New filings in a major special education lawsuit allege that New Orleans schools have ongoing problems in meeting the educational needs of students with disabilities. The filings this summer come nearly three years after the suit was initially filed by students’ families and almost eight years into a nationally unprecedented decentralization of the city’s school system.

After Hurricane Katrina, the state took control of the city’s low-performing schools and began systematically turning them into largely independent charter schools in the so-called Recovery School District. Many of the remaining Orleans Parish School Board schools became charters as well. There are no neighborhood schools. Children’s families are supposed to be able to choose any school in the city.

But the Southern Poverty Law Center says that the promise of choice continues to be a sham because students with disabilities can attend only schools that can serve them adequately, and many don’t.

“Over the course of the past eight years, these changes to the basic delivery of public education have yet to benefit New Orleans students with disabilities. The system for providing special education in New Orleans is thoroughly broken,” the law center’s memo states.

Times-Picayune, Aug. 2