Searching for Equity Amid a System of Schools: The View from New Orleans
42 Fordham Urban Law Journal 613 (2015)
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Research Paper 2015-08
59 Pages Posted: 18 Sep 2015
There are 2 versions of this paper
Searching for Equity Amid a System of Schools: The View from New Orleans
Searching for Equity Amid a System of Schools: The View from New Orleans
Date Written: May 18, 2015
Abstract
Today, New Orleans education stands at a crossroads in deciding how to achieve equity for its vulnerable student populations. One route relies on centralizing services, planning, and oversight to ensure that every school provides an appropriate education to any type of student that walks through the schoolhouse door. This path embraces the version of inclusion equality set forth in Brown v. Board of Education: "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The other route relies on the market driven reform underlying the charter movement to create specialized schools to fill the unmet demands of vulnerable populations. This route embraces an emerging view of equality- where separate can be equal, possibly even superior, if parents are empowered to maximize their child's academic outcomes in specialized settings. This Article argues that New Orleans is headed down this latter route and identifies the lessons that can be learned from its evolution to a system of schools.
Keywords: education law, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina
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