Charter Schools in New Orleans

It is possible that one day all students in New Orleans will receive a high quality education. Currently, more than half the students enrolled in public schools in New Orleans attend charter schools. Post-Katrina, the city boasts a higher proportion of charter schools than any other urban area in the country. What’s different about a charter school? They’re operated by independent boards, they offer more flexibility and authority to school leaders, and most provide equal access to any student in the parish who wants to attend.  Being a charter school does not ensure that a school is high quality, but the autonomy provided by charter schools within the context of a strong state accountability framework that transfers governance of underperforming schools to a different organization provides the necessary environment that can lead to high quality schools across the city.

New Orleans Charter Middle School founders Jay Altman and Dr. Tony Recasner created the first charter school in the city. “ We were given a wonderful opportunity to do something unique,” recalls Recasner, “but we wanted to make sure that, as we expanded the notion of what a charter school could be, we were not doing it in a way that was so unique it wasn’t doable by others.”

Altman adds: “New Orleans has a rare opportunity post-Katrina to do decentralized urban school reform at scale. Over the last three years, we’re closing the achievement gap. Louisiana is the only state where the gap between African-Americans and the rest of the population is closing, and New Orleans is helping to drive this.”

In fact, from 2005-2009, test scores in New Orleans have gone up by more than 20%, and the gap has begun to close between students in New Orleans and the rest of the state.  Whether these gains can continue will be a real test of whether charter schools at scale in an urban area, operating within a strong accountability framework such as Louisiana's, can provide students with a much higher quality of education than they received before.

FirstLine Schools is committed to supporting great schools for all young people in the city of New Orleans.  FirstLine aims to expand its network with an additional 2-4 schools  in the next few years, and it will continue to partner with like-minded organizations to develop training programs targeting key leverage areas for urban school improvement.

FirstLine Network

• Mission & Vision
• The FirstLine Community
• History
• Charter Schools in New Orleans
• Samuel J. Green Charter School
• Arthur Ashe Charter School
• John Dibert Community School