Important notice (5/27/2011): The committee hearing on SB 35 and SB 201 has been delayed and will be rescheduled for June 2. This gives you more time to contact the senators on the Senate Education committee.
Educators, we need to take steps now to prevent serious damage to public Education! Senate Bill 35 by Dorsey and Senate Bill 201 by Perry are scheduled for a hearing before the Louisiana Senate Education Committee this Thursday, May 26. This is the legislation that would require BESE to suspend and revamp the new letter grading system for public schools and school systems. These bills are strongly supported by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. My opinion however, is that it will take grass roots lobbying efforts from educators in the field who know that this new letter grading system is destructive to public schools, if this legislation is to be successful.
Click on this link to the information page for the Senate Education Committee and you can get the names of the committee members and their email addresses. Particularly if you live or teach in one the parishes represented by these Senators, you should send each of them an email before Thursday. The following is a sample email:
Dear Senator ___:
I am a public school educator (teacher, principal, superintendent, or school board member) at _____ school or _____ school system. I believe that the new school grading system recently adopted by BESE will be damaging to many public schools in our system. I am asking that you vote for either Senate Bill 35 or Senate Bill 201 this week in the Senate Education Committee. Either one of these bills would suspend the new grading system and require BESE to revise it. The present grading system does not consider critical poverty factors affecting many of our schools and will result in the loss of support of parents just at the time when progress needs to be made to increase positive parental involvement. Evidence will be provided at the committee hearing about why this system should be revised. We would appreciate your support.
Sincerely,
_________
Now let me tell you the educator more about why this legislation is necessary:
The school grading system adopted recently by BESE is either a cynical scheme to seriously damage public schools in the eyes of the public so that the forces of privatization can make further inroads into taking over education, or it is an incompetent bungling of a seemingly simple idea to inform parents about the effectiveness of a school. I lean toward the second possibility. Either way this policy is needlessly harmful to public schools in Louisiana.
The BESE grading system is harmful primarily because it does not take into account the overwhelming influence of poverty in many Louisiana public schools. You've seen the data in our post of April 21 showing the major correlation of School Performance Scores with student poverty percentages. But in addition, we now have data showing that it does not matter what school system your school happens to be in or how effective your principal, or how dedicated your teachers, poverty takes precedence.
For example, statistics show that if you teach in a school with anything over 80% free or reduced lunch students, you are almost certain to have a letter going to the parents of the children you teach this fall telling them that their child is attending a D- school. That's because the new system is rigged against you. This grading system applies a wreaking ball to the relationship between schools and parents.
Many schools serving high poverty communities have made dramatic improvements in student performance on LEAP in recent years only to "hit the wall" in the SPS range in the 80's. The new grading system is rigged to give all such schools a D and then add a minus to it if the school fails to increase its SPS by the state mandated growth amount. As we approach the year 2014, the year where all schools are supposed to reach an SPS of 120 (proficiency), the growth target is automatically ramped up to impossible levels. That's why so many schools will get a D-.
But the parents and the local Rotary Club and the business community, don't know anything about all these unfair technicalities. All they will believe when this news hits the papers next fall and the letters go home to parents is that the teachers and administration at our local school are doing a lousy job of educating our children!
That's why you as an educator have a responsibility to act now in supporting legislation that could prevent this serious damage to our schools!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
State Superintendent and Legislative Issues
It looks like powerful national forces and individuals want to keep Louisiana public schools as a laboratory for continued experiments in privatization and many other "so called" reforms. A couple of BESE members indicated yesterday that US Education Secretary Duncan was making telephone calls to them in an effort to convince them to appoint John White from New York as our new State Superintendent.
The latest blog by Diane Ravitch comments on the fallacies of using untested, unverified strategies in school reform. It seems that the new reformers are willing to try any experiment as reform of public schools. One of these reforms is the wholesale firing of teachers whose students don't meet expectations on state tests. That will be one of John White's first actions as Superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery District according to this article in NOLA.com.
