After a state take-over of most local schools, the fate of public education in New Orleans has been clouded by uncertainty. However, many problems are already clear. The community has expressed outrage on numerous occasions about the management, conditions, policies, and practices of the RSD schools. One fundamental concern has been about the lack of basic resources essential for success in any educational environment let alone one formed after the worst natural disaster in American history. These resources include: textbooks; desks for students; a sufficient number of experienced and well-trained teachers; to the failure to deliver services to children with special learning needs; counseling services to help children cope with trauma and grief extra-curricular activities; and hot lunches for children, many of whom continue to live in or near poverty. Another prominent concern is that many RSD schools exhibit what students have referred to as a prison-like atmosphere while their discipline policies penalize and remove students instead of providing support them and facilitating positive growth. Prior to Katrina, harsh discipline policies and school arrests forced many children out of New Orleans schools, putting them at-risk or directly involved in the juvenile justice system. While this phenomenon pre-dated Katrina, it is now being replicated in the new "network" of schools operated by local and state officials and various charter groups. The confluence of these factors--lack of resources and the failure to provide quality education, combined with overly harsh and punitive discipline policies that criminalize and exclude youth from traditional education settings--has created what many now call the School-to-Prison Pipeline. It is this issue that juvenile justice and education advocates alike believe to be at the forefront of the fight for children's rights in post-Katrina New Orleans. (Contains 27 notes.)