Only a few months after Hurricane Katrina, at a time when many residents still had not returned to their homes in New Orleans, the legislature hastily adopted a state takeover plan that broke the city’s public schools into three distinct systems—the five schools overseen by the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB); the state-operated Recovery School District (RSD) schools; and a large number of charter schools with different governing authorities. The state takeover and resulting breakup of schools have had a disturbing impact on children, parents and teachers. For example:

• The New Orleans public schools appear to be more deeply segregated by income and race than ever before. In fact, 43 percent of the city’s schools—most of which are charter schools—have enrollment caps, application rules, an interview process, academic requirements or other selective-admission policies that effectively block disadvantaged children from attending.[i] One member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education admitted that the open-enrollment RSD schools “have the responsibility of educating the ‘leftover’ children.”[ii] In a poll earlier this year, 56 percent of parents disagreed with the statement: “All children have the opportunity to go to a good public school in New Orleans.”[iii]

• The irresponsible mass firing of teachers and staff has left New Orleans schools with a serious shortage of experienced teachers. State and local officials are “pursuing a one-dimensional, ‘no experience necessary’ approach to teacher staffing” and have made little effort to retain experienced teachers in the city schools.[iv]

• New Orleans teachers and other staff are on the frontlines—they know what students need—but they have no real voice in the post-Katrina landscape. The state law breaking up the district shattered employees’ collective-bargaining rights. Although the OPSB has agreed to re-enter the bargaining process with teachers at its five schools, the vast majority of the 2,825 faculty and staff in New Orleans are working in other schools without a bargaining agreement.

Congress is currently rewriting a number of education-related laws including the No Child Left Behind Act, and it is crucial that the children of New Orleans and their school system are not forgotten in these large policy discussions. Now is the time to send a letter to your representative and senators explaining the need for Congress to exercise oversight of the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding effort.