That's the kind of leader Louisiana will be getting if our Governor and our the national education reformers "have their way" with BESE. This "business" approach to running schools may make sense to groups like LABI (Louisiana Assoc. of Business and Industry) and CABL (Council for a Better Louisiana) but it will instead be extremely counterproductive. When you target teachers for firing using student performance, you will invariably end up producing constant turmoil in schools serving high poverty communities. The unintended consequences of such job insecurity will make it nearly impossible to attract and retain the most experienced and dedicated teachers to struggling schools. I spoke to a teacher last week in such a school who had worked there for 16 years and who expressed real compassion and a true understanding of her students needs. As a result of the arbitrary pressures being aimed at her faculty, she did not know how much longer she could resist transferring to a less challenging school.
At the legislature, the Governor, LABI, and CABL succeeded in killing HB 499 in the House Education Committee yesterday. That is the bill that would have placed a moratorium on future school takeovers by the State Dept. of Education.
The testimony of the opponents to the bill repeated the distorted data about "dramatic gains" in the New Orleans Recovery District (The actual performance is still at the bottom of state rankings even though many of the schools taken over in New Orleans were not failing schools at the time of takeover). Department representatives implied that most of the problems (declines in student scores) with the takeover schools in the Baton Rouge area happened because of lack of cooperation of local school authorities with the takeover process.
But the primary argument against the bill stopping takeovers is that the Dept. needs this "tool" as a means of "encouraging" local school systems to improve their under- performing schools. In other words, you just can't trust local school systems to improve schools unless there is a constant threat of an embarrassing takeover. Soon teachers will be doing nothing but teaching the test. As I have pointed out before in this blog, there is no real provision for taking over the takeover schools when they fail to perform.
The latest blog by Diane Ravitch comments on the fallacies of using untested, unverified strategies in school reform. It seems that the new reformers are willing to try any experiment as reform of public schools. One of these reforms is the wholesale firing of teachers whose students don't meet expectations on state tests. That will be one of John White's first actions as Superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery District according to this article in NOLA.com.
That's the kind of leader Louisiana will be getting if our Governor and our the national education reformers "have their way" with BESE. This "business" approach to running schools may make sense to groups like LABI (Louisiana Assoc. of Business and Industry) and CABL (Council for a Better Louisiana) but it will instead be extremely counterproductive. When you target teachers for firing using student performance, you will invariably end up producing constant turmoil in schools serving high poverty communities. The unintended consequences of such job insecurity will make it nearly impossible to attract and retain the most experienced and dedicated teachers to struggling schools. I spoke to a teacher last week in such a school who had worked there for 16 years and who expressed real compassion and a true understanding of her students needs. As a result of the arbitrary pressures being aimed at her faculty, she did not know how much longer she could resist transferring to a less challenging school.
At the legislature, the Governor, LABI, and CABL succeeded in killing HB 499 in the House Education Committee yesterday. That is the bill that would have placed a moratorium on future school takeovers by the State Dept. of Education.
The testimony of the opponents to the bill repeated the distorted data about "dramatic gains" in the New Orleans Recovery District (The actual performance is still at the bottom of state rankings even though many of the schools taken over in New Orleans were not failing schools at the time of takeover). Department representatives implied that most of the problems (declines in student scores) with the takeover schools in the Baton Rouge area happened because of lack of cooperation of local school authorities with the takeover process.
But the primary argument against the bill stopping takeovers is that the Dept. needs this "tool" as a means of "encouraging" local school systems to improve their under- performing schools. In other words, you just can't trust local school systems to improve schools unless there is a constant threat of an embarrassing takeover. Soon teachers will be doing nothing but teaching the test. As I have pointed out before in this blog, there is no real provision for taking over the takeover schools when they fail to perform.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Pastorek Resigns
State Superintendent Paul Pastorek announced his resignation Tuesday, May 10. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate story, his abrupt departure may have been related to deteriorating relations with the education community which includes practically all of the major stakeholders in Louisiana public education.
