Remembering Katrina isn’t just about the storm. It’s also about what happened to New Orleans’ schools, and how a crisis reshaped an entire education system. Two survivors share their powerful story, revealing how community ties were severed in the name of ‘reform.’ What vital lessons can we learn for the future?

As the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, a crucial conversation emerges concerning its profound and often-overlooked impact on New Orleans’ education system, a narrative compellingly shared by survivors who witnessed its transformation firsthand.

Before the devastating storm, New Orleans’ public schools, while grappling with decades of underfunding and systemic inequities, remained deeply rooted in their communities. These institutions served as vital gathering places, staffed by veteran Black educators who fostered shared identity and traditions across generations of families, embodying symbols of civic pride.

However, the aftermath of Katrina brought about a swift and dramatic overhaul. Within months, private charter operators, many lacking any established ties to the city, were rapidly introduced to manage the schools. The rhetoric of “opportunity” and “innovation” permeated public discourse, yet within the school hallways, a palpable loss of communal warmth replaced the previous, if imperfect, sense of belonging, as schools were recast as efficiency-driven enterprises.

Proponents often highlight gains in standardized test scores as a measure of success. Yet, these purported and modest improvements came with significant, often unacknowledged costs, including the erosion of local self-determination, a widening of inequities, and a profound loss of cultural continuity, revealing how disaster can mask political and economic agendas rooted in systemic racism.

The New Orleans model of education reform did not remain an isolated incident; it became a prototype. This approach was refined and exported across the Southern United States, utilized not only in disaster recovery but also as a standard education policy tool, where the language of “failing schools” and “accountability” justified stripping control from often-marginalized communities.

The experiences gleaned from the post-Katrina school system offer urgent lessons, particularly as climate change increases the likelihood of future disasters disrupting educational frameworks. A critical insight is that privatizing schools in the wake of a catastrophe does not genuinely benefit students or foster effective disaster recovery.

Instead, policymakers should prioritize addressing four key needs to genuinely impact student well-being and success while aiding overall community recovery. These include rapidly providing school supplies and wraparound services to restore normalcy, investing in robust community programs to foster mutual aid, implementing targeted academic interventions without punitive measures, and, crucially, maintaining public governance.

The central lesson from Hurricane Katrina is not that public schools are beyond improvement, nor that reform is unnecessary. Rather, it underscores that the path to genuine improvement cannot bypass the very communities most invested in their schools. It is imperative to treat public schools as community pillars, safeguarding them from becoming pretexts for erasing local voices and selling off vital public goods, thereby strengthening democracy rather than hollowing it out.