First lady Laura Bush visited New Orleans Thursday to drum up support for a crippled educational system, but in a place where Southern hospitality competes with an urgency to rebuild, many wondered if she and the president understood the depth of the city's needs nearly 20 months after Hurricane Katrina.

WWL-TV / File Photo

First Lady Laura Bush.

At the New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School, Bush said the private Teach For America foundation had attracted 100 new teachers to the city through $17,000 incentive payouts given to any instructor who stays for two years. But state officials estimate the city needs 550 more to keep pace with the number of students expected to return next session.

"Today, I want to urge teachers across the country to consider building your careers here," Bush said at the school. At the private Holy Cross School for Boys in the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward, the first lady announced $502,000 in grants for Gulf Coast libraries from her Laura Bush Foundation, but only four of the 14 recipients were from the city of New Orleans.

Across the street from Holy Cross, which received a grant from the foundation despite its private status, resident Kelvin Hewitt watched the first lady's motorcade pass the teetering home he is trying to salvage through his own labor and a $43,000 city historical grant. He said he, like many New Orleanians, had yet to receive funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He pointed out that the Holy Cross School is scheduled to move to another part of the city because of storm damage, depriving the struggling community of an employer and leaving him a sprawling empty lot for a potential neighbor.

President Bush "is distancing himself from New Orleans due to all the heat he's been receiving," said Hewitt, 35. "But people would still prefer to see him as opposed to his wife. I know they have separate agendas. She does one thing and he does another. But it's kinda unfortunate that she's here and he's not."

Thursday's trip was Laura Bush's ninth to New Orleans since the disaster and her 13th to the Gulf Coast region. The president has been to the city 10 times since the storm, but his March 1 trip was his first in six months. He was grilled by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for failing to mention New Orleans in his State of the Union address last January.

Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Tulane University and author of a book on Katrina, reviewed Laura Bush's itinerary for the half-day visit and said many in the city had grown wary of such trips that seemed long on symbolism but short on substance.

Most of the tourism areas are up and running. Mardi Gras, a benchmark for the city's health, drew about two-thirds the crowd it had before the storm and Jazzfest, set to open next weekend, has drawn marquee performers and early visitors. But lower and middle income areas are sparsely rebuilt and the city is grappling with a high murder rate and a skyrocketing cost of living. New Orleans has lost more than half its population of almost 455,000 since the storm flooded 80 percent of the city.

"Now, half of us want to say 'Come back to New Orleans. Laura Bush is here and she feels safe, so everyone should feel safe,"' Brinkley said. "The other side of New Orleans is struggling with the realization that things aren't being fixed and nothing's getting done."

Still, some said the first lady's visit kept the challenges of the city in the public eye. Meg Casper, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Education, said "For us, it's great. It's a national voice."

Henritta Bolding who lives two doors down from Willie Mae's Scotch House, a soul food eatery where the first lady's procession stopped for lunch, waited out the hot afternoon on her stoop to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Bush.

Bolding, 56, said she evacuated to Houston after Katrina, where she stayed with relatives for 14 months. Unable to find a job there, she returned to New Orleans to take temporary work as a cook. That job ended three weeks ago, and Bolding now worried if there was any reason to remain in a city she has called home for 40 years.

"I got to see her," Bolding said of Mrs. Bush. "I hope her husband comes with her the next time. He's the one who makes the policy. I'm not afraid to say it. He should have been with her."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)