The historic John McDonough High School was one of the few schools in New Orleans that experienced only minor damage during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It should have reopened but it didn’t.
It needed repairs but the state-run district neglected the school. When John White was briefly in charge of New Orleans, he promised a major renovation. He promised to give the school to Steve Barr of Los Angeles, charter entrepreneur.
Thirteen years later, renovations have begun.
Mercedes Schneider tells the sorry story of delay and neglect here.
Don’t believe stories of the efficient new administration in New Orleans. Not true.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What is clear is that the state never intended to open McDonough High School as a public school. Actions speak louder than words. Now that they have a charter operator lined up to use the space, they are willing to make the necessary renovations.
Cities should fight to keep their autonomy and not go into receivership as it is a ticket privatization. When politicians collude with the charter lobby, the local citizens lose their right to democratic participation. They also lose access to their public money which gets shifted into private hands.
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Disgusting. Seems this entire country is up 4 sale. “NO THANKS” to both the deformers of public education in the GOP and DNC. These politicians are just KA-Chinging for their perks and funding from other the deformers.
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Indeed, retired teacher!
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The other tragedy about John McDonough High School is that it was, as public schools should be, a real anchor for a diverse community that was destroyed and thrust into a tragic diaspora. It is in the middle of one of the most interesting neighborhoods in the U.S. Since the Army Corps of Engineers-caused disaster that has been misleadingly blamed on Hurricane Katrina, this neighborhood has been ground zero of the accelerated gentrification of New Orleans, of which the privatization of the city’s public schools is a central tenet.
It is surrounded by some of the most distinctive architecture in New Orleans, the former home of Edgar Degas is just a couple of blocks in one direction, the New Orleans Fair Grounds, home of horse racing and Jazzfest, in the other. If you’ve taken a city tour of New Orleans, you were driven down Esplanade Avenue from the French Quarter and pass the high school on the way to St. Louis Cemetery Number 3.
John McDonough was a slave-owning businessman from Baltimore who bequeathed his wealth to establish public schools in Baltimore and New Orleans (for whites and free blacks). For more than a century, most schools in New Orleans were named for him. New York has P.S.with numbers to designate its schools, New Orleans had McDonough. For example, another high school was called McDonough 35. Just another part of history deformers have erased. Now the old McDonough schools have either disappeared or name changes to reflect the current amnesia that New Orleans charter operators encourage.
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