Warren Easton High School on Canal Street, ca. 1910
The best place to kick off some more-or-less regular blogging about schools in metro New Orleans is to outline the current structure of the system in the city.
Louisiana organizes "school districts" by parish, so the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) is a state-chartered entity that derives its authority from the state's constitution. The school year had not started for the district at the time of the storm, but they expected about 65,000 students. Things had sunk so badly for the district that OPSB was forced by their critics to hire a "turnaround consulting" firm to work with the worst of the schools. Many in the state were ready to wrest control of a number of the worst-performing schools from the board.
(continued below the fold)
Hurricane Katrina changed all that, literally washing away the district's poor performance along with its infrastructure. In the wake of the storm, the state legislature formed the Recovery School District (RSD), placing control of 70 school there. OPSB maintained control of 16 schools, and two charter schools are under the direct control of the state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).
Of the 70 schools under RSD control, 33 are run directy by the district (11,900 students), and 37 are operated by independent, non-profit boards chartered by RSD. Those charter schools enroll 14,800 students.
OPSB's runs four schools dirctly with 2,800 students and 12 charters with 7,600 students.
The two state-run charters enroll 900 students.
Since 2006, public school enrollment in Orleans Parish has grown from 25,651 in 2006 to 38,051 last year.
Ninety percent of students enrolled in Orleans Parish public schools are African-American.
If you're wondering where the white kids are, they're enrolled in private schools, as well as the eleven Catholic high schools in the city.
Prior to the storm, OPSB spent $7,893 per pupil, supplemented by $7,630 per pupil from the state. In 2008, those numbers increased to $15,557 by OPSB/RSD, supplemented by $9,966 by the state.
Next time: How schools in Orleans Parish are administered.
Thanks to the Cowen Institute of Tulane University for the data in this article.