When Superintendent Paul Vallas left Philadelphia to take over New Orleans' Recovery School District, he wasn't just changing cities--he was also changing worlds. With over 90 percent of the 12,000 students in the New Orleans district mired in poverty, Vallas says his schools must "begin to provide the type of services you would normally expect to be provided at home." This means serving three meals a day, for instance, and providing basic dental and eye care. Such paternalistic measures have been successful so far and helped bring the truancy rate down from 50 percent at the end of last school year to about 15 percent today. Parents, one assumes, finally see some value in getting their children to school. Vallas has managed to find some time for academics, too. He has recruited top-notch teachers, reduced class sizes, and replaced nearly every high-school principal. With local and national governments botching badly the recovery efforts, though, one wonders when Vallas will be able to shift roles from part-time parent to full-time educator. The sooner, of course, the better.
"A Tamer of Schools Has Plan in New Orleans," by Adam Nossiter, New York Times, September 23, 2007