Fresh from hiring a respected big-city superintendent to run the Recovery School District, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek recently promised quick and substantial improvement in the quality of public schools, both the buildings and the education going on inside.

But Pastorek, the New Orleans lawyer now deeply immersed in the campaign to repair school buildings, hesitated when asked to assess the region's overall movement toward recovery since Hurricane Katrina. High insurance costs and the cumbersome Road Home grant program are still slowing progress, he said.

Among friends and associates, Pastorek hears pessimism...

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