For four consecutive years, The Learning Collective has conducted the third-party evaluations of all applications for new schools submitted to New Orleans Public Schools (NOLA PS). New Orleans is the only public school district in the country comprised entirely of charter schools. Here are some lessons we have learned from this important work:
New Orleans is a unique city, culture and educational system. For that reason, we always have a local reviewer as part of our larger review team.
We have also learned through our work in New Orleans and Washington that video-based (rather than in-person) applicant capacity interviews can produce sufficiently robust information to enable us to fully vet applicants.