THE SILICON VALLEY OF SCHOOL REFORM BY D OU GL AS N. HARRI S P ROF E S S OR AND DEPART M ENT CH AIR OF ECON OMICS S C HL I E D E R FO U NDAT I O N C HAI R IN PUBLIC E DUCATION D IR ECTOR O F T HE ED U C AT I O N RE S E ARCH ALLIAN CE FOR N E W ORLE AN S
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ulane University is fortunate to be located in its unique home of New Orleans. Really, it is difficult to imagine the university being anywhere else. The city shapes the university, and the university shapes the city. Nowhere is that relationship closer than with New Orleans public schools. Before Hurricane Katrina, the public school system was like just about every other system across the country: a locally-elected board governed the schools, teachers were unionized and had tenure, and students mostly went to schools in their own neighborhoods. After the storm, that old way disappeared. The state took over governance of almost all schools and turned them into charter schools, run by private non-profits. New Orleans Public Schools regained local control in 2019, but this was not a return to the past. Rather, New Orleans is now the only all-charter school district in the country. Tulane was involved in these reforms from the beginning. After the storm, then-Tulane president Scott Cowen led the mayor-appointed committee that solicited community input and made recommendations, and he continues to lead the Cowen Institute at Tulane in monitoring and analyzing progress and developing innovative programs. Expanding on these efforts, the university recruited me to come to Tulane to found the Education Research Alliance (ERA) for New Orleans. In 2014, we started by forming our advisory board, which is comprised of local education leaders with widely varying views about the reforms—from teacher unions to the state department of education. However, these groups all agree on one thing: the school reform debate 16 | TUL A NE SCHOO L O F LIBER A L A RTS M AG A ZIN E
should be informed by objective, rigorous, and useful evidence. What have we found in our studies? Schools are complicated places with multifaceted goals. But there have been some productive outcomes in the 14 years since the reforms started: • The New Orleans school reforms significantly increased commonly-measured student outcomes: the average student in New Orleans moved from the 22nd percentile nationally to the 37th percentile, while high school graduation rates, college entry, and college graduation increased by 10-30 percent each. • The reforms reduced almost every type of achievement gap by race, income, and special education status. • Most parents of children attending the new schools, as well as voters, generally believe the reforms improved schools. However, not all developments have been so positive: • While student performance has improved compared with the pre-reform era, it is hard to celebrate being at the 37th percentile nationally. • Our surveys of students suggest that the quality of teaching in New Orleans schools is also below the national average. This may be related to the relatively low levels of teacher experience and certification and high turnover. • The reforms shifted funds out of the classroom to cover increased costs of administration and transportation. And perhaps most importantly, the process of creating the reforms left out New Orleans’ local, mostly African American community. The
