For many years leading up to Hurricane Katrina, most Orleans Parish School Board members regularly fought proposals for a state takeover and charter schools. They often courted teachers union support -- then a big factor in getting elected -- and decried school choice and state intervention as ploys to dismantle and weaken the public education system.

The first School Board election since Hurricane Katrina, however, marks a major philosophical shift.

Most of the five new members generally support a 2005 state takeover of schools as well as the city's burgeoning chartering movement. Most members are unlikely to back the teachers union or any bid to regain collective bargaining rights immediately.

It also marks the first time in about 20 years that the board has a white majority governing body -- in a predominantly black school district and a majority-black city -- a point that new members, at least one current member and others brush off as innocuous.

Despite the slumping U.S. economy and dropping home values nationwide, most St. Tammany Parish residents will see 2008 property tax assessments that reflect higher fair market prices for their homes, according to Assessor Patricia Schwarz Core.

Several schools in the Recovery School District are likely to become charter schools in the next few years as part of a continuing push toward school decentralization in New Orleans, which already has the highest percentage of charters of any city in the country.

Independent charter operators will probably take over the lower grades of at least four poorly performing schools next fall, said district Superintendent Paul Vallas. At the same time, the top-performing district schools, probably about a third of the elementary-level programs, will be given the option of applying for charters over the next two years, he said.

Three years ago today, Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans and southeast Louisiana. A few weeks later, Hurricane Rita hit southwest Louisiana, completely demolishing some of our coastal communities. These terrible storms destroyed thousands of small businesses, displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, killed over a thousand people, and caused tens of billions of dollars in property damage.

Hurricane Gustav, the largest and most dangerous storm to make landfall in recent years, roars ashore today. No doubt, politicians and pundits will be quick to make comparisons to the disaster response three years ago after Hurricane Katrina ravaged millions of square miles over three states and devastated coastal areas, including the city of New Orleans.