The High School That Beat Katrina

Franklin Haters

I'll keep it short and sweet. I poured too many hours into studying and passed up too much fun at Franklin, at both the old Carrolton building and the Leon C. Simon campus, to watch the school get watered down to a place for the average, above average, or even "good" students. It is a school for the exceptional and the extraordinary.

What's this about there not being an entrance exam.

Eric

c/0 1993

Community Support

It takes the support of a whole community to empower education. I think that it is awesome that parents, teachers and students worked together to open the doors of Franklin. As an educator, there is always a need to involve parents, students and teachers to positively impact education. When you'll decided to work together, it proved that we all can work together to make a difference. I hope that the positive support will continue to create a legacy of diversity within your school.

A response to keith of LA

Please fix your grammar and sentence construction Keith. If you want to persuade people into believing that Edna Karr is a better school, then you have to at least appear educated.

I response to Ronesha

As a current Franklin student, I think this video is well needed and well deserved because of Franklin's high success rate. I myself also wanted to attend Karr until I heard it was no longer a Magnet school or attented to those who were gifted.This ultimately made my mother and I look for different schools, in which we found Frankin.When i heard of what they actually did and received for their hard work(scholarships and amount of children who attended college, I was astonished and greatful for a place like it. We work hard and don't take anything for granted because we know where it leads us.

Karr may be a great school,but it has changed. My brother attended Karr and he said it was just like Ben Franklin Pre-Katrina ,but since it go rid of it's admissions test, it hasn't been the same. Also, Edna Karr may have included everyone after Katrina but, everyone didn't graduate nor attend college. Franklin doesn't discriminate against anyone; we only want to continue the legacy of educating the intelligent.

Also, If Edna Karr wanted recognition for it's great deeds, they should try and uphold higher standards for kids to achieve like Franklin.

congrats

Congratulations to all the parents, teachers and students who worked tirelessly to bring Franklin back after the storm. Thank you especially to Duris Holmes, who helped lead the movement to reopen Franklin as a charter school after Katrina.

Another response to Keith

I find Keith's statement to be yet another example of the anti-intellectual bias that pervades large parts of American culture.

As an early ('63) graduate of Franklin, I strongly disagree with his suggestion that Franklin should have been pulled back down to the status of an ordinary public high school. It does not benefit our society to have gifted students sitting bored in overcrowded classrooms where the teachers can barely handle the disciplinary problems caused by some among the academic underachievers at the same time as they are trying to give a basic education to the others, much less give the gifted the extra attention needed to challenge them and fully develop their potentials. Our universities and graduate schools are filling up with students from countries such as China and India where there is no hesitancy at all to expend resources to identify and nourish their academically gifted.

It is the shame of the American educational system that it yearly turns out masses of students who are so ill-prepared for college level work that they must take remedial courses in basic subjects before they can even attempt to take first year college courses. The New Orleans School Board should be commended and proud of maintaining such an island of excellence as Franklin in a sea of mediocrity.

A Reason to Come Home

As and employee of Shell Oil, my husband was actually transferred to Houston post Katrina. We enrolled our son in a wonderful private school there, and were treated with much kindness. Our home hadn't flooded, so we delayed to decision whether to stay in Houston or come home to New Orleans until the following March. When we decided we really had to stay in Houston, our son Luke said, "Well I really wished you had asked me what I thought." Luke's older brother had graduated from Franklin, and it was always Luke's dream to go there. We made the decision to come home, and to send Luke to Ben Franklin. Like many others,we sacrificed with my husband commuting from Houston for a year. But wow - what a great decision. Luke is secure, unbelievably happy, and loves to learn. He loves going to school every day. There aren't words to express the respect I have for Franklin's teachers and staff. Thanks to those of you who helped Franklin "Beat Katrina."

Ben Franklin experiences

As a graduate of the second class at Franklin (1958-1961) I can attest to the loyalty that graduates feel for the school. It was a much smaller school then, as they were simply adding one class, of roughly 60 students each year. However, we still managed to get about half of those studnets qualified as national merit semi-finalists or finalists.

My own memories are of the sense of "mission" even in those early days. Sputnik had just been launched in 1957 and the race was on to :catch up" to the Russians. As a result our classwork included classes in Russian, from Leon Trotsky's niece no less. In addition to the academic work, I also remember our efforts at athletics, particularly football. We could only count on 22 players, played in hand-me-down uniforms and participated in the riverside league, a compendium of smaller private schools and public schools located in smaller towns around New Orleans. In short, we made up in enthusiasm for our lack of skill and depth on the bench.At last year's reunion, our coach, our math teacher and our student councilor were all in attendance.

Since its earliest days, the school has been dogged by charges of elitism but has survived them all. At Ben Franklin, the extraordinary involvement of teachers, students, parents and alums seems to keep the momentum up. There are fine private and parochial schools in New Orleans, but for families of average means, Franklin was not just a way to advance, it was virtually the only way to get a great educational start within the public school environment.

Incidentally, Franklin was the first public school in the city to be integrated.

Franklin is a beacon of hope

As a graduate of Franklin, I have great pride in the accomplishments the students have achieved post-Katrina. Since it's inception, Franklin has endured scorn for having the audacity of requiring the best from its students. Having attended an inner-city middle school where fights and assaults were not unusual, Franklin was a beacon of hope and a reward for perseverance.

A response to Keith

The school wasn't going to be reopened as Ben Franklin. That was the problem that the parents, students, and teachers had with the school board's plan. And, Franklin has never done anything to try to exclude students from attending. However, it is an intensely rigorous program. Speaking as a student who attended when Franklin still required an entrance exam, I can tell you that my fellow students who had originally not passed the exam (you were able to take it more than once) and only passed on the second go round, ended up failing out of Franklin by Sophomore year.

It is not fair to the students themselves to admit them to a school that they are not prepared for.

However, I don't guess I'm going to change the minds of anyone here... because, as per usual in New Orleans, there is a whole contingency of people who have always hated Franklin for doing well. Instead of trying to get schools like Franklin to lower their standards, why not insist that other schools strive to become more like Franklin?

Oh, that's right, it's just easier to do that than the actual hard work that it takes to make a school like Franklin what it is.

You are the one who should be hiding.