Tagged: New Orleans

When I used to coach track and field, I would tell my colleagues, “A great leader removes all excuses for their athletes to fail.” The same is true in education. Our systems should make it easy for parents and students to succeed by removing excuses’ door.

While empowering, New Orleans highly decentralized system of charter schools has been as confusing. Parents encounter loopholes when they don’t fully understand their options.

Although Hurricane Isaac blew out electricity for the entire New Orleans metro area, do we collectively understand what it means to be powerless? For too many residents, neither Isaac nor Entergy will prevent electricity from returning; powerlessness will. The silver lining to our temporary blackout should be that it illuminated our awareness to the day-to-day conditions of the poor in New Orleans. 

“Be Nice or Leave!” is a local adage that can be found almost everywhere in New Orleans on signature signs that are popularized by folk artist Dr. Bob. Plain and direct, the saying captures a chronic problem that locals have found a suitable solution to.

Try to picture 14,000 youth.

Fourteen thousand exceeds the number of registered students at Tulane and the University of New Orleans. It’s a greater number than the combined enrollments of Loyola, Dillard and Xavier Universities. Fourteen thousand youth is about a third of the total number of students that attend public schools in Orleans Parish. The number is approximately 4000 seats shy of a full house at a Hornets game. If a company hired 14,000 youth it would be the largest employer in the city.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has extended a deadline for BP and a team of plaintiffs' attorneys to file details of a proposed settlement designed to resolve billions of dollars in economic damage claims spawned by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company and lawyers representing more than 100,000 individuals and businesses were expected Monday to ask U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans to give preliminary approval to the settlement agreement.

Early Monday evening, Barbier extended the deadline to Wednesday morning.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nine ships, including three tall military sailing ships, will adorn the Mississippi River in New Orleans this week as the nation kicks off the bicentennial commemoration of the War of 1812.

The ships are scheduled to arrive on Tuesday afternoon. There will be three U.S. Navy warships, three international warships and the sailing ships, including the Coast Guard's Cutter Eagle. The public can visit the ships for free between Wednesday and Sunday.