Here is the big concern of the new Coalition for Louisiana Public Schools: There seems to be an effort by the Governor and others to replace Pastorek with another non-educator who would be committed to further privatization of the Louisiana Public Education system.
There was talk yesterday that the Governor wanted to encourage BESE to appoint John White, who was just recently hired as Superintendent for the Louisiana Recovery District. According to this news story, this person has no training as a professional educator. His entry into education was as a two year Teach for America recruit. From there he quickly moved to coordination of the Teach for America program in the Chicago public schools and later was appointed as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City school system, the largest school system in the U.S.
His primary job with the New York City system was to close down low performing schools and to convert as many schools as possible into charter schools. He was also working on a system to evaluate teachers using student test scores. His most recent boss, the Chancellor of the New York system resigned after only three months on the job because she also was a non-educator and was overwhelmed by the complexity of the job. He was then snatched up by Pastorek to be the Superintendent of the LA Recovery District at what some consider to be a very generous salary for a person with no credentials.
No one knows how successful Pastorek and Jindal have been in lobbying BESE for the appointment of White. By now they may be moving on to some other outside person who wants to privatize schools and who has no knowledge of the Louisiana public education system. That's the key: The reformers don't want anyone who has a real background in running public schools. They want someone who believes as they do that public schools are inherently rotten to the core. They believe the only solution is for free enterprise, privatization, school competition and choice to transform schools. The only problem is, if you look at the Feb 19 post on this blog, none of that stuff is working.
If you believe that real reform of public education in Louisiana can only be accomplished by someone who is well grounded in Louisiana education, someone who has the credentials of at least a local superintendent, maybe even someone who has taught in a real classroom, then you need to contact your BESE member now and ask that a real Louisiana educator be appointed. Please insist that the person have extensive Louisiana experience and at least the credentials of a local superintendent. Credentials equal to a local superintendent is required by legislation passed only last year, partly because of Pastorek's lack of credentials. The only problem is the law allows a waiver of these requirements by a two thirds vote of BESE. So please send an email or call your BESE member (click here for a BESE directory) now to insist that they follow the intent of the law.
Here is the big concern of the new Coalition for Louisiana Public Schools: There seems to be an effort by the Governor and others to replace Pastorek with another non-educator who would be committed to further privatization of the Louisiana Public Education system.
There was talk yesterday that the Governor wanted to encourage BESE to appoint John White, who was just recently hired as Superintendent for the Louisiana Recovery District. According to this news story, this person has no training as a professional educator. His entry into education was as a two year Teach for America recruit. From there he quickly moved to coordination of the Teach for America program in the Chicago public schools and later was appointed as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City school system, the largest school system in the U.S.
His primary job with the New York City system was to close down low performing schools and to convert as many schools as possible into charter schools. He was also working on a system to evaluate teachers using student test scores. His most recent boss, the Chancellor of the New York system resigned after only three months on the job because she also was a non-educator and was overwhelmed by the complexity of the job. He was then snatched up by Pastorek to be the Superintendent of the LA Recovery District at what some consider to be a very generous salary for a person with no credentials.
No one knows how successful Pastorek and Jindal have been in lobbying BESE for the appointment of White. By now they may be moving on to some other outside person who wants to privatize schools and who has no knowledge of the Louisiana public education system. That's the key: The reformers don't want anyone who has a real background in running public schools. They want someone who believes as they do that public schools are inherently rotten to the core. They believe the only solution is for free enterprise, privatization, school competition and choice to transform schools. The only problem is, if you look at the Feb 19 post on this blog, none of that stuff is working.
