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Katrina gives schools fresh slate

The old regime in New Orleans is swept aside after decades of neglect and corruption.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published November 29, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - When Hurricane Katrina blasted ashore three months ago, nothing much changed at O. Perry Walker High School.

The place had looked for years like a hurricane just hit it.

A toilet shot water 5 feet in the air when flushed. A mound of chairs, desks, boxes and debris cluttered one campus corner. In a courtyard, four barrel-sized hazardous waste containers stood alongside broken urinals filled with vials, mud and trash.

Fifty members of the National Guard arrived on the campus on New Orleans' west bank in late September with a supply of trash bags and orders to perform hurricane cleanup. What they found was a school suffering from the wrath of an enemy fiercer than Category 4 winds, one many say has been destroying Orleans Parish schools for decades:

"Neglect," said Lt. Phuc Tran of the California National Guard. "Severe neglect."

Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters took homes, cars and lives. But the storm gave something, too. To a school system bowed for decades by political infighting, corruption, racism, fiscal neglect and poverty, Katrina provided the chance to start over.

The old regime still clings to some power, but things are changing, and fast.

More than a hurricane

Micah McKee, 21, is a teacher in training. He is a product of two of the best schools Orleans Parish has to offer, but he aspires to teach in the worst.

McKee is generally optimistic about New Orleans' future. But ask him about the schools and his skepticism starts to peek through.

"It's going to take more than a hurricane," he said, "to wipe out corruption in the school district."

The scandals had stacked up.

Mismanagement and fraud were so egregious that Louisiana this year forced the school district to hire an outside firm to oversee its finances.

The bookkeeping was so bad pre-Katrina that the school district is still trying to figure out how many properties it owns for insurance claims. Is it 126? 157? 200?

Most of New Orleans' 117 public schools are considered academically unacceptable by the state because of low student test scores. More than half of the district's children attended those schools.

"We cannot be the same school district we were. No way," said interim schools superintendent Ora Watson. "Even I know that."

On Monday, Orleans Parish reopened its first traditional public school since the storm hit, becoming the last district in the hurricane-ravaged areas to do so.

Now the question is what kind of school district Orleans Parish should become.

The mayor has a committee looking into it. So does the governor. The state Legislature has weighed in. Parents who want to see their children return home are speaking up. Some who found better school districts elsewhere say they wonder why they didn't leave sooner.

This much is clear: The elected School Board is losing out.

Struggling for control

By mid October, two months after the storm hit, parts of New Orleans were showing signs of progress. Grocery stores, coffee shops, diners and even shoe stores were operating in the more habitable areas of the city.

Catholic schools opened some of their campuses. But no public schools reopened until Monday, when Benjamin Franklin Elementary, a magnet school in a relatively unscathed area, welcomed students back. Only about one-third of the 390 children enrolled pre-Katrina showed up. Many of the remaining 116 schools remain boarded and chained.

"The Orleans Parish School Board and system was broke," said Louisiana Sen. Ann Duplessis. "The bottom line is they can't do it and they need help."

Only about 4,000 of the district's 60,000 students are expected to return this school year. Many have moved elsewhere, to Baton Rouge, Houston and towns along Florida's Panhandle. As of mid October, more than 20,000 Katrina-affected students in Louisiana were still unaccounted for, not reported to be enrolled anywhere.

To lure students back, some in New Orleans would like to see the public schools turned into charter schools - public institutions managed by a university, private group or other organization. The arrangement allows the school to hire teachers outside the constraints of union contracts or district rules. It can also bring in additional, nonpublic funding.

In something of a surprise, School Board members last month told several west bank schools they could reopen as charters. But a judge blocked the move after she determined they had acted without sufficient public input.

Carol Christen, the principal at Ben Franklin High School on the once-flooded campus of the University of New Orleans, was among those pushing for charter status. She saw it as the only way her east bank school could open earlier than the district's declared goal of fall 2006.

"It was either do that or not open it," Christen said of the magnet school, one of the district's academic stars. To delay opening, she said, "means the death of Franklin" because teachers need jobs, upper-level students need college guidance and next year's incoming freshmen need to be tested for acceptance.

Watson, the superintendent, is cautious about the role of charters and dismissive of efforts to reduce the influence of the School Board.

"People think anything is better than what was," she said. "That's not the truth. Sometimes you can get something different that ends up being the same thing."

But leaders from state Superintendent Cecil Picard to Gov. Kathleen Blanco are calling for drastic remedies, including a reduction in School Board control.

"In all the places I've been all over the world, I've never seen anything like what I've seen here," said Sgt. 1st Class John Hanson, one of the National Guard members who helped clean the O. Perry Walker campus. "That actual American kids were treated like this. ... If I found a barracks in this condition, everyone who's in charge of this place would be fired."

Scaled-back role

Two weeks ago, state legislators successfully wrested most Orleans Parish schools from School Board control.

The School Board meanwhile changed its mind about when to reopen the first schools, moving the date up by several months. And after the judge lifted the restraining order, the board approved 20 schools to open as independent charters partnered with universities, businesses or other organizations.

That means the School Board that before Katrina oversaw more than 100 campuses, 60,000 students and 7,000 employees now has full control of only about 12 schools.

Scott Cowan, president of Tulane University and chairman of the education subcommittee of the mayor's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, said the scaled-back role is appropriate, at least for now.

"You can't really blame the School Board or the administration," he said. "This has been a gradual decay."

--Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. It includes information from the Associated Press and the Times-Picayune.

[Last modified November 29, 2005, 02:15:28]