Ian Birrell is a freelance foreign correspondent and political columnist, and is former deputy editor of the Independent. This commentary was adapted from an article in UnHerd.

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, the city began a long climb back that remains incomplete to this day. Yet one aspect of recovery began soon after the catastrophe and quickly gained speed: A new approach to public education was introduced. And in the five years after Katrina smashed into this fabled city, it progressed so far that Arne Duncan, education secretary in the Obama administration, declared the storm “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.”

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