New Orleans’s Unique School Reform Effort and Its Potential Implications for Special Education

Four years following the decimation of the New Orleans Public Schools by Hurricane Katrina the city has been described as the center of a unique urban public school reform effort. This effort is a combination of events that transpired just before the storm and those that have occurred as a result of it. In particular some claim that the emerging public school configuration seeks to be one that is comprised entirely of charter schools, thereby allowing public schools in New Orleans to become a “system of schools” as opposed to a traditional school system. While a fundamental operating principle of charter schools is increased student academic achievement in exchange for school autonomy and innovative practices, an additional responsibility of the charter schools in New Orleans is identical to that of their counterpart traditional public schools: the provision of special education services in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Accordingly, this article presents an overview of the seminal reform events that have occurred to date and discusses the potential implications of this reform effort with respect to the provision of special education services.