Yesterday, on August 27, I attended a party to celebrate the wedding of my daughter's pre-K teacher, Ms. Franks. The party was at the house where she grew up, in Mandeville on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain. It was a crazy party, since her family's home is one of only two houses on a man-made lake/pond hidden behind a residential community.
While at the party, I met many guests who were "New Orleans, born and raised." When they hear what we're up to at 4.0, they are encouraging because, "our public schools are so bad" or maybe they've heard that "the schools have gotten so much better recently" (I heard both of these quotes yesterday).
There was one guest's perspective with which, I empathized. She is from Atlanta, and moved to New Orleans a few years ago, fell in love with the place and is never leaving. She lives in Mid-City. When she heard my 'for now' plans, she said, "yeah, open a school in a few years because that's when I plan to have kids, and I want them in a public school." She was interested in Lusher, but said we needed more schools like that. She was dismissive of Morris Jeff, a charter school in Mid-City trying to reflect the ethnic diversity of New Orleans and of Mid-City while also being a community school. When pushed, she said she hadn't heard anything bad about Morris Jeff, just that she hadn't heard anything great either. My guess is that she hadn't heard anything at all.
Later on at the party, I asked her our 4.0 Essentials question: "What kind of school do you want for your kids?" She said that she really wanted a school full of dedicated, wonderful teachers, and a school that really pushed her kids to think. In New Orleans, I think we've got a ways to go on both fronts, but we're getting there.
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