Two weeks into the school year, the students at Crocker College Prep in New Orleans had their morning routine down. Clad in hunter-green polo shirts, they participated in a rousing 20-minute assembly, chanting the school's mission statement and "rolling numbers" -- that is, rapping their multiplication tables: "One hundred twenty, bring it home, whoomp! There it is!"
One might think they'd been doing it for years. But in fact the morning routine was brand new. That's because a new operator, NOLA College Prep, took the school's helm during the summer after its founding charter group, Advocacy for the Arts and Technology, lost its authorization to operate the school due to low test scores.