Does New Orleans welcome disabled students?

11-16-2011

By Larry Abramson/NPR

New Orleans has become the center of an education revolution, where more than 70 percent of students attend a charter school. The number of students taught in traditional district-run schools is shrinking fast. That's because parents in post-Hurricane Katrina can pick and choose from a smorgasbord of schools with different approaches and cultures. By many measures, this educational marketplace has improved student achievement. But as this experiment moves ahead, it's led to questions about whether the district is truly open to the most challenging students. When Kelly Fisher and her family moved to New Orleans in 2009, they expected her son Noah would need the same kind intensive help that he got at his old school in Indiana. Noah, who's 10, is blind, autistic and has a variety of developmental delays. For help in finding the right school, they turned to the Recovery School District (RSD), the state-run agency that is the closest thing New Orleans has to a traditional district. (more...)

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