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Before Katrina, New Orleans public schools were plagued by corruption, financial mismanagement, FBI probes, and poor academic performance. They were consistently among the worst schools in the state. For example, in 2005 Orleans Parish ranked 67 out of 68 Louisiana parishes for student achievement. 70% and 74% of 8th graders weren't proficient in Math or English, respectively. Furthermore, 77% of students were attending failing schools. This year New Orleans RSD schools were first in student growth, increasing 6 percentage points in the number of students meeting the state proficiency goal. From 2000 to 2013 New Orleans schools have closed the student performance gap from 26 percentage points to just 6 percentage points. Additionally, since the charter school revolution in New Orleans the number of students attending failing schools has fallen to 32% and ACT scores are improving faster than state and national scores. Lastly, the percentage of students who entered 9th grade together and graduated in 4 years, known as the cohort graduation rate, has increased from 57% in 2008 to 78% in 2012.
What has accounted for the success of charter schools? According to Veronica Brooks, Policy Director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools,“There is nothing magical about being a charter school. What is important are the innovations charters are focusing on.” One of the most important innovations is site-based autonomy. Mickey Landry, Executive Director of the Choice Foundation in New Orleans, says site-based autonomy is simply the ability to manage school operations on-site. For Brooks, site-based autonomy is “all about letting schools be autonomous yet accountable. It is less about input and more about outcome.” Specifically, it allows for control of the budget, meaning more freedom to make decisions about the allocation of resources. Additionally, site-based autonomy gives individual schools greater authority over the hiring and firing of teachers. With greater control of the budget, charter schools are able to apply resources to their most critical needs. For example, if the most critical need is infrastructure, a greater portion of the budget can go towards infrastructure. This contrasts greatly with traditional public school districts where schools are told what to do from a central office. Often, a central office may develop a Professional Development Plan containing initiatives like “Curb School Violence” and apply it to all schools, overlooking the diversity and differing needs among schools. It is a one-size-fits-all approach and often fails to address the unique needs of individual schools.
