Joanne Jacobs

Leaders of New Orleans’ brand-new charter schools are struggling with a host of management issues — with the help of Rex, a leading Mardi Gras “krewe.” As part of its post-Katrina service initiative, Rex established Project Purple “to match its members’ business skills with fledgling educators who need them at the 11 charter schools on Orleans Parish’s east bank,” reports the Times-Picayune. Some 150 members of the krewe have volunteered for Project Purple.