Complete Coverage

In New Orleans, University's Charter School Makes Gains

Sophie B. Wright Charter School 6th grader Christian Lawrence, left, practices a step routine on the school's stage on May 7 as part of the Alpha Phi Alpha Gentleman's afterschool program.

—Matthew Hinton for Education Week

By Lesli A. Maxwell

New Orleans

Most days at the Sophie B. Wright Institute of Academic Excellence, a charter school for 4th through 8th graders in Uptown New Orleans, students encounter someone from a university.

Tutors from Tulane University visit daily. Professors from Southern University at New Orleans arrive to guest teach in a science class. And Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity members from SUNO come most days to mentor boys after school.

Such regular exposure to people connected to higher education, says Principal Sharon Clark, is a key piece of the school's academic model. Those ties have imbued Wright since it was chartered by SUNO in July 2005, the month before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. Wright, which had been one of New Orleans’ most troubled middle schools before the storm, is now producing some of city’s most impressive growth in academic achievement. Earlier this month, the school—where nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price meals—learned that every one of its 4th graders had...