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NOTE: The grades on school climate are not comparable from one year to the next because the data sources have changed.
COMMENT:
Last year, Louisiana decided to challenge its bottom-of-the-ratings status. State officials revised academic standards, raised teacher pay, financed educational technology, and expanded the number of charter schools allowed in the state. But that still leaves New Orleans. More children in the Big Easy live in extremely impoverished neighborhoods than almost anywhere else in the nation. And even in this traditionally low-performing state, the abysmal performance of the city's children suggests that more than a laissez-faire attitude is warranted.
AN URBAN SNAPSHOT
New Orleans, Baton Rouge
- 16% of state's population
- 16% of state's children
- 22% of state's poor children
- 34% of state's children living in extremely impoverished neighborhoods
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- 18% of state's public school students
- 23% of state's free-lunch students
- 31% of state's minority students
- 17% of state's spring 1994 graduates
- 17% of FY 1994 state and local education revenue
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Proficient in science,