In January 2012, I walked into Clark High School for my introductory news conference as superintendent of the 抖阴h Recovery School District. The building felt both familiar and foreign.
This was the high school I would have attended if my parents had made a different decision decades earlier. I was both excited and uneasy to lead the RSD. How do I take this system that has struggled for generations and make it better for kids in my hometown?
I chose Clark for a reason. In 1969, the school helped my eldest brother get into Tulane University, where he joined one of the first groups of Black students to integrate the campus. But by the time I was ready for high school in 1981, my parents did whatever they could to send me to St. Augustine High School. Clark was no longer a school that my family believed could put me on a path to college.
On that day in 2012, Clark was one of many New Orleans schools rated F by the state. As I stepped inside, a Black student greeted me at the entrance and offered to walk me to the library.
I asked him what school was like. He told me it was better than it had been. He listed things he hoped would improve, but he kept returning to that one word. Better. Not finished. Not fixed. Better. That simple word became my anchor.
If you had asked me then whether New Orleans could go from an F-rated district to a B-rated district by 2025, I would have said that it would take decades to repair what had been broken. Perhaps by 2040. The idea that it could happen by 2025 would have felt almost impossible.
Yet the state just released the new school performance scores, and New Orleans is now a B district.
Let that sink in. This was a city whose education system was once described by the state鈥檚 auditors as a 鈥渢rain wreck.鈥� This was a community devastated by Hurricane Katrina. F to B in just over a decade. This is what becomes possible when a city prioritizes students, when leaders respect teachers' expertise and when power is shared across schools, government, nonprofits and the community.
Together, we created a funding formula that directs more resources to students with greater needs. School networks made difficult decisions to merge or consolidate, becoming smaller to grow stronger. Nonprofits like New Schools for New Orleans made school quality visible for families, while YouthForce NOLA and the Career Center expanded pathways into high-wage careers.
So where do we go next? New Orleans is no longer a centralized, top-down school system. That shift is our strength. It means we can stay grounded in student progress even when external accountability measures change.
Next year, the state will introduce a revised accountability system designed to raise standards. Early simulations show that letter grades will shift under the new rules, not because schools are doing worse, but because the bar is higher. I want to acknowledge that reality so families understand what grade changes mean, not because it changes anything about the progress students and educators have made.
Becoming an A district is possible, but only if we protect what works and make the investments to continuously improve. It begins with teachers. If we want to sustain this progress, we must invest in the people who show up for our children. That means pay that reflects their value and incentives that keep great educators in New Orleans. The state also must do its part by increasing funding. Continued progress requires real investment.
Accountability systems and political priorities change, but the principles that got us here 鈥� equity, autonomy and collaboration 鈥� are not up for negotiation. In 2012, that young man at Clark told me things were better. Thirteen years later, New Orleans didn鈥檛 just do better. We went from an F-rated district to a B. After nearly every expert said it couldn鈥檛 be done.
The foundation we built held. The system we designed worked. An A-rated district isn鈥檛 a question of 鈥渋f.鈥� It鈥檚 when. That鈥檚 how we do it in New Orleans 鈥� by proving the impossible is just hard work.