Tanzania, 1997

in 2005, New Orleans has become a model for public education.  The city’s Recovery School District in New Orleans this week closed its five remaining traditional public schools, and will become the first all-charter school district in the United States.   Charter schools are privately administered with public money.  Competing for students with quality of education, they are not required to keep bad teachers, or bad students.   The idea is to give parents of modest means – those who cannot afford private tuition – more control over the teaching of their children.  As one would expect, parents are generally in favor of the charter system, and government bureaucrats and know-nothing teachers opposed.  Still, some parents just don’t get it, such as the New Orleans man quoted today in the Washington Post. Lamenting the closing of his childhood school, he said:  “This don’t make no sense. Me and my sister, the whole family, the whole neighborhood went to that school.”  Yes, and it shows. 

Hampi, India, 2011

Cracow, 2013

Trinidad, Cuba, 2012

Yunnan Province, China, 2006

New Orleans, 2012