If you believe that real reform of public education in Louisiana can only be accomplished by someone who is well grounded in Louisiana education, someone who has the credentials of at least a local superintendent, maybe even someone who has taught in a real classroom, then you need to contact your BESE member now and ask that a real Louisiana educator be appointed. Please insist that the person have extensive Louisiana experience and at least the credentials of a local superintendent. Credentials equal to a local superintendent is required by legislation passed only last year, partly because of Pastorek's lack of credentials. The only problem is the law allows a waiver of these requirements by a two thirds vote of BESE. So please send an email or call your BESE member (click here for a BESE directory) now to insist that they follow the intent of the law.
Monday, May 9, 2011
How to Participate in Your Representative Democracy
I'm not an expert on this, but some of my Social Studies teacher friends tell me that we live in a representative democracy, not a true democracy. I believe the key difference is that we elect a few people to represent us in making government decisions instead of all of us attending huge meetings and voting on every issue. But a representative democracy only works well if we all communicate with our elected representatives on issues that are important to us. Also it helps that if a group of citizens such as a group of educators who are the experts in a particular area, band together to make our concerns known to our elected representatives. That's what I want to urge all of my readers to do today! It's also what the new Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is doing.
I believe most of my readers are educators, although some are parents and regular citizens who have been joining the blog recently. I also believe that the readers of my blog, while having many different opinions on teaching practices and school management, generally agree on a few key issues. One of those issues most of us agree on is that the recently adopted (by BESE) school grading system is inaccurate, unfair, and destructive of parental support for public schools. Not to rehash this issue which has been adequately discussed in earlier posts on this blog, I want to add that I have spoken recently to many school principals who are doing an excellent job and whose teachers are working extremely hard only to have their school probably rated as a D- this fall by this new system. This is wrong, inaccurate and unfair and must be stopped if we are to be successful in getting positive parental involvement, particularly in schools that serve high poverty communities!
Another important issue that I believe most of us agree on, is that the non-educators currently running our State Department of Education don't have a clue how to run a successful school, yet they are determined to tell you, the real educators how to do your job! I know they don't have a clue because all the takeover schools that have not been selective in choosing their student admission and retention are producing the poorest education results in the state. All of the direct takeover schools are doing more poorly now than before they were taken over by the state (see my post of Feb 19, 2011). That's why educators need to band together and demand the passage of a bill to stop any new school takeovers until it can be proven that these people at the State Department can run an effective school. (see list of bills supported by the Coalition below) Or better yet, they just need to stop trying to micro-manage our local schools!
So how do we function effectively in our representative democracy to insure that we have a strong public school system that allows educators to do their job and to be respected as professionals? Very simple: We must communicate our opinions and our expertize to our elected legislators early and often! It does not matter how right you are on the issue of public education, if you do not communicate effectively with your legislators, chances are your opinion won't matter very much in our representative democracy.
So PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do the following right now! Click on the legislative links I am giving you here and look up the email address of your legislators (Senator and Representative) and write them down on a card and put it in your wallet. If you don't know who your Senator and Representative are (Shame on you), just click on this link and scroll down to the place were you can put in your home address to get their names. Also put the phone number for the LA House of Representatives 225-342-6945 and the number for the Senate: 225-342-2040 into your cell phone directory so you can call your representative any time when immediate contact is critical.
Next, I want you to send an email to your Representative and Senator introducing yourself if they do not already know you, tell them that you live in their district, and let them know that you would appreciate very much if they would allow you to advise them on education matters. Remember you are the expert on education! In your first email, you may want to advise them on just one or two issues that are important to your profession or to our public schools. But plan to communicate with them regularly. This web site and others that you follow from your School Boards Association, or teacher association (LAE or LFT) or others will keep you informed when critical issues are being voted on so you can call or email them right before they are scheduled to vote. (Often it's those constituents who are most persistent that get listened to) If you are a parent or regular citizen interested in public education, simply speak to them from your point of view.
Also, if you contact a legislator at his/her local office (you can look this up at the legislative web sites I gave you above), you will find him/her more receptive. They often go back to their district offices on Fridays or during breaks in the legislative session. You should also introduce yourself to the legislators' assistant who runs his/her local office. Often the assistant can get you in touch with or give a message to your legislator when it is critical to get to him/her before a vote.
