Local School Systems Should be Able to Choose their own Academic Content Standards and Tests

This bill, by Senator Milkovich which will be debated in the Senate Education Committee this week, would allow each school system to opt out of the state content standards and accountability tests and to choose their own set of content standards for the students in their district. The process would allow the parents of each school district, when a petition is signed by at least 10% of the voters to hold an election to choose the academic standards and tests that would apply to their students.

Senate Bill 128 will be heard at 11:00 a.m., Wednesday, April 17 in the Hainkel committee room. Any interested citizen is allowed to attend and comment on the legislation.

The present Louisiana content standards and state LEAP and End of Course tests are based primarily on the Common Core standards. These standards were never tested by using field trials or any other means before they were adopted by BESE. The Common Core standards were a set of academic mandates for ELA and math for each grade that were arbitrarily written by a set of self appointed academic elites mostly representing testing companies and other college related persons. A huge campaign financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the Federal government got many states such as Louisiana to adopt the standards and their accompanying tests sight unseen.

The Common Core standards are not appropriate for our students and have resulted in a decline in academic achievement and readiness of our students for life and careers. Louisiana has now dropped to its lowest achievement ranking ever compared to other states.

Please read the following posts, here, here, and here, on the Louisiana Educator blog that give you all the data you need to determine that the common core standards are not appropriate or effective as the best curriculum for our students. You will also see how state education officials have watered down promotion standards and basically abandoned all academic requirements in an effort to justify the use of these ineffective standards and tests.

Please consider attending this hearing and voice your support for Senate Bill 128!