This morning, the journal Education Next posted a series of articles evaluating the results of the educational transformation in New Orleans, in which students have their choice of schools and the district helps ensure equity.
This passage may be the most important:
For New Orleans, the news on average student outcomes is quite positive by just about any measure. The reforms seem to have moved the average student up by 0.2 to 0.4 standard deviations and boosted rates of high school graduation and college entry. We are not aware of any other districts that have made such large improvements in such a short time.
The effects are also large compared with other completely different strategies for school improvement, such as class-size reduction and intensive preschool. This seems true even after we account for the higher costs. While it might seem hard to compare such different strategies, the heart of the larger school-reform debate is between systemic reforms like the portfolio model and resource-oriented strategies.
In short, that’s a big deal. It suggests a fundamental restructuring of the education system can yield exceptional results.
In the article, author Doug Harris of Tulane University notes the results of a decade of reforms since Hurricane Katrina might not easily be replicated elsewhere. For one thing, the New Orleans education system was so dysfunctional before the storm it “had nowhere to go but up.”
For another, the project of rebuilding from the storm drew large numbers of people eager to help the city. This has bolstered the supply of teachers.
It has also helped foment a culture in which entrepreneurial educators are eager to try new things – a kind of stone soup other communities might not easily make from scratch.
Yet, Harris writes, “[I]t would be a mistake to dismiss the relevance of the New Orleans experience for others. It is relevant precisely because it is so unusual.”
Critics might also note these results focus on student achievement measures. They do not address other issues, like local democratic control of the school system.
It’s worth looking at the other Ed Next articles, which found the education overhaul increased the variety of school available (in large part thanks to the existence of multiple governing institutions) and the OneApp enrollment system, which is intended to give all parents access to schools and to help ensure equity.
