CHARTERING A NEW COURSE: In New Orleans, education reform’s testing ground, nine out of ten students attend charter schools. How has this overwhelming shift towards charter impacted the success of New Orleans’ students, 85% of whom are eligible for free and reduced lunch?
In “The End of Neighborhood Schools,” NPR examines the effects of the city’s almost entirely charter districts, including the benefits and costs of an open admissions lottery, how much educators must teach to the test in a system heavily reliant on student scores, charges of “pushing out” disabled students to improve a school’s score and the importance of proximity to home in school choice. As co-CEO of New Schools for New Orleans Michael Stone told NPR, “We’re starting to see that ZIP code doesn’t equal destiny.”
