School & District Management Blog

Urban Education: Lessons From New Orleans

Douglas N. Harris is the director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans and a Professor of Economics and the University Endowed Chair in Public Education at Tulane University. He is on twitter at @Era_NOLA. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: urban education.

School Choice & Charters Opinion NOLA Argument #11: The False Choice Between 'Traditional' and 'Reform' Systems, Part 1
The point here is to show that it is a false choice between traditional and reform systems, but it's not quite as false as it might seem.
Douglas N. Harris, October 6, 2015
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3 min read
School & District Management Opinion NOLA Argument #12: It's All About the Money
There is not much debate that the New Orleans school reforms improved student outcomes. The evidence on that point is strong. The question is how? After all, "the reforms" are really a multi-faceted package. The part of the reform that gets the least attention is the amount of money invested in New Orleans.
Douglas N. Harris, September 25, 2015
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5 min read
School & District Management Opinion NOLA Argument #13: Context Matters
It doesn't take much to convince people that New Orleans is different from other cities. As the actor and part-time New Orleans resident, Matthew McConaughey, put it so eloquently, New Orleans is a "big, beautiful mess." But does any of that matter for the school reforms?
Douglas N. Harris, September 15, 2015
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3 min read
Education Opinion The New Orleans Debate: Taking on the Arguments
Last week was a time to reflect on the terrible tragedy in New Orleans 10 years ago. In the last blog, I asked that we all take a day or two to remember that tragedy and to take a break from the school reform debate. But now we need to get back to that important debate.
Douglas N. Harris, September 4, 2015
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3 min read
School & District Management Opinion A Day of Remembrance
This is a blog about the New Orleans school reforms, especially about their effects on students' schooling outcomes and educator practices, but today we need a different conversation.
Douglas N. Harris, August 28, 2015
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2 min read
School Choice & Charters Opinion What Have We Learned From New Orleans So Far?
Era-New Orleans hosted The Urban Education Future? conference this past June, and videos from each of the sessions are now being released. Here is what has been released so far, and what to watch for in the near future.
Douglas N. Harris, July 28, 2015
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2 min read
School & District Management Opinion Building an Evidence-Based Conversation on School Reform
Building an evidence-based conversation will allow us to find and act on the common ground that does exist in the school reform debate.
Douglas N. Harris, June 15, 2015
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5 min read
School & District Management Opinion The Changing New Orleans Teaching Labor Force
In 2005, as New Orleans began to rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the Orleans Parish School Board made an unprecedented move and fired all the teachers who had been in the school system before the storm. As schools rebuilt, most were transformed into independently managed charter schools. Many critics argue that pre-Katrina teachers were unfairly terminated, and that the teacher workforce suffered a loss of experienced teachers who were never rehired.
Sarah Tan, April 23, 2015
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4 min read
School Choice & Charters Opinion What Does It Mean to Have 'More School Choice'? Part II
In the last post, I wrote about how parents' perceptions of choice might be influenced by the options available to them and, how, even in a place like New Orleans where there seems to be ample choice, parents sometimes don't feel that way. Here, I talk about a related issue--choice within schools versus between them.
Douglas N. Harris, April 21, 2015
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2 min read
School Choice & Charters Opinion What Does It Mean to Have 'More School Choice'? Part I
The idea that families should have more school choice has been one of the major themes of school reform over the past two decades. The expansion of charter schools, home schooling, and vouchers has been rapid and has changed the schooling landscape.
Douglas N. Harris, April 15, 2015
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5 min read
Education Opinion Does Increased Competition Improve Schools?
In a paper we released last week, researcher Huriya Jabbar examined how school competition, generated by choice, drove principals to tailor school curricula and admissions processes.
Sarah Tan, April 2, 2015
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4 min read
Education Opinion Why New Orleans Matters
Welcome to the new blog, Urban Education: Lessons from New Orleans. The premise for the blog is simple: The school reforms put in place in New Orleans after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina--nearly 10 years ago--represent one of the most important events in U.S. K-12 education policy in the last century.
Douglas N. Harris, March 27, 2015
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3 min read
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