Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Hurricane: threat or opportunity?

After Hurricane Katrina, the Orleans Parish School Board

... fired all 7,500 of its teachers and support staff, effectively breaking the teachers’ union. And the Bush administration stepped in with millions of dollars for the expansion of charter schools—publicly financed but independently run schools that answer to their own boards.
Early returns are good:
The number of fourth graders who passed a state promotional exam increased by 12 percentage points over the previous year, and eighth graders improved by four percentage points.
--via marginalrevolution.com

1 comment:

  1. Interesting that two economists seem willing to draw a conclusion of causation from this info. Perhaps the characteristics of the pool of students taking the exam has changed due to Katrina.

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