It is a charter, or independent, school that Mr Gangopadhyay, a Californian, founded last year.
Armed with clipboards and flyers, these are the door-to-door salesmen of free education. Mr Gangopadhyay sells his product with an almost missionary zeal.
“We need to penetrate these neighbourhood housing developments and let people know that we really are going to make sure that every child goes to a high quality college, to make sure they become leaders in society,” he says.
Mr Gangopadhyay is one of the many young teachers to have come into this city in the wake of Katrina, the devastating 2005 hurricane that claimed the lives of more than 1,800 people and flooded much of the city.
Altruism may be one reason why they are here, but also the opportunity to try out new ideas in a low-performing school district that was almost completely destroyed in the storm.
‘The future is now’
Two-thirds of the city’s children are now enrolled at independent schools, which receive state funding but are free from some of the rules and statutes that apply to other public schools, in return for producing results as set out in the school charter.
They are non-selective institutions, run by a mixture of businesses and non-profit organisations.
Charter schools are not unique to New Orleans but no other city has gone this far, this fast.
At the nearby Sci Academy, the teachers are having their morning staff meeting. They shout at the top of their voices “the future is now”.
The 20-something Ivy Leaguers stand in a circle, psyching themselves up for their day by slapping their thighs and clicking their fingers.
These teachers are performance driven people. The Sci Academy has been open for less than a year and it is already getting results.
Despite the fact that almost all the students here qualify for free school meals, they just came top in the district’s English exam.
Ben Marcovitz is the the principal. At 30, he is one of the oldest members of staff and holds much power over the quality of education at the school.
“I see a teacher who is not working out, that teacher doesn’t have to stay. I see a teacher who could use improvement I can help develop that teacher. I see that the school day needs another course in math, I can add that course,” he says.
“I can take a look at everything that’s going right and wrong and act on it, provided that I raise the accountability that I have to those who are granting me the charter.”
Burn out?
Typically of charter schools, the staff here are not unionised and work a longer school day than teachers in traditional public schools. I don’t want the majority of my staff to work more than 10 years Paul Vallas, New Orleans Recovery School District superintendent
“We’re working 12-hour days, on a regular basis. I generally reserve all day Saturday and then plan to do some work on Sunday,” says Margot Bouchie, a 26-year-old teacher.
Ms Bouiche says she and her colleagues drink a lot of coffee. But what happens when the adrenalin and the caffeine wears off. Do they burn out?
It is a question that is bothering some within the charter school movement – but not Paul Vallas.
Mr Vallas is superintendent of the school district here and is seen by many as a mentor to the US education secretary, Arne Duncan.
“I don’t want the majority of my staff to work more than 10 years. The cost of sustaining those individuals becomes so enormous,” he says.
“Between retirement and health care and things like that, it means that you are constantly increasing class sizes and cutting programmes in order to sustain the cost of a veteran workforce, so I think you want a mix, you want a balance.”
The problem of “burn out” does bother union representative Cheryllyn Branche. She is the principal of a traditional public school, Benjamin Banneker. It turned down the opportunity to become a charter school and has been improving its test scores since Hurricane Katrina.
“If you can’t get someone to stay in this profession to really hone their craft, learn their skills, and really make a difference in the lives of children, then you are not doing something that’s realistic and long term,” she says.
Spreading the word
The conditions under which these charter schools have flourished in New Orleans are undeniably unique – in the wake of Katrina the teaching union was crushed, and an entire workforce changed overnight as idealistic young teachers swarmed in.
But can the gains made here be replicated elsewhere? Education secretary Arne Duncan wants to spend billions of dollars spreading charter schools across America.
Jay Altman, a director of the New Orleans Charter operator, FirstLine, believes that much of what has been achieved in the city could also work in Britain.
Mr Altman, a former adviser to the UK education secretary under Tony Blair, says there are many educators in the UK who would relish the opportunity to design their own schools.
