SPENO: 2019-2020

For the past twelve years, the Cowen Institute has published the State of Public Education in New Orleans (SPENO) on a near annual basis. During that time, the purpose, content, and audience of the report have evolved. Initially, SPENO chronicled the dramatic changes to New Orleans’ public education system following Hurricane Katrina, with a lens of comparing governance and performance to the pre-reform years. In more recent years, SPENO has narrowed its scope. This edition of the report is a snapshot of public education in the current academic year using aggregated data from publicly available sources to inform a wide audience that includes educators, families, and students, as well as policymakers and the general public.

This report is not intended to provide in-depth analysis on every aspect of public education in New Orleans. This decision is intentional. In truth, to provide adequate, nuanced, and detailed framing for a variety of issues, from enrollment to school performance to transportation, would require a lengthy study. That level of context, framing, and detail is beyond the scope of the current report. Rather, we believe that there is value in summarizing data on New Orleans education from publicly available sources and putting that together in one place. Doing so on a regular basis allows us to track high-level descriptive information over time and serves as an archival piece in an ever-changing landscape. It does not, however, provide the space for a deeper exploration of the data.

This report is also produced with extensive external feedback. We seek input from government bodies, state-entities, educators, non-profit organizations, community members, and researchers prior to publishing SPENO. This helps us to ensure the accuracy of our report and data, particularly in a system that is marked by frequent change. It also allows stakeholders to weigh in on our framing. In doing so, we are reminded that there is more than one way to tell a story, particularly a story as complicated, divisive, and emotionally charged as New Orleans public education in the 21st century. In some cases, we provide data from previous years to track changes over time. We do not, however, provide in-depth contextual framing in the current report.

As such, we acknowledge that SPENO does not tell the full story of public education in our city. There are tens of thousands of families with children attending public school in our city and there are thousands of people in schools, districts, and community organizations working to improve public education in New Orleans everyday. We know that each person has their own opinion about the state of public education in New Orleans. We know that their experiences often vary greatly. We hope this report can be used as a jumping-off point to a deeper exploration of these extremely nuanced subject areas and a resource for open and informed discussions among stakeholders.