There are arguably three big ques­tions about the New Orleans school sys­tem: First, how well is it work­ing over­all? Sec­ond, how are the var­i­ous pieces of the sys­tem work­ing? Third, how can the sys­tem be made to work bet­ter? These ques­tions are all inter­con­nect­ed. In par­tic­u­lar, we can­not judge well how to make the sys­tem work bet­ter with­out first know­ing how well the var­i­ous pieces are already work­ing and con­tribut­ing to the over­all effects. This leads to a host of more spe­cif­ic ques­tions: Regard­ing over­all effi­ca­cy, what effect have the reforms had on stu­dent learn­ing dur­ing school, col­lege atten­dance, col­lege grad­u­a­tion, and longer term out­comes like employ­ment? Regard­ing the pieces, what roles have been played by the new teach­ers who have come to the city, school lead­ers and char­ter oper­a­tors, increased auton­o­my, and test-based account­abil­i­ty? In addi­tion to dis­cussing the ques­tions them­selves, Doug Harris, direc­tor of Edu­ca­tion Research Alliance (Era), will focus the dis­cus­sion on the chal­lenges involved in answer­ing them and how Era will try to meet these challenges.