by the Way . . .

Prior to Katrina, the New Orleans school system was considered to be one of the worst in the country, nearly bankrupt and fraught with corruption, bad management, and poor academic results. Officials now report that over 99% of the problems have been eliminated. Further, notwithstanding the reduction in school employees from over 7,000 to 61, the administration has managed to open one public school already. And further again, since many of the school buildings suffered little or no damage, the administration has generously allowed citizens to band together on their own to open charter schools where the public schools used to be. Most of the teachers and administrators of the new charter schools are the same ones that were previously with the public schools, and many are working without pay.

Meanwhile, the top school officials have not been idle. Mayor Nagin has formed an education committee which is cautioning against having too many charter schools. The committee's web site notes that it "is not focusing on a short-term solution to the issues that the Orleans Parish school system currently faces. We are focusing on developing a plan for the long term". At a higher level, the state has taken over 102 of the 117 schools that underperformed state standards before the storm (no current performance statistics are available because there is no current performance). According to the NYT the state is expected to announce some plan for these schools sometime in the next 6 months.