Taken by Storm

ABSTRACT Hurricane Katrina was one of the nation’s worst natural disasters. It also triggered one of the nation’s most intense market-based school reforms, in which almost all traditional public schools were turned into charter schools. We study the effects of these combined events on students who attended New Orleans public schools before and after the storm. Using matched difference-in-differences, we find that student test scores, high school graduation, college attendance, and college graduation all rose sharply. Most racial and income gaps in outcomes declined. The school reforms appear to have been the main mechanism.