The Ultimate Education Reform State

Governor Jindal is moving to assert complete control of both the legislature and BESE. A recent article in the Advocate describes Jindal's plans to hand pick all key legislative leadership positions. In addition, in an Aug 31 article, The Advocate carries a story about a new PAC formed by Lane Grigsby, Rolf McCollister and Jindal's former Chief Counsel who will commit up to one million dollars on the BESE takeover effort. With no viable opponent to his own reelection bid the Governor aims to help elect more close allies to both the legislature and BESE. Jindal wants no less than total control of state government and the public education system.

Recently, Jindal has enjoyed a one vote majority on BESE in approving major components of his reform agenda including value added teacher evaluations, a new letter grade system for rating schools and the addition of two privately run virtual charter schools that can take students and the per pupil funding from any school system in the state. But at its last meeting, based on an official report of a Louisiana teacher surplus, BESE balked at approving a two million dollar "no bid" contract for Teach For America to recruit non-education college grads to teach in Louisiana schools.  Not long after this action, Kira Jones, the Director of Teach For America in New Orleans announced her candidacy to run for BESE against Louella Givens in the second BESE district. Pro Charter groups immediately gushed with enthusiasm in support of her candidacy.

The Jindal/Grigsby group is also targeting the removal of 7th BESE district member, Dale Bayard. Mr Bayard's "sin" against the Governor's reform push is that he insists on getting the opinion of professional educators who have dedicated their lives to the education of children instead of automatically approving every privatization scheme presented to BESE.

If he is successful with his BESE takeover and greater control of the Legislature, Jindal could make Louisiana the uncontested leader in all the latest, unproven, non-research based, standardized test driven, education privatization schemes in the nation! This image would fit neatly into his plans for higher office in the future. His reform agenda would be implemented by Teach for America (six weeks of formal education training) "experts" placed at all levels of the State Department, BESE staff and BESE itself. With TFAer John White as State Superintendent, Louisiana would move rapidly with privatization and de-professionalization of teaching. The following would be some of the major goals of this education takeover:

1. Reduction of the authority of local school boards to make local education policy. Broad Foundation and TFA trained non-educators would be expected to run the larger local school systems as education Czars much like Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan have done.
2. Out of state charter organizations would continue to expand into more local school systems, with the ability to select the highest potential students to bolster their school performance scores at the expense of local run schools that would be expected to service the leftovers and special needs students.
3. Expect the elimination of teacher tenure and all seniority rights. Expect Teach for America to enjoy free rein in placing as many new teachers here as they choose even if veteran teachers have to be laid off to make room.
4. Expect more student testing by the state to determine the ratings of all teachers and all schools. The testing companies and number crunchers will have a field day measuring every grade level expectation. Expect teachers to spend even more time on test prep activities at the expense of arts, foreign languages, social studies, music, performance, and other enrichment courses.
5.  Expect the teacher retirement system to be phased out along with group benefits and replaced with minimum cost fringe benefits.
6. Don't expect improvements in teacher salaries beyond the merit pay, or pay for performance schemes that will spring up. Forget about creativity in teaching. Teachers had better get ready to learn how to teach the test and game the system if they expect to survive.
7. Expect many experienced teachers to retire earlier than they had planned because of frustration with the de-professionalization of their work. Expect the state to resort to hiring more alternative certified teachers to fill those slots. Teaching in Louisiana could become a temporary jobs program for college grads who cannot find work in their chosen field.

That's enough! I think you get the picture. Will these so called reforms actually improve student performance? I hope you can take the time to read a response to a new education reform book reviewed by Dianne Ravitch at this Reuters link.  I believe she does a great job of pointing out that the reformers are fixing the wrong problem.

One of my favorite thought experiments on school reform is as follows:
Take the faculty of the highest performing school in the state (which would be a selective admissions or magnet school) and switch it with the faculty of the lowest performing school in the state (which would be a school serving low income students) and monitor the results for a few years to see how the SPS of each changes. I'll bet most experienced educators would know the answer without having to wait for the results. Educators if you value your profession and if you believe that professional educators have more to offer our students than misinformed non-educator reformers, you owe it to yourself and your students to get informed about the BESE and Legislative candidates education philosophy and do your civic duty in the upcoming elections.

This blog will attempt to inform you about the candidates and any recommendations coming from the Coalition For Louisiana Public Education.

