Twenty years ago today, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, destroying much of the city’s public school system and forcing most of the city’s 455,000 residents to flee as levees failed, sending torrents of water through neighborhoods. In the years that followed, New Orleans became the site of an unprecedented education experiment as the city’s 65,000-student school system evolved into the nation’s first district-wide system of independent public charter schools.
In a new FutureEd report, Education Lessons from New Orleans, Two Decades After Katrina, FutureEd Director Thomas Toch and writer Erik Robelen draw on two decades of research into the New Orleans experience to explain the consequences of citywide competition for students, the challenges it presented, and how Louisiana education leaders addressed them. The New Orleans story offers valuable insights for today’s education policymakers facing declining student achievement and a rapid expansion of school choice.
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Other Recent Work
explainer
K-12 Public School Enrollment Declines, Explained
Public school enrollment is declining nationwide and is expected to keep falling. But the enrollment story is complicated—trends vary widely by race, grade level, and geography. FutureEd Policy Analyst Tara Moon examines the drivers of the decline, the nuances in the numbers, and what they mean for schools.
Commentary
What States Can Teach Us About Trump’s New Federal School Choice Program
The Trump administration’s new federal tax-credit scholarship program comes as states have rapidly expanded their own private school choice initiatives. In a piece for The 74, Toch and Senior Policy Analyst Bella DiMarco draw on those state experiences to highlight lessons about costs, equity, and oversight that federal policymakers should heed as they design and implement the program.
Commentary
To Improve Schools, Let’s Build a New System for Measuring Them
Public school performance needs a measurement system that reflects what truly matters, not just test scores. In this FutureEd commentary for Education Week, Van Schoales makes the case for a new, research-based model that emphasizes measures of student learning growth, school climate, advanced course work and more.
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Higher Education
By the Numbers
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15%
Projected decline in international student enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities this fall
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$7 billion
Estimated loss to the U.S. economy from the decline
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The latest leadership changes in the education sector
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Carolyne Quintana, former deputy chancellor for teaching and learning at New York City Public Schools, has been appointed chief executive officer at Teaching Matters.
Patrick Sims has been promoted from senior director of policy and programs to vice president of policy and programs at PIE Network.
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