Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Don’t be fooled by Jindal’s educational reform in Louisiana!


Let’s not be confused when we talk about educational reform in the state of Louisiana.
Even the nationally recognized Brown Center on Educational Policy has been hoodwinked by Governor Jindal’s slick use of P.R. into thinking that his administration has created real educational reform in our state. They recently praised Jindal’s reform for:

1)      Offering lots of choice through charter schools and voucher programs.
2)      Providing good information to help parents compare schools.
3)      Providing an easy centralized application process for enrollment in the various schools.
4)      Ensuring taxpayer funds follow the students into the schools and courses of their choosing.

It's kind of a ridiculous recognition!  Instead of providing a long range, adequately funded school improvement paradigm for ALL students, Louisiana continues to limp along with in-state developed testing programs which deceive the public, and apparently our legislative representatives, into believing substantial educational reforms are occurring among the public students it is obligated to serve. 

While the Louisiana Department of Education brags that the most recent test score data indicates that 3 out of 4 fourth graders have achieved ‘Basic’ in reading on the Louisiana assessment measures,  the Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL) reports that only 1 in 5 are rated at the ‘Proficient’ level when measured on more realistic national  (NAEP) assessments.  Since NAEP’s standards for “Proficient” in grade-level skills are considered lower than those at “Basic” on LEAP, skepticism surrounds the Louisiana assessment scores.   Additionally, Louisiana was recently rated an ‘F’ for student achievement by Education Magazine.  If one examines last year’s ACT results, a national test of college readiness, only 17% of students in Louisiana met the benchmark for college readiness.  Meaning they scored just well enough to have a 75% chance of earning a ‘C’ or better in college courses.  Additionally, according to a recent study reported by CABL , 1 in 3 college freshman who graduated from a public school  had to take non-credit remedial courses to make up for their educational deficiencies.

Furthermore, the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results indicated that while
the average marks for both reading and math Louisiana fourth and eighth-graders improved slightly, and in two of the four categories gained a little on national averages,  the change from two years ago, when the test was last administered, was not big enough to qualify as statistically significant. Overall, scores in Louisiana still rank near the bottom among other states.

But Jindal continues to mask these harsh realities with the expertise of a magician’s sleight of hand by passing off ‘educational vouchers’ as ‘educational reform’.    He has been so successful in this deception that now he is even receiving acclaims from prestigious national organizations.  He claims that his ‘educational reform’ provides "an opportunity for individuals that have limited resources to enroll their child in a NON-PUBLIC school that is performing well, as opposed to the poor performing PUBLIC school in their neighborhood." 

Jindal’s voucher system is not educational reform, but simply an avoidance mechanism of the real issues impacting public education in this state.  It will do LITTLE to elevate the educational achievement of most children in the entire state.
Who will unmasked this great deception?  Certainly not the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), since most members were handpicked by Jindal.

Will our representatives expose this deception and finally propose real educational reform?  l suspect they also will just follow along with the master magician, as most always do.  Just who will stand up for the children?

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