Sunday, July 28, 2013

Special Message to Readers

We now have a Facebook page for the Louisiana Educator. I am asking my readers to visit the page at: https://www.facebook.com/LouisianaEducator. and to "like" the Louisiana Educator Facebook page because this action will provide you with an up to date feed at Facebook on some breaking stories in education that may not merit a full fledged post on the blog.

For example, I just added a post on the current controversy between Lafayette Superintendent Pat Cooper and the local school board. To make a long story short, the school board has become very annoyed with some of Cooper's grandstanding over his hiring of an unqualified maintenance supervisor and what many see as fake education reform issues like his 100% in 100% out initiative. This "reform" apparently was intended to appeal to both the black community and the business folk by pretending that any school system can somehow keep all students from dropping out. One of the unintended consequences of this policy was to soften discipline at some middle and high schools to keep suspensions down. This has caused a situation in some schools where students can be extremely disruptive and disrespectful to teachers and get only a small slap on the wrist. This is absolutely driving some excellent teachers out of the school system.

My comment on the Facebook page for Louisiana Educator has to do mostly with BESE member Holly Boffy's misuse of school grading data to try to defend Cooper.

Please visit and "like" the Louisiana Educator Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/LouisianaEducator so you can get regular updates on breaking education news. Please encourge all educators you know to like our Facebook page.
Thanks.