I hadn't realized that New Orleans had jumped into the Charter School movement after Hurricane Katrina. On the last state achievement test before Katrina hit, 74 percent of eighth-graders had failed to demonstrate "basic" skills in English/Language Arts, and 70 percent scored below "basic" in math. The Orleans Parish School Board, which ran the city's schools, was $450 million in debt. Yet these numbers did not begin to capture the day-to-day texture of the schools: when students held a press conference to express their post-Katrina wishes, they asked for textbooks, toilet paper, and teachers who liked them... Three months after Katrina, the state legislature deemed 107 of the 128 city-run public schools "failing" and seized control of them for five years. (Before the storm the state had already placed five failing schools in what it called the Recovery School District, then converted them to charter schools.) Stripped of most of its domain and financing, the Orleans Parish School Board fired all 7,500 of its teachers and support staff, effectively breaking the Teachers Union.

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