Jay Altman
CEO, FirstLine Schools New Orleans
There's a myth that all the new schools of innovation came from outside folks. If you look at the school leaders in New Orleans, I think half or more than half are from the city. Of the charter management organizations, half or more than half were working in the city or the region. They're veteran educators from before. It's people who saw the opportunity that freedom could bring, that autonomy could bring, but also it's much more accountability at the same time. It's folks who are invigorated by that.
There's also a set of policy conditions in place that facilitate. There was a strong accountability system, strong charter school law. They had the recovery school district, which was recovery from educational failure. It wasn't about Katrina. It's a statewide policy that was already in place. Those things were in place already on a policy level. Then I think there was enormous shared mission that we could all create great schools, then somewhat a sense of defeatism or acceptance of the way things were before.
There were lots of individual teachers and leaders who that did not apply to, but the system as a whole, to many folks, felt very broken as a system. Again, it wasn't about the people. It was the system itself. I think there was a sense of being able to do things much easier than you could do them before. If you wanted to make changes to your school or curriculum, those were much easier to do in a system that prioritized autonomy.
I think, while again, the work is still challenging and hard and under-resourced, it facilitates more people being successful than the old system did.
