Storm's fury a mixed bag for schools

NEW ORLEANS — Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, fallen tree branches, standing water and layers of muck still block vehicles from reaching Carter G. Woodson Middle School, a building near the Magnolia public-housing complex that long has held the state title "academically unacceptable."

The damage to Woodson and many of the 126 public-school buildings in Orleans Parish doesn't bother school-board member Jimmy Fahrenholtz, who is happy that the system's 65,000-plus students are attending schools in Louisiana, Texas and elsewhere.

"A lot of them we never should have had open," Fahrenholtz said on a French Quarter corner. "I wanted to tear this system apart two years ago. God answered my prayers."

His words may seem callous, but they echo the thoughts of many in Louisiana who have spent years puzzling over how to fix the state's poorest-performing school system.

Orleans wasn't the only district displaced by Katrina. With all 15 of its schools under water, St. Bernard Parish has canceled its entire year of classes. Six of nine schools in Plaquemines Parish were flooded, and the wind blew the roof off another. And countless private schools, many in the eight-parish network run by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, must find homes for their students.

But the disintegration of the city's public schools is causing the most discussion, both for its statewide impact and the school system's uncertain future. Like many urban school districts, the New Orleans public-school system faces countless social problems. Families are poor. Violence is prevalent. Many parents are uneducated and underemployed.

New Orleans schools have been plagued by scandals and leadership crises that have made a difficult situation even more unmanageable. Led by a squabbling school board that state officials openly deride as incompetent, the system was forced to hire a private management company this summer after it was discovered that the administration was more than $25 million in the red.

There have been four acting or appointed superintendents in the past four years, and a majority of the district's students fail state-mandated English and math tests.

The state's 67 other school systems, many already strapped for resources, now have taken in more than 20,000 students with little notice or preparation.

The greatest number, more than 5,000, have gone to East Baton Rouge Parish, where educators have been hiring teachers and reopening previously closed schools to house transplants, school-board member Noah Hammett said.

At the River Center, the Baton Rouge convention facility that has been turned into the city's main Red Cross shelter, children carrying new backpacks and wearing new ribbons in their braids boarded school buses for their first day of classes Tuesday.

Odetta Martin saw her six children off with mixed emotions. Despite the district's reputation, Martin liked the New Orleans elementary schools her children attended, although she called Walter A. Cohen High School, where her older children went, "out of control."

Her main concern is that the state will continue to impose the high-stakes "LEAP" test on displaced fourth- and eighth-graders, who will be held back a grade if they fail.

"It's unfair to say they have to take it," she said. "It's stressful to take when you are at home and you are in your own bed. These children don't even have that."

State Education Secretary Cecil Picard said he will ask the Legislature and the U.S. Department of Education to temporarily waive the LEAP test and No Child Left Behind requirements. He also will ask the federal government for $2.4 billion to cover salaries and benefits for 25,000 displaced teachers and school employees.

Despite the school system's negative history, Fahrenholtz sees the next few years as a time when New Orleans public schools can start from scratch — with local, state and federal planning and private grants from organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"A lot of our bad employees won't come back. A lot of our bad citizens won't come back," Fahrenholtz said. "This can be a turning point. ... We can change the whole face of this city if we do it correctly."