When New Orleans went under, one thing that occured is that the State took over the school system. When it reopened the schools it turned a large number into charter schools. More than half of its 54 schools are now charter schools. The idea is to use the crisis to have a massive experiment which proves once and for all (contrary to every other experiment) that Charter schools are better than public schools.

In order to make sure this is the case a number of things were done.

First all teachers were fired, then the Charter schools rehired the ones they wanted. Most of the rest left the State. Only after this had occured did the non-charter schools start advertising for new teachers. And even today, when ads for teachers are put out, the fine print indicates that certified teachers will teach in charter schools, and non-certified teachers will teach in the non-charter schools.

Secondly, unlike the non-charter schools, charter schools were allowed to cap enrollment and turn away students. So they have been cherry picking the best students and maintaining a good teacher/student ratio, while the non-Charter schools are forced to try and accept everyone (they couldn't, and have not let 300 enroll because they completely lack capacity), leading to very bad teacher/student ratios and to having to teach students who have less academic aptitude or background.

I imagine it will turn out that, as expected, Charter schools will have better results in New Orleans than non Charter schools. And for years we'll have to smack down the stats, over and over again, by pointing out that when you kneecap public schools and give charter schools more teachers, better teachers, better students and better teacher/student ratios, of course they'll do better than schools you refuse to staff or fund properly.

For full details see Maha. Also Maha has an article on how ethnic cleansing of New Orleans has removed the Democratic margin of victory, which will likely turn it into a Republican state, both federally and at a State level. The only good news in this is that Landrieu, that Bush-enabling idiot, who completely let down her state in the aftermath of Katrina, since she was more concerned with puckering up for Bush's behind than helping her constituents, will probably lose her seat. There are few Dems I'm glad to see go - she'll be one of them. She doesn't deserve to be elected rat-catcher, let alone Senator, and sometimes it's nice to see people get what they not only deserve, but what they beg for. Landrieu was down on her knees while Bush and co. ethnic cleansed New Orleans and now she'll reap as she sowed.