I'm Aisha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story,
where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story.
In some parts of the country, kids have already been back in school for weeks.
My kids are going back to school tomorrow.
Thank goodness.
I need some space.
Good morning.
Welcome back.
That's Fantasy Williams Elementary in New Orleans.
In early August,
staff greeted students on their first day back as their parents pulled up to the curb.
Inside, second graders got motivated for the coming year.
Now, Fantasy Williams, like almost all of New Orleans public schools, is a charter school.
In fact, all but one of New Orleans public schools are managed by independent charter operators.
And that's because of major reform state officials in Louisiana began making to the school system more than two decades ago.
Twenty years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
The levees failed and the city flooded.
In the aftermath, state officials transformed the city's public school system,
a school system that at the time was considered by some to be one of the worst in the country.
Today we look at one of the biggest experiments in public education to happen in the U.S.,