Here are some of the bills that are supported by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education that you should communicate with your legislator about. (Note: You can click on the bill number to see the full text of each bill.)
One other tip: If you are able to build a working relationship with your legislator, ask him/her for his/her cell phone number. You will find that this is by far the most effective way to get the ear (literally) of your legislator. The constituents who have this cell phone number and who use it wisely are the ones who will get his/her vote.
Most effective legislators have a method of representing their constituents by mentally putting them into categories such as the following:
My point is this: In this day and time when our public education system is under attack as never before, sometimes because of ignorance about the problems facing educators, it is not enough just to do your job faithfully in the trenches. It is critical that you function effectively in our representative democracy.
I believe most of my readers are educators, although some are parents and regular citizens who have been joining the blog recently. I also believe that the readers of my blog, while having many different opinions on teaching practices and school management, generally agree on a few key issues. One of those issues most of us agree on is that the recently adopted (by BESE) school grading system is inaccurate, unfair, and destructive of parental support for public schools. Not to rehash this issue which has been adequately discussed in earlier posts on this blog, I want to add that I have spoken recently to many school principals who are doing an excellent job and whose teachers are working extremely hard only to have their school probably rated as a D- this fall by this new system. This is wrong, inaccurate and unfair and must be stopped if we are to be successful in getting positive parental involvement, particularly in schools that serve high poverty communities!
Another important issue that I believe most of us agree on, is that the non-educators currently running our State Department of Education don't have a clue how to run a successful school, yet they are determined to tell you, the real educators how to do your job! I know they don't have a clue because all the takeover schools that have not been selective in choosing their student admission and retention are producing the poorest education results in the state. All of the direct takeover schools are doing more poorly now than before they were taken over by the state (see my post of Feb 19, 2011). That's why educators need to band together and demand the passage of a bill to stop any new school takeovers until it can be proven that these people at the State Department can run an effective school. (see list of bills supported by the Coalition below) Or better yet, they just need to stop trying to micro-manage our local schools!
So how do we function effectively in our representative democracy to insure that we have a strong public school system that allows educators to do their job and to be respected as professionals? Very simple: We must communicate our opinions and our expertize to our elected legislators early and often! It does not matter how right you are on the issue of public education, if you do not communicate effectively with your legislators, chances are your opinion won't matter very much in our representative democracy.
So PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do the following right now! Click on the legislative links I am giving you here and look up the email address of your legislators (Senator and Representative) and write them down on a card and put it in your wallet. If you don't know who your Senator and Representative are (Shame on you), just click on this link and scroll down to the place were you can put in your home address to get their names. Also put the phone number for the LA House of Representatives 225-342-6945 and the number for the Senate: 225-342-2040 into your cell phone directory so you can call your representative any time when immediate contact is critical.
Next, I want you to send an email to your Representative and Senator introducing yourself if they do not already know you, tell them that you live in their district, and let them know that you would appreciate very much if they would allow you to advise them on education matters. Remember you are the expert on education! In your first email, you may want to advise them on just one or two issues that are important to your profession or to our public schools. But plan to communicate with them regularly. This web site and others that you follow from your School Boards Association, or teacher association (LAE or LFT) or others will keep you informed when critical issues are being voted on so you can call or email them right before they are scheduled to vote. (Often it's those constituents who are most persistent that get listened to) If you are a parent or regular citizen interested in public education, simply speak to them from your point of view.
Also, if you contact a legislator at his/her local office (you can look this up at the legislative web sites I gave you above), you will find him/her more receptive. They often go back to their district offices on Fridays or during breaks in the legislative session. You should also introduce yourself to the legislators' assistant who runs his/her local office. Often the assistant can get you in touch with or give a message to your legislator when it is critical to get to him/her before a vote.
Here are some of the bills that are supported by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education that you should communicate with your legislator about. (Note: You can click on the bill number to see the full text of each bill.)
