by Leo Linbeck III According to the Washington Post, Washington
DC’s public school district is planning to close 15 under-
enrolled traditional schools: “If we don’t become very serious
about marketing and competing” with charter schools, [DC
Councilman David] Catania said, “traditional public schools, as
we know them, will become a thing of the past.” Charter schools
have grown quickly in the District during the past 15 years and
now enroll more than 40 percent of the city’s public school
students, leaving the traditional school system with half-empty
buildings in many neighborhoods — and something of an
existential crisis.This is not the first time that a big-city
public education system has gone through such a transformation.
After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans all but shut down its
traditional district schools: NOPS was the New Orleans area’s
largest school district before Hurricane Katrina devastated the
city in August 2005, damaging or destroying more than 100 of the
district’s 128 school buildings. NOP