20 Years After Hurricane Katrina: What New Orleans Teaches America About K-12 School Reform

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall and began its destructive path through the Gulf Coast. New Orleans bore the brunt of the devastation, not only in the loss of homes and lives, but also in the destruction of its public infrastructure, especially its schools. Over the next two decades, the governance of New Orleans' K-12 public schools underwent a significant reinvention.

This effort produced one of the most innovative and ambitious approaches to K-12 school reform in modern American education: a system of public charter schools funded by taxpayers and independently operated as schools of choice. This reinvention of the New Orleans K-12 public school system sparked a nationwide conversation about public school governance, autonomy, school choice, and accountability.  

Now, with twenty years of evidence and the return of schools to a locally elected board, the question is no longer whether New Orleans succeeded or failed. What will U.S. K-12 public education learn from this unparalleled innovation to improve the lives of New Orleans' young people? While the New Orleans model was born of crisis, the lessons it offers extend well beyond The Big Easy.  

Tulane University economist Douglas Harris and his colleagues have led the effort to understand these lessons. Harris is the founding director of the University’s Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, whose reports serve as the primary sources of information for the discussion that follows. 

New Orleans Schools Before and After the Storm

In the years leading up to Katrina, New Orleans' public schools were among the most dysfunctional in the nation. The system was plagued by low academic achievement, administrative instability, financial mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure, and widespread mistrust. Around 62% of New Orleans’s students were enrolled in failing schools. The district operated under the shadow of federal indictments, and governance was synonymous with paralysis. Few believed meaningful reform could come from within.

When the hurricane struck and schools were closed, an unexpected opportunity arose. Louisiana’s state legislature passed Act 35, which allowed the state to take control of schools performing below the state average through a state entity called the Recovery School District. What followed was a complete reconstitution of New Orleans public schooling. The new system was based on three principles:

• School operating autonomy: School leaders were given authority to make decisions on hiring, budgeting, curriculum, and scheduling. Centralized mandates from state and local leaders were minimal.
• Performance-based accountability: Schools operated under renewable charters or performance contracts with specific academic and other benchmarks. Failure to meet these led to school closure or operator replacement.
• Family choice: No family would be assigned to a school based on their residential address. Families could choose a school anywhere in the district that they thought would meet their child's needs. Eventually, a centralized enrollment system called OneApp was developed to enhance access, making it more efficient, equitable, and transparent.

These principles fundamentally altered the relationship between schools and families. The Recovery School District did not operate schools. It authorized, monitored, and intervened in schools based on performance data. Between 2005 and 2014, the proportion of New Orleans charter schools increased from 16% to over 90%.

Improved Student Outcomes

Multiple studies by the Education Research Alliance (ERA) provide rigorous, quasi-experimental evidence on trends in improved student outcomes. Standardized test scores improved significantly in math and English language arts across all student subgroups. High school graduation rates increased. College enrollment rates also increased, especially among historically underrepresented groups.

These improvements were not due solely to changes in the students who attended public schools after Hurricane Katrina. Achievement gains persisted after accounting for displacement, population shifts, and student background variables. In the words of an ERA report, “…we have tested these alternative explanations and find that the school reforms caused the vast majority of the improved outcomes.”

Reunification With the Local School Board

By summer 2018, more than a decade after the initial state takeover, charter schools were returned to the oversight of the locally elected Orleans Parish School Board, a process called reunification. Schools retained their charter status through performance contracts and operational autonomy, while families continued to choose which school their child would attend. The local school board assumed responsibilities for oversight, enrollment systems, facilities management, and special education services. In essence, it became a regulator and coordinator, not an operator.

The ERA describes this governance model as a "new first"—a hybrid system that combines the decentralization of the charter era with the legitimacy and accountability of democratic local governance. However, the reunification introduced a new layer of complexity, as school board members have limited authority to influence curriculum, staffing, or instruction, areas traditionally at the heart of centralized school district governance.

Enduring Challenges

Despite many positive outcomes, the New Orleans innovation has not been without criticism, with reunification reinforcing earlier challenges, which include:

• Enrollment and access: Early years of the reform were marked by fragmented admissions systems and inconsistent special education services. While OneApp helped standardize access, barriers remain for some high-needs students, though funding incentives exist that offer schools more money for educating these students.
• Local oversight: The Recovery School District operated independently of local electoral control. The 2018 reunification with the elected Orleans Parish School Board restored local oversight. Similar to other school districts with charter schools, tension exists between school board members, who seek to shape district priorities, and charter operators, who retain day-to-day control of the schools.
• Community trust: The mass dismissal of teachers and the rapid restructuring fostered long-standing skepticism among residents. Many stakeholders reported feeling excluded from the reform process.
• Service delivery: A decentralized system of charter schools with operational autonomy raises questions about cost-effectiveness and efficiency when providing services like transportation that all schools must provide. Conversely, some financial inefficiencies may be worthwhile if student outcomes improve significantly.
• Teacher workforce: A persistent problem has been an insufficient supply of teachers, due to some factors that are unique to New Orleans but also to other factors common to many urban school districts.  

Lessons for the Nation

New Orleans offers more than a policy case study. It is a mirror for the country’s ongoing debates about K-12 public school reform. Here are four lessons for policymakers and other stakeholders navigating those debates.  

Autonomy must include accountability. Granting schools autonomy to operate leads to improved outcomes, but only when accompanied by meaningful accountability. Operational freedom requires clear performance standards and tangible consequences, accompanied by robust public oversight and accountability. States or districts considering similar models must invest in transparent performance frameworks and enforcement mechanisms. School authorizers must have the capacity and political support to enforce accountability, including the closure or restructuring of underperforming schools.

School choice requires new infrastructure and equity protections. While giving families school options can break the monopoly of geography and stimulate improvement, it also introduces complexity. New organizations were established to create schools and assist families with their school and program choices—for example, New Schools for New Orleans, EdNavigatator, and YouthForce NOLA. New systems were also introduced, such as OneApp, to help equalize access to schools. Additionally, transparency and fairness in other areas, such as school discipline and student services, were crucial for ensuring equitable access.

Governance matters and can change. The shift from a failed traditional K-12 bureaucracy to a decentralized system of independent schools of choice brought results. However, the return to local control highlights that long-term legitimacy ultimately depends on democratic governance. Creating clarity of roles between school authorizers, operators, and elected boards is vital to effective oversight. Cities seeking to replicate New Orleans' success must carefully consider how to strike a balance between innovation and civic accountability.

Questioning conventional K-12 reform taglines. There are many maxims that K-12 stakeholders voice that go unchallenged. Let’s take this one: sustainable reform depends on community involvement and stakeholder buy-in. One lesson that New Orleans may well teach us is that in the long run, community and stakeholder buy-in is essential. However, in the short term, it may be more important to proceed with a well-developed plan that has clear goals for student success, even in the face of opposition. This plan should incorporate stakeholder feedback that facilitates continuous improvement and informed policy adjustments. Effective reform is not only about policy design, but also about the process of engaging stakeholders and acknowledging trade-offs.

Looking Ahead

The story of New Orleans is not a blueprint to be copied wholesale. It is a story about what happens when K-12 school governance is rebuilt from the ground up. As other cities confront educational stagnation, demographic shifts, and calls to deliver results, they would do well to look south to New Orleans, the city forced to start over and do things differently.