Over the last 40 years, American institutions of higher education have been encouraged to align with the private sector by policymakers, think tank experts and businessmen in order to become more efficient and more accountable. In a wider sense, this new partnership may be evidence of what has been termed "disaster capitalism." In…

Although considerable work has been done around the supposed successes and failures of education reform in post-Katrina New Orleans, concerns about the public/private qualities of new policies are often not discussed explicitly. In kind, this article serves to investigate theoretical conceptions of the public as they relate to education while…

The mishandling of pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina rescue and recovery is stunningly similar to the mishandling by those who have been in charge of Louisiana public education over the past seven years. This includes the devaluing of the teaching profession, the rise of the marketization of education, and the minimizing of the common good. In this…

This article focuses on special education in New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana's Recovery School District (RSD) took over 102 of the city's 128 schools with the stated goal of creating a "choice district" for parents. This "choice distric"' is made up of RSD direct-run schools, Orleans…

In the post-Katrina education landscape in New Orleans, teachers in charter schools and district-run schools in the Recovery School District are uniquely situated to provide a direct eyewitness account of the successes and failures of the city's new direction in public education. This narrative presents the opinions of teachers in a critical…

Nearly ten years after Katrina and the implementation of a host of new and radical education reforms in New Orleans, there remains little evidence about whether the changes have improved school performance. Despite this lack of evidence, the New Orleans model is held up as a reform success, and is being adopted by other cities. In this article the…

Changes in the education system following Hurricane Katrina have received considerable attention from scholars in recent years. However, the role of Catholic schools is often overlooked in such discussions of school reform, which most often concentrate on the dramatic changes in the public school sector. This oversight is significant given that…

Despite over forty years of research on theories of educational change, little is known of the change theories-in-use of school-based administrators, often tasked with implementing externally imposed reform mandates. Capitalizing on the unique case of post-Katrina schooling, this qualitative study examines the ways in which ten principals spoke…

In this amended excerpt from "Hope Against Hope", educational reform in post-Katrina New Orleans is considered from a journalistic perspective in presenting the story of Geraldlynn Stewart as she and her family navigate the new school system. In providing voices of lived experiences of Stewart as well as other individuals within this new…

Since 2005, New Orleans has proved fertile ground for the most extensive education reform movement in the United States. As such, the educational landscape in New Orleans is a highly contested space. Yet stakeholders across the pro/anti-charter divide lack a fully developed language that accommodates the multi-vocality of participants contributing…