- SB 35 by Dorsey and SB 201 by Perry would delay implementation of the letter grading system for all public schools and require BESE to revamp the system with input from citizens and educators. The Coalition supports either one of these bills.
- HB 499 by Smith would stop new school takeovers by the Dept. of Education and instead provide for a memo of understanding for schools that are performing below the minimum required by the state. The Coalition supports this bill.
- HB 84 by Smith would change the structure of BESE to reduce the 3 appointments by the Governor to only one and allow the House of Representatives and the Senate to appoint the other two. The Coalition supports this bill
- HB 96 by Dixon would reduce the Governor's appointments to BESE from 3 to one. The Coalition supports this bill or HB 84
- SB 248 by Willard-Lewis requires return to the original school board of schools taken over by the Recovery District that become academically acceptable. The Coalition supports.
One other tip: If you are able to build a working relationship with your legislator, ask him/her for his/her cell phone number. You will find that this is by far the most effective way to get the ear (literally) of your legislator. The constituents who have this cell phone number and who use it wisely are the ones who will get his/her vote.
Most effective legislators have a method of representing their constituents by mentally putting them into categories such as the following:
- Who can help me get reelected and who can hurt me?
- What are the gut issues that affect certain groups of constituents that could cause that group to either help or hurt me?
- Do I personally like and trust a particular constituent?
My point is this: In this day and time when our public education system is under attack as never before, sometimes because of ignorance about the problems facing educators, it is not enough just to do your job faithfully in the trenches. It is critical that you function effectively in our representative democracy.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Education Policy Destroying Public Schools
My analysis of School Performance scores posted last week (see the article below) points out that the majority of schools in Louisiana may soon be rated as “D” or “F” schools. Such schools that do not increase their SPS by the growth mandated by BESE will have a minus attached to their assigned grades. These ratings will surely demoralize teachers, students, and parents and stigmatize these schools as failures. But the failure is that of our government to provide real support for struggling schools rather than failure of the schools themselves. Both Federal and State policies today are harmful rather than helpful to public education.
U. S. Education Secretary Duncan stated recently that within the next two years as many as 80% of our schools nationwide may be classified as failures by the No Child Left Behind law. This is the result of the flawed assumption that our schools alone can overcome the effects of poverty. This just added: Click on this link to read an article in The Texas Tribune about new research on poverty and Charters in their public school system. (Thank you to one of my readers for finding this story) The mandate in Louisiana that each school must reach a School Performance Score of 120 by 2014 shows the ignorance rather than the wisdom of our policy makers. The setting of SPS growth goals are arbitrary and based more on wishful thinking than on tested and proven educational practice. Academic performance does not occur because of decrees from higher authorities. Yet many thousands of professional educators and their students are sure to be punished for failing to achieve the goals of these dubious decrees.
The data used to produce the analysis of poverty vs SPS shows that 282 schools in Louisiana have between 90 and 100% of their students classified as high poverty students. The Federal and State governments ten years ago decreed that such schools should produce the same student performance as schools with only 10 to 20% poverty. This would be like the government requiring that the Intensive Care ward of a hospital have the same rate of success as a section of the hospital that treats people with minor colds and sniffles. Any expert in tests and measurement could have told the government that this goal was completely irrational. Rather than consult experts who could have recommended more productive approaches, the government decided to double down on previous bad bets.
The next step was to allow new management to take over so called “failing” schools. Direct takeover of so called “failing schools” by charter schools has resulted in major declines in student performance in the Baton Rouge area and other parts of the state. (Click here to see our post of Feb. 19) The New Orleans system of takeover has resulted in higher scores for a very few select schools with overall sub par average performance in the New Orleans Recovery District. Legislation that provided vouchers to allow public school students in New Orleans to attend private/parochial schools has resulted in declines in student achievement. But the government was not yet tired of micro-management.
