USA Today catches up on the changes brought to New Orleans schools since Hurricane Katrina. Not only has the number of students been cut in half, but most schools have become charter schools, giving them some ability to break away from the old way of doing things.

Some of the charter schools are making the most of the opportunity:

One goal of educators at New Orleans College Prep (NOCP), a new charter school in New Orleans' Central City neighborhood, is to inject a fresh zeal for learning that the system previously lacked. Another is to raise expectations and test scores far higher than before.

"There really wasn't a culture of high expectations here," says Kleban, 27, a Harvard grad who held high-powered corporate jobs before starting NOCP. "We're starting over."

The story gives another reminder the physical infrastructure is less important the expectations of the school:

Unlike New Orleans, Mississippi schools that were battered the worst by Katrina were actually some of the state's highest performing, says Hank Bounds, the state's superintendent of education.

The elementary and middle school students of Pass Christian, Miss., a small town on the Gulf coast ravaged by Katrina, still attend classes in trailers 5 miles up the road in De Lisle.

Despite the hardship, middle school students there were awarded "Level 5" status by the state last year, the highest designation for public schools.

"We decided school was not about the buildings, it's about the people," Pass Christian school Superintendent Sue Matheson says.