Before landfall leveled the system completely, the Louisiana State Superintendent of Schools hired Alvarez & Marsal, a corporate firm from New York City specializing in what it calls "turnaround management and corporate advisory services," to run New Orleans public schools, giving them a mandate to recommend changes directly to the State Superintendent.2 Late last year, as state officials took over 107 of 128 New Orleans public schools3, the state Board of Education had already devised what one board member calls a "state school accountability model" and began to rank schools internally. Meanwhile, the language of academic standards, statewide test scores, discipline, individual initiative, and mental ownership has been inserted into the political discourse on public education at every level, as has the promise of private management as a panacea for public rot.