Does School Reform = Spending Reform? the Effect of the New Orleans School Reforms on the Use and Level of School Expenditures

This study estimates the effects of the post-Katrina school reforms on the operating expenditures of New Orleans’ publicly funded schools. We compare all the city’s publicly funded schools to a group of Louisiana school districts that had similar spending patterns before the New Orleans reforms shifted the city to a charter-driven system. We also show changes for both groups before and after the post-Katrina school reforms, focusing especially on the most recent year of data available (2014). We draw the following conclusions: