Lake Pontchartrain glistened as Rinata Williams rode north from New Orleans. She watched from the back seat as the city receded from the causeway, miles and miles of concrete bridge she hoped would transport her to the future she'd been promised.
It was August 2012, and no one in her family had ever left home for college. Before Hurricane Katrina, just half of New Orleans's public school students earned a high school diploma, and few went on to succeed at a university. But as her mother steered the car toward Alabama, Williams believed that she'd be different. She'd spent four years at a high school determined to send minority students like her to college. She'd earned a high GPA, an above-average ACT score, and a generous scholarship. She was one of the first graduates in a new charter school landscape that many in New Orleans believed would fix a broken education system.
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