It was just the latest upheaval in a city that has become the crucible for the biggest education reform ideas of the past decade. Right now in New Orleans, there are virtually no teachers unions. Hundreds of teachers have alternative certifications, including many from Teach for America. Donors have poured in millions of dollars — and a lot of outside influence. There is a huge emphasis on data and testing, along with roiling controversies over special education, discipline and English-language learners. And a state-level political fight over the Common Core.

Amid all of this, in the past five years, the city has posted the largest, fastest improvement in test scores ever produced in an urban public school system.

But do those results mean that universal school choice should be the universal school choice?

Just over half of New Orleans voters polled in May said they believed choice is having a positive impact on the city. Yet many of the parents I spoke with — even those who are thrilled with their own kids’ schools — deplore the system.

“It wasn’t a choice,” says Dellande. “You take what they give you. That’s not choice.”

After four hours of waiting in line that morning, she was given a number and told to report to a different temporary center the next day, only to be informed there that there was nothing to be done. So she put her 25 years as an executive secretary at Tulane Medical School to use, peppering officials with daily phone calls and emails, cc’ing a state senator and the mayor. When the district suggested that spaces might be found across the Mississippi River in Algiers, an hour and 45 minute bus ride away, Dellande hit the roof. Holding out her smartphone, she shows me this email:

“I would have to have MY TWO PRECIOUS grandchildren waiting at some Carrollton shopping center only to be put on a school bus by 6 am. Do YOU really think that’s a good idea? LET’S PRETEND MY GRANDKIDS WERE WHITE WITH BLOND HAIR, DO YOU THINK THEN I WOULD HAVE HAD TO WAIT IN A LINE THAT WAS SURELY HELL BOUND THAT MORNING.”

Patrick Dobard is the superintendent of the Recovery School District. By far the larger of the city’s two districts, the RSD closed its last five direct-run schools last spring and is 100 percent charter as of this fall.

“We’ve seen significant success with the all-charter portfolio,” he says.

“We’ve seen phenomenal growth with the hardest to serve, underperforming students.” A lifelong New Orleanian himself and an African-American, he particularly highlights the progress made by black children compared with the state average.