D’Andrea Jenkins, Science teacher at Collegiate Baton Rouge, is the fourth Teacher Feature of the 2017-2018 school year. D’Andrea thinks outside the box to create an extremely challenging and extremely e…
The Healthy School Food Collaborative is participating in the 2018 Summer Food Service Program. Meals will be provided to all eligible children without charge. Acceptance and participating requirements f…
NEWORLEANS — If Domonique Crosby has her way, she will graduate from high school this spring at age 20. To her, earning her diploma, even two years late, feels like so…
The RSD-Collegiate Academies is participating in the Summer Food Service Program. Meals will be provided to all eligible children without charge. Acceptance and participating requirements for the progra…
Eric Parrie, a Social Studies Teacher at George Washington Carver High School, is the third Collegiate Academies’ Teacher Feature for the 2016-2017 school year. Eric is a larger than life character engag…
Victor Jones, English Teacher at George Washington Carver Collegiate, is the second Teacher Feature of the 2016-2017 school year. Victor uses his big personality and bigger vision to support his students…
Leah Lykins, AP Environmental Science Teacher at Abramson Sci Academy, is the first Teacher Feature of the 2016-2017 school year. Leah empowers her students to engage with their data in deep, meaningful…
The U.S. Department of Education announced yesterday a $4,982,968 million grant awarded to Collegiate Academies. This five-year grant under the Charter Schools Program...
Kelsey Lambrecht (GNO ’09) is the founding School Leader for Collegiate Baton Rouge. As a special education teacher and Director of Intervention, Kelsey helped to found several special programs for Colle…
Sara Mich, a Sci Academy English Teacher, is the first Teacher Feature of the 2015-2016 school year. Sara’s strong focus on constant personal and scholar growth creates a classroom where students achieve…
Phil Galia, US History teacher at Carver Collegiate, is the second Teacher Feature of the 2015-2016 school year. In class, Phil supports his scholars in forming and expressing their own opinions, while a…
Ben Ifshin, one of Sci Academy’s Biology teachers, is the third and final Teacher Feature of the 2015-2016 school year. Ben Ifshin’s class has a deep empathy for student experience, combining joy with su…
Evan Stoudt, New Orleans native, set to lead Collegiate Academies’ new high school in New Orleans East. Get to know Evan through a recent interview about his vision for the future of Livingston Collegiat…
Sci Academy in New Orleans has positioned itself as a hub of innovation within the city’s charter school community. Teachers and staff constantly seek out new ways to better their scholars’ educational e…
Setting ambitious yet attainable goals for all scholars is essential to Collegiate Academies’ success. In my previous post, I outlined the overall goals for special education and inte…
The Times-Picayune recently published a series of articles about the state of public education in New Orleans. Collegiate Academies was spotlighted in several of the pieces. Click here....
Rachelle Carter, a scholar at G.W. Carver Preparatory Academy, and Brittany Cadogan, a scholar at Sci Academy, were both named Cox Inspirational Heroes during the 23rd annual ceremony on April 28th. We a…
For a little over a year, I’ve been blending technology with traditional instruction in my Algebra I classroom to support my scholars. Introducing blended learning techniques to your classroom can be ove…
Collegiate Academies students gathered Friday (May 1) with their teachers and family to celebrate upcoming graduation by making a heartfelt effort to break a world record. They did not grow a very long b…
At the last Data Day of the 2014-2015 school year, G.W. Carver Collegiate Academy English III instructor Quinn Sears received the distinction of Featured Teacher. Read on below to learn more about Quinn’…
Raven Matthews, a member of Sci Academy’s Class of 2012, gave the following speech in front of dozens of people at America Achieves’ New Orleans conference on Saturday, March 7th.
Last week, Doug Lemov wrote about a new after-school tutoring initiative at Sci Academy in his Teach Like a Champion blog. Read more from Doug Lemov below, and visit the original blog post here.
