SUCCEED OR PERISH: THE STORY OF ONE CHARTER SCHOOL IN POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS
Open Access
- Author:
- Nguyen, Trung L
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 30, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Kathleen Mary Collins, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Kathleen Mary Collins, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Patrick Willard Shannon, Committee Member
Karen Eppley, Committee Member
DAVID MCBRIDE, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Hurricane Katrina
Charter Schools
New Orleans
Privatization
Neoliberal - Abstract:
- August 29, 2005 is a date that will never be forgotten by residents of the Gulf Coast region. On that date, Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans. With the resulting failure of the levee system, Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city. Among Katrina’s devastation was the almost literal “washing away” of the Orleans Parish School District. Federal and State lawmakers used the disaster as an opportunity to seize the district from local control and to use New Orleans as a “greenfield” for the privatization of public education via charter schools. It is within this context that residents of the New Orleans East Neighborhood came together to create and open the New Orleans East Charter School (NOECS) in 2008. This case study seeks to explore the following questions: 1) How are school success and school failure defined in this context over time? 2) What are the experiences of teachers at this “failing” charter school? 3) How do teachers at this “failing” charter school describe their workload and pressures? 4) How can lessons from these teachers’ experiences be used to impact education reform? Through the use of teacher narratives and media narratives, this study documents the story of the NOECS from its founding in 2008 until its end in 2013, and shares the experiences of the teachers who worked there.