In this article, the author talks about the disaster in the United States that reignited a debate about poverty and the responsibility of government--and government schools--that had never really gone away in the first place. Hurricane Katrina was one of the biggest natural disasters in the U.S. that swept through four states, killed more than 1,000 people, depopulated a major American city, and caused the displacement of more than 370,000 schoolchildren. Seventeen days after the disaster had occurred, President Bush pledged not only to launch one of the most massive public reconstruction efforts in history, but also to confront in a head-on manner the realities of race and poverty that Katrina had laid bare. Here, the author shows how Katrina heightened poverty in the U.S. and points out that schools in the U.S. were more segregated than ever before by race and economics.