New Orleans, After the Spotlight
By Bill Shore | October 24, 2006
It’s been nearly two months since the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina brought the spotlight back to New Orleans. But as it always and inevitably does, the spotlight moved on and most of the country today hears little about New Orleans in the news. Yesterday as more than 300 attendees to Share Our Strength’s Conference of Leaders began to arrive, we had the opportunity to bear witness to the region’s ongoing challenges and opportunities.
People around the country often ask if New Orleans will be, or should be, rebuilt. There is a vast range of opinion on the subject but you only have to spend two hours with one particular person here to find the answer. Her name is Mardelle Early, and she describes herself as the mother of 372 kids. At 53, she has been in the education system for 31 years, most recently as principal of Lake Forest Elementary, the second highest scoring elementary school in the city. Mardelle is at the center of the single most encouraging development in New Orleans, which is education reform driven by charter schools.
Before we toured Mardelle’s school yesterday, her friend and colleague Sarah Usdin, founder of New Schools for New Orleans told us, “Before Katrina the New Orleans school system was financially, academically and morally bankrupt. 107 schools were below the state education average. Dead people were getting checks that should have been going to support education. We did not educate kids. Often we wished we could just blow up the whole system.”
“But after Katrina it became clear that a recovery cannot take place without public education. So citizens took responsibility for what needed to happen, and we’re seeing a level of civic engagement in schools we’d never seen before. 60 percent of all New Orleans students are now in charter schools. The city’s future depends on creating a good public school system.”
During the hurricane principal Mardelle Early had evacuated to Atlanta at 3:50 a.m. and returned in November to find that the home she’d bought just months ago had been filled with four feet of water. As we drove through neighborhoods that have remained deserted since the levees broke, she stood at the front of our tour bus, her silver leaf earrings dangling near her shoulders, and spoke to us with an enthusiasm and energy that even 16 months of struggle have not dampened. “I just didn’t have the time to fix up my home and fix up the school system. So I’ve lived in six different places since.” Mardelle made her cell phone number available over the internet. “I wanted my students and parents to be able to reach me,” she said. “I wanted to know they were okay, and to help. I had a phone bill of over $1000 a month. And no job!”
“Katrina made everyone equal. We had to get food stamp coupons and vouchers for $300 cash to live on. I’ll never forget standing on the bus to the bank that they put us on to go get that money. I’ll tell you, it humbles you. It makes you see the road that others are on. I understand now how it feels to stand in line and wait.”
At Mardelle’s school we found one class after another of attentive children in uniforms, enjoying small class sizes and taking advantage of a plentiful supply of Gateway computers. To pull it off Mardelle had to be more than an educator. “I had to learn to be a CEO, and a general contractor, a politician, and a fundraiser, and how to assemble computers.”
New Orleans still has massive challenges. Vast tracks of housing have been ruined and abandoned. Power and phone service has still not yet been restored to all neighborhoods. Only 11 of the 34 Headstart programs that served some of the most at-risk kids are up and running again, and only 54 of 277 licensed childcare providers are back.
But Mardelle Early makes moot the question of whether New Orleans will be rebuilt. What she brings – energy, spirit, hope - can’t be donated, ordered or legislated. It also cannot be defeated. School reform will not only make New Orleans better, it may transform it into an irresistibly attractive place for families and children. It would be great for New Orleans if there were a thousand people like Mardelle Early. And there may well be. But when it comes to answering questions about New Orleans survival, I was convinced by just one.