In my early years as a teacher, there were times that I measured my success by how clean my hands were at the end of the day. I knew I had a rough day when I lost my whiteboard eraser and, in the interes…
At our Data Day in January, Samara Levy, Sci Academy’s Algebra I Teacher, received the distinction of Featured Teacher. Today, we invite you to get to know Samara in more detail, learning about how she a…
On a daily basis, we are confronted with the need for schools like ours to exist for hundreds of thousands of kids across the country. In America, the income gap continues to determine life outcomes, and…
Like any successful endeavor, defining the goal at the start of a new program is critical to achieving success in the end. At Collegiate Academies, this philosophy holds true for planning Intervention an…
I stepped onto the first bus, ready to greet the crowd of students with a warm smile and to welcome them back from their holiday break. I was bundled up in layers in an attempt to keep out the cold. Th…
The “Teacher Feature” recognition is a short, funny, and moving video to celebrate one teacher across CA. We choose a teacher who exemplifies the values…
As 2014 drew to a close, four Sci Academy seniors celebrated the end of a lengthy college application process. After months of campus visits, dozens of late nights refining and editing personal statement…
Attention readers of the Collegiate Academies Blog: We are very excited to introduce the Collegiate Academies School Leader Fellowship! To learn more about the Fellowship, you can visit our website, and…
A few weeks ago, we revealed the second Teacher Feature of the school year. This Teacher Feature was particularly notable because it represented the first time in Collegiate Academies history that a teac…
Our scholars (really, all high school kids) need intense academic preparation to be college-ready. From phonics and pre-Algebra to AP Literature and Calculus, the intellectual work of moving from middle…
The mission of Collegiate Academies is to create and support schools that prepare all scholars for college success. We decided to sit down with Benjamin Marcovitz, Collegiate Academies’ Chief Executive O…
The “Teacher Feature” recognition is a short, funny, and moving video to celebrate one teacher across CA. We choose a teacher who exemplifies the values…
On Sunday, November 9th, two high-stakes battles were being waged at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. As the Saints and the San Francisco 49ers went head-to-head on the field, the high school students who ho…
In late September, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Women’s Law Center released a report on the systemic barriers faced by African American girls in schools across the country….
Last week, we shared Part 1 of our Featured Teacher Spotlight: a Q&A with Jane Shiu that explores Jane’s background and her time at Sci Academy. This week, we dig deeper into our conversation with Jane t…
Following the reveal of our Teacher Feature each Data Day, we’ll be posting interviews with each of our featured teachers so that you can get to know more about them: what led them to teaching, the techn…
In the past several decades, Singapore has rapidly climbed up the international education totem pole. According to the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Singapore’s schools have developed a reputation…
If you work in schools, you know that teachers are among the hardest working and least recognized groups of workers we have. Across our country, teachers put in extra time for their students, take work h…
This summer, I had the great pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Lakethia Hampton, the aunt of one of the girls on the Sci Academy volleyball team. Having coached volleyball for the past four…
On Collegiate Academies’ three campuses, the new school year has officially begun: the hallways smell of fresh paint, scholars are eagerly cracking the spines of new books, and the skillful drumming of t…
Welcome to the Collegiate Academies blog, your one-stop shop for news, announcements, updates, and ideas from the Collegiate Academies community. Here, you’ll find stories about the milestones that are m…
The digital bell sounds, and students at Arthur Ashe Charter School in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood file into the classroom. They sit down and immediately get to work: Put on headphones, pull up th…
Saturday service learning projects at Carver Prep and Carver Collegiate help students at the open-enrollment New Orleans charter high schools build their college résumés while learning that community ser…
The 55 seniors wore high school uniforms, college sweatshirts or dress shirts, and they squinted into a future so bright they’ve gotta wear shades. Or maybe it was just the late-spring sun falling on Gal…
The first Maker Faire in New Orleans was held over the weened. It was hosted by a new school incubated by 4.0 Schools and New Schools New Orleans (NSNO)– Bricolage Academy. Matt Candler, founder of 4.0…
Jim Kline, Senior Seminar teacher at New Orleans’ Sci Academy and 4.0 Essentials alum, is using principles of design thinking to confront challenges with college persistence. And his kids are engaging wi…
It’s one thing to say all students can learn, but making them believe it—and do it—can require a 180-degree shift in students’ and teachers’ sense of themselves and of one another.
As far back as middle school, Tanara Thomas had her future mapped out: Finish high school, attend Delgado Community College for two years and then transfer to LSU. Growing up in one of the poorest neighb…
Sci Academy’s cheerleading squad burst into the packed auditorium at Greater St. Stephen Baptist Church in eastern New Orleans, cheering “We are the best, we’re headed for success, passing by all the res…
Pamela Morrell sat nervously in the third row Thursday evening among the lines of blue chairs set up in the school cafeteria at Sci Academy, a charter high school in eastern New Orleans.
The ninth-graders in Isaac Pollack’s physics class at New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy were eagerly participating in a lesson on displacement and distance.
Charter schools just got the gift of a lifetime. Yesterday, Oprah Winfrey gave out the last Oprah’s Angel Network grants – and the recipients were all charter schools. How’s that for going out with a…
