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New Orleans district goes all-charter?

On the heels of massive charter school funding, this seems like the logical next step:

The nation’s first charter-only school district is taking shape in New Orleans – an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent an urban district that was in an academic and financial sinkhole long before Hurricane Katrina.

As education officials scramble to prepare for an estimated 24,000 students expected to return to New Orleans schools this coming school year, they are tapping into the expertise of Chicago’s charter leaders, who will help launch this extraordinary experiment over the next two years.

In the unique situation after Katrina, this newfound commitment to choice comes of necessity:

Creating an all-charter system will be the ultimate testing ground for advocates, who believe that a network of well-managed and independent public schools can break the monopoly that exists in many large districts. But (former Chicago Public Schools charter school chief Greg) Richmond said transformation of New Orleans schools was born of desperation rather than politics.

"The education leaders in Louisiana have not been charter school proponents, and they’re not doing this to make any kind of point about how good charter schools are," he said. "They just want good schools, and they’ve seen what we’ve been able to do in Chicago when you demand quality."

It will be very interesting to watch this unfold over the next two years.