Hurricane Katrina and Educational Reform

Hurricane Katrina offered a rare opportunity to learn about the role of power in the politics of institutional reform. When Katrina hit, it physically destroyed New Orleans’ school buildings, but it also destroyed the vested-interest power that had protected the city’s abysmal education system from major reform. With the constraints of power lifted, decision makers who had been incremental problem-solvers turned into revolutionaries, creating the most innovative school system in the entire country. Making use of Katrina’s analytic leverage, Terry Moe pulls back the curtain to show the nature of the forces that--under normal conditions--stifle and undermine society’s efforts to fix failing institutions.

Speaker

Terry M. Moe is the William Bennett Munro Professor of political science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Sponsored by

The Institute for Humane Studies
UCCS Social Sciences Symposium Series