Getting Smart Founder & Blogger Tom Vander Ark captures in his latest blog why New Orleans 9 years after Hurricane Katrina has completely redesigned its education system from one that failed 95% of its schools to one today that has only 9 of the State's 112 failing schools, each of which will be improved or closed.
How does any city replicate New Orleans success? According to Neerav Kingsland, CEO of NewSchools for New Orleans, he thinks "other cities can copy the New Orleans model by replacing or transforming about 5 percent of schools every year—after 10 years that would be replace or update the lower performing half of the system."
We couldn't agree more. At Matchbook Learning, we believe that when States target their bottom 5% schools and make them eligible for turnaround conditions (read: autonomous, charter attracting conditions), qualified and innovative charter models will come. Matchbook Learning hopes that by focusing on the bottom 5% with our blended charter school turnaround model, in 10 years we can see the kind of transformation that has happened in the Crescent City happen in cities across the country. We believe this Smart City strategy can scale.
