Reformers try to overcome years of substandard education and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina
All around New Orleans, there is growing hope that the school system is getting better. Dozens of new charter schools, a flood of idealistic young teachers from elsewhere around the country and a reform-minded superintendent from Chicago are all arrayed to rescue one of America’s most needy student bodies, which ranked at the bottom of a bottom-dwelling state even before the devastation that was left in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
