Compare 2025 school performance scores for New Orleans charters

The NOLA Public Schools district earned its first B letter grade since the schools returned to the district’s control in 2018, after being seized from the Orleans Parish School Board in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and run for years by the state. 

The Louisiana Department of Education released its 2025 school ratings, in the form of A through F letter grades, on Thursday. In the annual release of scores, all school districts in neighboring parishes — Jefferson, St. Tammany and St. Bernard — also earned Bs.

The B is an improvement for NOLA Public Schools; the district has earned a C for the last three years.

The move up appears to be driven by a jump in A-rated schools in the city. This year 12 schools got the top mark, up from seven the year prior. New A-rated additions include: Eleanor McMain High School, Frederick Douglass High School, Lycee Francais, New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy and Sophie B. Wright High School. 

State letter grades are calculated using state standardized test scores. The NOLA Public Schools district received a D in assessment, which measures students’ performance on the test. But it earned an A in growth, the year-over-year measurement of student improvement. The state’s weighted formula brings that to a B overall.

Though most New Orleans schools received a C or above overall, more than half of city schools received an F in assessment portion of the review — the actual test scores. That means students are testing below grade level. Another 16 schools received a D, when rated purely on test scores.

The low scores were brought up once the assessment scores were merged with a growth score, in which half of schools received an A, bringing up overall grades in the city.

Twelve New Orleans schools earned A letter grades and eight earned a B. More than half of the city’s schools received a C rating. (Full ratings are available at the bottom of this page.)

Among the nine D-rated schools is the district’s only direct-run campus, The Leah Chase School. In its second year of operation after a chaotic fruition, the school is running a deficit. District officials are concerned both about enrollment and long-term finances.

Two Orleans schools received Fs — Dr. Martin Luther King School and Einstein at Sherwood Forest. King’s high school campus closed last year due to poor performance; the grade released below is a grade for both the high school and the still-open pre-k through 8th-grade campus. In its final rating, Noble Minds also received an F. The school closed as a public school last year and now operates as a privately run program.

High-stakes grades for New Orleans charters

The state grades carry extra weight in New Orleans’ decentralized, nearly all-charter school system. 

The all-charter system began after Hurricane Katrina when the state seized more than 100 city schools after the storm.

In 2019, with the transfer of its final direct-run school McDonogh 35 Senior High School to a charter group, New Orleans became the first major American city with no traditional schools.

Charter schools operate on five- to ten-year contracts. During years that the contracts expire, the district conducts a full review that relies heavily on the school’s academic performance and its distillation to a letter grade.

This year, 13 schools are up for charter contract renewal, meaning if they don’t score well enough, they will close. 

Once test scores were released in late June, earlier than ever before, the state began to calculate the letter grades. Officials must calculate the growth that individual students have shown year over year and then confirm enrollment to ensure that each student’s scores are counted at the proper schools. 

Of the 13 renewal schools, 12 appeared poised to win new contracts. The final school, Young Audiences at Crocker, earned a D, which could jeopardize its charter contract.

The 12 renewal schools with a C are: Arthur Ashe Charter School, Audubon Gentilly Charter School, Booker T. Washington High School, Dorothy Height Charter School, Edward Hynes Charter School at Parkview, Homer A. Plessy Community School, KIPP Believe, KIPP Central City, KIPP Morial, Langston Hughes Charter Academy, Livingston Collegiate Academy, and Morris Jeff Community School.

The superintendent will make recommendations about contract renewals — or closures — in December. 

Declining enrollment

Only one of three F schools remains open this year: Einstein Sherwood Forest. 

Last week, Einstein officials announced they intended to surrender charter contracts for three of the group’s four schools, closing the high school, middle school and merging the two elementary schools into one K-8 campus.

NOLA Public Schools officials are happy about the proposal. It “will increase operational efficiency and positively impact the District’s optimization efforts and progress towards some Five-Year Portfolio Plan goals.” That jargony summary from the district jibes with the goals of what the district previously called its “right-sizing” plan, which aims to close and merge some campuses to reduce thousands of empty seats in its schools. The district’s decline in enrollment aligns with downtrends seen nationally.

If Einstein’s proposal is approved, the charter operator will run one charter elementary school at the Sherwood Forest site next school year. 

Ratings around Town

KIPP New Orleans Schools had a bright spot at Frederick Douglass High School, which earned an A this year.

The charter group operates six elementary campuses and three high schools, including Douglass. KIPP’s elementary schools all received Cs, as did its other high schools, John F. Kennedy and Booker T. Washington. 

A scores were also celebrated at Eleanor McMain and Edna Karr, two of the three high schools run by charter operator InspireNOLA. McDonogh 35 Senior High School earned a B. InspireNOLA’s elementary schools earned a mix of Bs and Cs.

Firstline Schools’ four elementary schools all earned Cs. Crescent City Schools’ elementaries also earned C letter grades.