White Washing Louisiana Education Statistics

This is a funny spoof on what I call predatory charter schools. When you consider just the most recent open meeting violations, cheating incidents, and bullying of young teachers in Louisiana charter schools you see that the creators of this little two minute video are right on target.

Schneider Exposes White's Muddying the Narrative on ACT Scores

Mercedes Schneider blogged about how the statistics on ACT scores for the RSD schools are constantly being delayed and manipulated by the LDOE. This is typical of constant attempts to cover up embarrassing facts about Louisiana's charters. 

How is Louisiana Doing with the Achievement Gap?

Here's another example of data suppression by the LDOE: Federal law requires that each state report each year on relative performance of certain subgroups of students as part of an effort to close the achievement gap between advantaged and at-risk students. In the past when White and his predecessor wanted to emphasize the lack of progress of African American and free/reduced lunch students, the LDOE published test score averages of each such group compared to all students. Now it's like pulling teeth to get these comparisons. 

One of the original selling points of the Common Core Standards was a claim by the developers that the new standards would produce a narrowing of the achievement gap. The data from New York state which started Common Core testing a year before Louisiana, demonstrates instead a huge widening of the achievement gap.

I wondered how Louisiana was doing in narrowing the achievement gap based on the PARCC-like test administered in the Spring of 2015, so I sent a public records request to White requesting the required data for the comparisons. That request was sent on January 20, and receipt was acknowledged by LDOE attorney, Millet on January 21. State public records law requires that public records be produced immediately, but at least within 5 days. So the response to my request is already overdue. Any violation of this timeline provides that the custodian of public records (that's John White) be penalized for any legal expenses when a citizen of Louisiana files a lawsuit seeking such overdue records. In addition the law allows for penalties of $100 per day for any delays in producing records.

I have been forced to file four lawsuits against White and the LDOE in the past for failure to comply with the public records law. The first three suits produced rulings against White for failure to comply with the public records law. Penalties are still being assessed for each business day of delay on one of those three suits. White seems not to be concerned because so far, the Louisiana taxpayers have paid the penalties for his violations of the law. 

Schneider is eventually going to get to the truth about the ACT scores in the RSD and eventually we will find out how the achievement gap is faring since the implementation of the Common Core and the PARCC-like testing. White cannot choose what information he will release to the public. He can only delay the inevitable!