The new punitive grading scale to be implemented this fall is sure to make it even more difficult for schools to get the needed cooperation of parents who will be encouraged by this system to simply blame the principal and the teachers. This meddling with local schools by the state and federal governments is sure to drive the most competent and dedicated educators away from the schools most in need of their services.
The latest strategies of the public school haters are thinly disguised. Recently when parents were given the choice to transfer their students from so called “failing” schools to more successful public schools they have usually declined to do so. So recently Baton Rouge was visited by a group of pro-voucher advocates who are trying to drum up support among parents of high poverty students for additional vouchers for the Baton Rouge area. As schools are assigned “D-” and “F-” this fall, parents in high poverty communities are expected to demand vouchers to send their children to private/parochial schools. The governor who is now in the process of starving traditional public schools of state support has already announced that he will support additional vouchers. Even in a budget crisis there is apparently always new money for non-public schools.
The Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is meeting this week to determine legislative priorities for the defense of our public school system. Please check with this web site and with the Face book page of the Coalition to get up-to-the-minute reports on scheduled actions at the legislature. If you believe in public education, please contact your legislators about these critical issues.
U. S. Education Secretary Duncan stated recently that within the next two years as many as 80% of our schools nationwide may be classified as failures by the No Child Left Behind law. This is the result of the flawed assumption that our schools alone can overcome the effects of poverty. This just added: Click on this link to read an article in The Texas Tribune about new research on poverty and Charters in their public school system. (Thank you to one of my readers for finding this story) The mandate in Louisiana that each school must reach a School Performance Score of 120 by 2014 shows the ignorance rather than the wisdom of our policy makers. The setting of SPS growth goals are arbitrary and based more on wishful thinking than on tested and proven educational practice. Academic performance does not occur because of decrees from higher authorities. Yet many thousands of professional educators and their students are sure to be punished for failing to achieve the goals of these dubious decrees.
The data used to produce the analysis of poverty vs SPS shows that 282 schools in Louisiana have between 90 and 100% of their students classified as high poverty students. The Federal and State governments ten years ago decreed that such schools should produce the same student performance as schools with only 10 to 20% poverty. This would be like the government requiring that the Intensive Care ward of a hospital have the same rate of success as a section of the hospital that treats people with minor colds and sniffles. Any expert in tests and measurement could have told the government that this goal was completely irrational. Rather than consult experts who could have recommended more productive approaches, the government decided to double down on previous bad bets.
The next step was to allow new management to take over so called “failing” schools. Direct takeover of so called “failing schools” by charter schools has resulted in major declines in student performance in the Baton Rouge area and other parts of the state. (Click here to see our post of Feb. 19) The New Orleans system of takeover has resulted in higher scores for a very few select schools with overall sub par average performance in the New Orleans Recovery District. Legislation that provided vouchers to allow public school students in New Orleans to attend private/parochial schools has resulted in declines in student achievement. But the government was not yet tired of micro-management.
The new punitive grading scale to be implemented this fall is sure to make it even more difficult for schools to get the needed cooperation of parents who will be encouraged by this system to simply blame the principal and the teachers. This meddling with local schools by the state and federal governments is sure to drive the most competent and dedicated educators away from the schools most in need of their services.
The latest strategies of the public school haters are thinly disguised. Recently when parents were given the choice to transfer their students from so called “failing” schools to more successful public schools they have usually declined to do so. So recently Baton Rouge was visited by a group of pro-voucher advocates who are trying to drum up support among parents of high poverty students for additional vouchers for the Baton Rouge area. As schools are assigned “D-” and “F-” this fall, parents in high poverty communities are expected to demand vouchers to send their children to private/parochial schools. The governor who is now in the process of starving traditional public schools of state support has already announced that he will support additional vouchers. Even in a budget crisis there is apparently always new money for non-public schools.
The Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is meeting this week to determine legislative priorities for the defense of our public school system. Please check with this web site and with the Face book page of the Coalition to get up-to-the-minute reports on scheduled actions at the legislature. If you believe in public education, please contact your legislators about these critical issues.
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