Ten years after Katrina, the storm that led to a radical restructuring of schools in New Orleans:
- A suite of stories recalls the storm’s impact on New Orleans schools, from the explosion of choice to the disappearance of black woman teachers and beyond. Education Week
- While outsiders masterminded much of what unfolded in New Orleans, local educators and advocates played a crucial role. Andrew Rotherham
- A journalist who covered the changes in New Orleans recalls moments when she could clearly see the winners and losers. Schooled
- An advocate who helped create many of the city’s new schools says the overhaul’s benefits to local students are clear but the idea of replicating it elsewhere is not. Relinquishment
- Preschool hasn’t seen needed changes since the storm, according to an early education advocate. Ahead of the Heard
- Here’s a roundup of the best reporting on the storm’s education impact from across the country. Los Angeles Times
School closures, past and present
- A group of Chicago parents are nearly two weeks into a hunger strike to get the city to revamp their scheduled-to-be-closed school. DNAinfo
- A mother explains the personal history with school closure that led her to join the strike. Catalyst
- And a researcher studying the school’s neighborhood who previously worked in a school that closed shares her perspective. Seven Scribes
- A meditation on the closure of Jamaica High School in New York City and the history, policy, and poverty that got us there. The New Yorker
- Here’s what protest against the plan to close Jamaica looked like in 2009. Chalkbeat
- An advocate for overhauling struggling schools says his allies would do well to acknowledge why communities oppose closure. Justin Cohen
What Americans really think about testing
- Two polls out this week find that Americans either really support testing or really don’t. NPR
- The poll commissioned by a publication that supports testing and accountability policies finds wide support. Education Next
- The poll commissioned by a large association of educators, who tend to be wary of testing, finds the opposite. Phi Delta Kappan
- Why the disparate findings? One analyst says it’s all in the questions. Education Post
- Here’s what the polls said about other education issues, including the Common Core and charter schools. The Atlantic
Back to school
- Come along for a ride as Tennessee educators start their school year by visiting students at home, a practice that can have long-lasting effects on parent involvement. NPR
- Know any ninth-graders feeling jitters about starting high school? Some older-by-a-year girls have advice for them. Rookie
- “It’s not because of the kids,” says a New York City teacher who’s not returning to the classroom after six years. “It’s just everything else.” Yo Mista!
- An Iowa school district welcomes educators back to class with an education jargon-rich parody of “One Day More” from Les Miz. WGN
In other interesting news …
- A new study finds that paying parents to help their children with homework produced few academic results. BloombergView
- Rupert Murdoch wants to unload Amplify, the once-hyped ed tech company that former New York City schools chief Joel Klein started. Here are two looks at what went wrong. Buzzfeed, EdWeek
- A tiny but mighty Christian lobbying group has successfully blocked states from even minor oversight of homeschooling. ProPublica
- That teacher shortage that doesn’t exist in New York City? It probably doesn’t exist in Indiana, either. Chalkbeat
- In Boston, more homeschoolers are secular, educated, and aiming to insulate their children from school’s dulling effects. Boston Magazine
- How many more children are living in poverty than there were a decade ago? A lot, and this map shows where they are. The Huffington Post
- An educator of color pushes back against the call to ally the Black Lives Matter movement with public education protest. Jose Vilson
- A New York City teacher reflects on losing a former student whose death came after a police encounter. The Atlantic
- Two Massachusetts fourth-graders pulled a Chalkbeat and achieve impact with their article on sex-segregated lunchtime. Good Morning America
- The 2012 Chicago teachers strike had many ripple effects. The latest one is an erotic novel. Teaching Now