A glimpse into the gains and losses of the ‘college for all’ movement in New Orleans : NPR

Scott Simon, host:

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and, following the storm, the Charter schools replaced traditional public schools in a way that had not been seen before. Many of these charter schools have promoted the idea that each student should go to university. Now, at a time when surveys show that many Americans question the value of a university diploma, journalist Sarah Carr returns to college’s successes and failures for all movements.

(Soundbit of archived registration)

Unidentified children: (song) Kipp.

Sarah Carr: There was a school operator in Charter after Katrina who played the college for all the thrusts to New Orleans. They even had a hymn for that.

(Soundbit of archived registration)

Unidentified children: (song) was able to read, baby, read. I have to read, baby, read and go to university.

Carr: Kipp, which means the power program of Knowledge IS, is a national charter network. In New Orleans, he served low low -income black students, and he kept an implacable eye on the same price – college.

Geraldlynn Stewart: (song) Read, Baby, Read. You should read, baby, read.

Carr: Geraldlynn Stewart was 9 years old when Katrina struck. Subsequently, she found herself in the KIPP schools.

Stewart: Kipp really made a point to love, college, college, college, college. This is what we want. We want a college, a college, a college, a college, a college.

Carr: And in 2014, she went, but she left halfway during her second semester, far from a degree.

Stewart: financially, I’m not where I want to be. And it bothers me because I know I could have been somewhere, you know, in a different situation.

Carr: She recently tried to register for a cosmetology program, a longtime dream, but there was something that held her – a ten -year old student loan. A balance of $ 1,200 persists. She supported her children through jobs at the airport, Walmart and now Target. But as difficult as it works, cleaning the balance was not easy.

Stewart: Now my fight is 28 years old with three children and not knowing what is my goal.

Carr: Today, the first graduates of these secondary schools focused on the university are at the end of the twenty or the beginning of the thirties, and there are solid data on the way things took place after the charters arrived in town.

Doug Harris: test scores, secondary graduation rate, collegial lessons, everything has improved and everything has improved a lot.

Carr: Educational researcher Doug Harris says that more students have started university.

Harris: We are almost at the top of the state at this stage of university prices, which is remarkable.

Carr: The problem is that many students did not stay at university. Harris, who works at the University of Tulane, examined the persistence of colleges when the cohort of Geraldlynn Stewart was registered. In a study, his team discovered that before Katrina, around 1 in 6 students from New Orleans had not succeeded in their first half. And more than a decade later, in 2016, this figure had barely changed.

Vincent Rossmeier: This is something that must really focus on what is happening once the students actually go to the college that prevent them from graduate.

Carr: Vincent Rossmeier also studies New Orleans schools in Tulane. In a school system which is mainly black and low-income, he says, students can find themselves overwhelmed in college by personal and financial strains that their richest peers rarely meet.

Rossmeier: Twenty years after Katrina, it is something that I am still struck by this, you know, education cannot solve for poverty in itself.

Carr: But in the 2000s, when Geraldlynn Stewart began to frequent KIPP schools, there was a lot of optimism and a little naivety that these challenges could be overcome, that there was no need for a plan B. At the time, Stewart felt quite ambivalent to the university. But finally, she says she bought Kipp’s messaging.

Stewart: This is what we want, like us, children, wanted to hear.

Carr: After obtaining his graduate diploma in 2014, Stewart registered at Dillard University, a private and historically black college in the heart of New Orleans. She juggled at school with a full -time job in Waffle House.

Stewart: I was so focused on the financial capacity to stay in this college because Dillard is not a cheap school.

Carr: Stewart did not want to be a financial burden for his mother. She had a scholarship and a small loan, but there was a stampede.

Stewart: I had to buy a laboratory blouse for the biology course, and I had to have money for food to eat because you have to eat.

Carr: She struck a breaking point during her second semester and withdrew from Dillard to focus on earning money.

Stewart: I abandoned myself, roughly. I really did it. I abandoned myself.

Carr: Other Kipp classmates were also registered with Stewart in Dillard and fought with money and family obligations. One of his classmates told NPR that he remembers having started with a large group of Aluns Kipp, but over the years, most of them have withdrawn. Things would improve a little for Kipp graduates in Dillard over the next two years. The Charter Network has not been able to provide college completion numbers to his graduates in New Orleans, but he recognizes that the implementation of students to finish his studies is a big challenge.

Rhonda Kalifey-Aluis: Persistence is the struggle.

Carr: Kipp New Orleans CEO, Rhonda Kalifey-Aluis, says that Kipp remains attached to the idea that college is the safest path of poverty. But the organization has softened with regard to the college for all.

Kalifey-Aluis: We absolutely think that all students should have the opportunity to go to university if they wish.

Carr: if they want. Their secondary schools have prioritized individual advice and professional advice, and they started to offer a little more access to technical fields such as cosmetology.

Kalifey-Aluis: It’s really a / and.

Carr: Geraldlynn Stewart’s family remained faithful to Kipp, and for the most part, Stewart says that she likes the way the organization changes.

Harmony: one, two, three …

Harmony and Harlem: … all eyes on me.

Harlem: a …

Harmony and Harlem: … two, eyes on you.

Carr: Twenty years after Katrina, her older children are themselves KIPP students.

Harmony: My name is Harmony.

Harlem: and Harlem.

Carr: This year, Harmony begins the third year. Harlem is first. At school, their mother says they are exposed to all kinds of trades and occupations, from doctors to firefighters.

Stewart: I want them to pierce what they are doing now for these children and us because I have the impression that we would probably have been better.

Carr: Harmony has many career aspirations.

Harmony: I may be a teacher or a doctor, but my mother wants me to be an artist because I know how to draw very well.

Stewart: I want her to live every little thing she can. Like, she is very – as, she is right – she is incredible.

Carr: But what is most important for Stewart is that her daughter has opportunities of all kinds, from the university or not, and never feels trapped by someone else’s vision of whom she should be in this world.

For NPR News, I am Sarah Carr in New Orleans.

Simon: And the journalist of Wwno Aubri Juhasz also contributed to this story.

(SoundBite of Streams by “San Andreas” by Harris Heller)

Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the pages of use of the conditions of use of our website on www.npr.org for more information.

The accuracy and availability of NPR transcriptions may vary. The transcription text can be revised to correct errors or match audio updates. Audio on npr.org can be published after its original broadcast or publication. The file authorizing the NPR programming is the audio recording.