Ben Franklin has a selective admissions process, and according to CBS News is a "magnet for the city's smart and motivated students.

[11] Ben Franklin is a member of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association and offers a variety of sports programs.

Notable alumni of the school include Wynton Marsalis, a Pulitzer Prize winning trumpeter, actor Wendell Pierce, and Cedric Richmond, former congressman and Senior Advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden.

[18] A Time magazine article later stated that Redmond's "proudest memory of the first day of integration three weeks ago, when truancy was rife, is that 'my Franklin kids stuck with it.

[28] Visitors to the school included President Bill Clinton, who spoke with Franklin students on April 30, 1993 about his plans to create a National Service Initiative.

Like most other UNO buildings and New Orleans public schools, Ben Franklin was damaged by several feet of flood water due to Hurricane Katrina.

The gym had been the most severely damaged structure on campus; all of the floor tiles had to be removed and replaced, and the wind-damaged ceiling had to be repaired.

Students applying for tenth grade must have one credit in English, math, science, social studies, and foreign language.

A selection of elective courses are offered, including studio art, creative writing, music appreciation, and theater.

[44] According to CBS News, Ben Franklin is "one of the best public high schools in the country — a magnet for the city's smart and motivated students.

[40] One hundred percent of Franklin students passed the Louisiana Graduate Exit Examination (GEE) in Spring 2006, with a significant number achieving Advanced and Mastery level.

[51][54][55][56][57] It has been ranked by Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 50 public schools in the U.S. with regards to student test scores and advanced placement programs.

"[60][61] Ben Franklin was also ranked 16 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report on its 2009 "America's Best High Schools" list and was one of its featured stories.

[69][70] Student musicians in the concert band and string orchestra participate annually in the Louisiana Music Educator's Association (LMEA) State Festivals, where they often collect "Superior" ratings.

In March 2008, Franklin theater students were able to conduct a mixed-media performance of James Still's "And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank" with Holocaust survivor/author Eva Schloss in attendance.

The Riverbend Review, published since 1987, has received numerous awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the American Scholastic Press Association, winning a Silver Crown and First Place classification in 2008 and a Gold Crown and First Place with Special Merit classification in 2009.

[73][74][75][76] The Spring 2008 volume featured student poetry, short stories, original art, and an interview with writer Andrei Codrescu.

[81][82] Accomplishments since 1996 include: In 2007, the Ben Franklin football team made the Class 3A playoffs for the first time in school history.

The non-profit, Web-based project features 140 minutes of raw interviews as well as photographs and other multimedia designed to capture the lives of about 30 Franklin seniors after Katrina.

The project, featured in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Spirit of Recovery conference and USA Today,[100][101] was designed to "give a cohesive and layered forum to the fractured voices of those seniors who were displaced and those who remained in New Orleans, aiming to, above all, nurture and heal the vibrant social fabric that Katrina threatened to destroy.

[104] Carl Galmon, a local activist, claimed in 1996 that Franklin's admissions tests are culturally biased against black students.

[8][31] The school has received praise for traditionally producing some of the "highest-performing students in the entire state of Louisiana,"[26] including an exceptional number of students awarded by the National Achievement Scholarship Program of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a program open only to African Americans.

In a short play that appears in Louisiana novelist Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos, the lead character attends Franklin.

[131] In Julie Smith's mystery novel Louisiana Hotshot, murder victim Rhonda Bergeron is said to have graduated from Ben Franklin High School in New Orleans.