LOUISIANA BOOK FESTIVAL TO HOST HOPE AGAINST HOPE PANEL
The 10th annual Louisiana Book Festival will host a panel discussion on Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children by Sarah Carr.
Hope Against Hope investigates the difficulties faced by New Orleans educators, students and families alike following Hurricane Katrina. The book follows an ambitious student, an energetic young teacher and a hardworking principal as they navigate the city’s stressed post-Katrina public school system.
The challenges presented to New Orleans by the storm illustrate current education issues found across America. Three of the subjects of the book, Mary Laurie, Ben Marcovitz and Geraldlynn Stewart, will be on hand as panelists at the presentation.
“Although the book focuses explicitly on New Orleans schools, it really is a broader story about school culture, sociological tensions over what education can and should be, and competing notions of how best to revitalize our struggling cities,” Carr said.
Carr is an education reporter for The Hechinger Report who has previously written for The Times-Picayune and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The Louisiana Book Festival is 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2 in downtown Baton Rouge. It is free and open to the public.
The Louisiana Book Festival is co-sponsored by the Office of Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne; the Louisiana Center for the Book; the Louisiana Library Foundation; the State Library of Louisiana; and the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. Visit www.LouisianaBookFestival.org for more information.
MEET THE PANELISTS
Sarah Carr
AUTHOR
Sarah Carr has written about education for the past 12 years, reporting on the growth in online learning in higher education, the battle over vouchers and charter schools in urban districts and the struggle to educate China's massive population of migrant children. Her work has been honored with numerous national awards and fellowships, recently including a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University. She lives in New Orleans.
Mary Laurie
PANELIST
As a young child, Mary Laurie moved with her family from the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans where she has lived ever since. Laurie worked as a classroom teacher, master teacher, director of the Home Instruction Program for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) and principal of Guste Elementary and Carter G. Woodson Leadership Academy. After Hurricane Katrina, she became principal of O. Perry Walker High School. Under her leadership, the school achieved widespread recognition for its academic gains.
Ben Marcovitz
PANELIST
Benjamin Marcovitz is the founder of Sci Academy and the CEO of Collegiate Academies. Since its opening, Sci Academy has been one of the top-performing schools in New Orleans, prompting the creation of the Collegiate Academies network to replicate the model. Marcovitz grew up in Washington, D.C., and has taught there as well as in New Orleans and Boston. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Geraldlynn Stewart
PANELIST
Geraldlynn Stewart is a New Orleans native and senior at KIPP Renaissance High School. She grew up in the Seventh Ward neighborhood and attended elementary school in the Tremé until Hurricane Katrina displaced her family to Houston. Shortly after returning to the city post-Katrina, Geraldlynn enrolled in KIPP Believe College Prep, an ambitious new school determined to send all of its students to college. She has attended KIPP schools since fifth grade.
