Langston Hughes Charter Academy vs ReNEW Laurel Elementary

ReNEW Laurel Elementary and Langston Hughes Charter Academy are both PK–08 charter schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, separated by 4.2 miles — but their MySchoolScout ratings tell meaningfully different stories. ReNEW Laurel Elementary scores 9.7/10 overall to Langston Hughes Charter Academy's 8.6/10, a 1.1-point gap that reflects real performance differences rather than marginal noise. On state rankings, that gap sharpens considerably: ReNEW Laurel Elementary sits at #2 of 1,288 schools statewide, while Langston Hughes Charter Academy ranks #68 — still an elite position, but 66 spots behind in a field of over a thousand Louisiana schools.

Academically, the two schools are closer than the overall ratings suggest. ReNEW Laurel Elementary's academic score of 9.6/10 edges Langston Hughes Charter Academy's 9.2/10 by 0.4 points — a real but modest delta. The growth score tells a sharper story: ReNEW Laurel Elementary scores 9.7/10 in student growth versus Langston Hughes Charter Academy's 8.0/10, a 1.7-point difference. Growth scores measure how much students improve relative to academic peers year over year, so ReNEW Laurel Elementary's lead here means its students are outpacing comparable students at a significantly higher rate — not just performing at a higher level, but accelerating faster.

Both schools serve predominantly high-need student populations with nearly identical free and reduced-price lunch rates — 89% at ReNEW Laurel Elementary and 86% at Langston Hughes Charter Academy — making the performance gap between them especially meaningful as an indicator of school effectiveness rather than demographic advantage. ReNEW Laurel Elementary enrolls 649 students against Langston Hughes Charter Academy's 820, and its student-teacher ratio of 12.2:1 is tighter than Langston Hughes Charter Academy's 13.7:1, giving ReNEW Laurel students roughly one fewer student per classroom on average.

Both schools span the same grade band — PreK through 8th grade — so families with younger children can enter at the same point and stay through middle school without a transition at either campus. The distinction between them lives in trajectory: ReNEW Laurel Elementary's growth advantage compounds across those nine years in ways that Langston Hughes Charter Academy's still-strong academic score does not fully offset.