Benjamin Franklin High School is a public magnet high school in New Orleans. The school was founded in 1957 and moved to its current location in 1990. Ben Franklin is adjacent to the campus of the University of New Orleans (UNO) in the Lakeview district of Orleans Parish, near Lake Pontchartrain. Like the southern buildings of UNO and most of the schools in Orleans Parish, Ben Franklin suffered several feet of flood damage from Hurricane Katrina. The school was closed before the storm hit on August 29, 2005, and remained closed for several months. School administration, faculty, parents, students, alumni, and volunteers participated in a massive cleanup effort, without funding from and independent of the Orleans Parish School Board.
Ben Franklin has a selective admissions process and is known for the academic performance of its students. The school has been named a Blue Ribbon School twice by the U.S. Department of Education, and according to Newsweek is the highest-ranked secondary school in the state of Louisiana both before and after Katrina. In 2007, Ben Franklin was listed as one of 21 "public elite" schools on Newsweek's "Best High Schools in America" list. The class of 2008 produced 17 National Achievement semifinalists, the most of any school in the United States.