A New Best Practice? Bardach Would Be Skeptical

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran a profile of John White, superintendent of the New Orleans public school system. The article mentioned the successes and failures of the district’s attempt to create an all-charter school system. The early results of the program are mixed:

The results are encouraging. Five years ago, 23% of children scored at or above "basic" on state tests; now 48% do. Before Katrina, 62% attended failing schools; less than a fifth do today. The gap between city kids and the rest of the state is narrowing.

But New Orleans schools still have a ways to go. A state report this week based on scores, graduation rates and attendance records said the majority of the city's schools merited a D grade or worse.

But the article also brings about another important question: does this have any relevance to the rest of the country?

… [White] heads the Recovery School District, which includes most schools in New Orleans and surrounding areas, and has broad powers over them. Hurricane Katrina wiped out resistance from politicians and unions and improbably made the Big Easy a national laboratory of educational reform.

Four out of five kids in New Orleans attend independent public charters. The schools under Mr. White's supervision are open to all students no matter where they live. "In other cities, charter schools exist in spite of the system," Mr. White says. "Here charter schools are the system."

White freely admits that reform in New Orleans has primarily happened after Hurricane Katrina, which left the city with very little public education infrastructure. On top of that, White himself is any enthusiastic reformer who came to New Orleans to change the school system after working with charter schools and Teach for America elsewhere in the country.

It will be interesting to see whether this reform can serve as a useful “best practice” for other districts. As we’ve seen in class, pilot program results can often be deceiving. These programs are often tailored to their environment – this case is a rather extreme example – and may not apply elsewhere. The existence of a dedicated official like White can also impact a program. He helped develop the program he is implementing; superintendents who are required to enact reform may not bring the same enthusiasm to their work.

Still, New Orleans has inspired reform programs in Detroit and Tennessee. The WSJ stated that “By 2013, New Orleans plans to have the country’s first “all charter” school system” – leaving the possibility that other districts may follow.

The rest of the article, including an interesting complaint by the Southern Poverty Law Center about the impact of charter schools on special-needs children, is located here.