every student in the city. It will require a lot of innovation and discussion about education to further improve the quality of education in the city. For example, there is an issue between "Schools pick Students" and "Students pick Schools" model that we have not settled yet. Many people, including Recovery School District, believe that "Students pick School" model will promote an equality in all schools and help all students to receive a great education. But, Mr. Peterson also mentioned that "One App" enrollment method will be successful if and only if every school in the district joins in the program. However, as we saw from Lusher Charter School and Holy Cross School, one factor that made these two schools successful is selective enrollment. This allowed gifted and highly engaged students to learn much more than regular schools by offering teachers a chance to present more advanced topics to students. Therefore, it will be difficult to convince these schools to join "One App." This debate will remain essential for coming years for the next innovation in education both in New Orleans and elsewhere.