Iberville Education Reform

 Iberville Parish Math, Science, & Arts Academy students start off the year with a free laptop computer for students in upper grades. This is just one example of how technology is integrated into the entire school environment.



New Laptops



Math and Science are emphasized, yet when you talk to individual students you find that they are most often even more excited about the art and performance offerings at the new Academies. Apparently the genius of this reform schooling concept is to offer a variety of great and exciting programs that make attending school fun and challenging.

Iberville Parish is split by the Mississippi River with the majority of the school population on the west side of the river. But Superintendent Edward Cancienne knew that if the new Math, Science, & Arts Academy was to get full public support, he would need to offer a great program for children on both sides of the river. Since there are no bridges in the area, that meant a smaller version of the Academy for the East side. According to newspaper reports, parents on the East side are ecstatic about the opportunities for their children offered at the brand new state-of-the-art, energy efficient facility in St Gabriel. Chuck Johnson directs operations at the East facility. A bond issue passed in 2008 has allowed construction of new buildings and lots of enrichment programs on both sides of the river.

In fact parents on both sides of the river are so impressed that in just 3 years a total of 780 students have transferred from private schools back into the public school system. For years the Iberville public school system had been plagued by the flight of serious top students (both black and white) to private schools. Now the kids are back, and the new concept Academies have a waiting list of over 400. Elvis Cavalier, Chief Academic Officer for the Parish, who runs this program says that more classes are being added as new  facilities are built. The West campus will soon have a STEM wing addition that will also add more classrooms.

So what is the secret of this impressive success story? Cancienne and Cavalier are not what today are considered "education reformers". They are more like old line professional educators who work with traditional schools. But if great offerings, teacher and student engagement, and parental involvement are measures of true reform, then these guys are successful education reformers. I tried to dig below the surface to report to you what I think makes this concept work. None of the ideas are new. They are simply put together in a formula that works for Iberville Parish:

• Excellence in all programs All students are exposed to accelerated classes in all areas of math, science and the arts.
• Exclusivity All parents want their child enrolled in a special program that is open only to the best. Yet the Academy programs have no entrance requirements for most students. Once enrolled, all students are required to maintain a 2.5 GPA and must maintain an excellent discipline record to stay at the academy. The program accepts first students that are classified as gifted & talented and their siblings but that's only 15% of the student body. All others are just regular kids who are committed to excellence. Most students are selected by lottery. According to Cavalier even with the strict rules the program has only a 4% student turnover rate.
• Total Commitment from teachers and administrators to the concepts of the Academies. Teachers don't mind making extra efforts when they feel appreciated by their administrators and parents.
• Balanced enrollment. The Academies maintain a 50:50 black-white ratio to ensure diversity.



Spanish club in Costa Rica

• No brain drain. The Academy program is not classified as a school. Therefore all student LEAP and iLEAP scores go back to the student's home school. Everybody benefits from the high performance of the Academy students. Cancienne believes that students in the home schools are motivated to perform better by opportunity to attend the Academy.
• Rewards. A great motivation for students are the special trips and perks for students who score at the mastery level on state tests. The kids I talked to were most excited about performing in the Orchestra and in plays.
• Dual Enrollment. High school students pursue dual enrollment college credit at every opportunity. Student body president Kristen Ellis expects to graduate with 30 hours of college credit courses.

For years, Iberville parish has struggled with a high dropout rate and a very low graduation rate.  Starting this year, the Academies are expected to help greatly improve those numbers.

According to Superintendent Cancienne, "The Math, Science & Arts Academies in Iberville have created a special culture of excellence and high achievement."

To me this is real education reform that works.

Cavalier and Cancienne with plans





  

More RSD Cover-up and Effective Education Reform Where the Reformers Least Expect it!

A couple of Times-Picayune reporters are using public records requests to finally bring to light major cover-ups of wrongdoing in the charter schools of the Recovery District. The first, were revelations by reporter Andrew Vancour that forced BESE to terminate the charter of the Abramson charter school based on child protection issues. The latest story came out Saturday and is by reporter Sarah Carr on cover-up of possible LEAP cheating at Miller-McCoy Academy in New Orleans.

The revelation of possible LEAP cheating in the Recovery District is not surprising. Many allegations have been leaking out about teachers having grades changed by administrators to pass failing students in the RSD, special education students being "helped" a little too much on LEAP, and different students having identical test papers. This latest story is based on complaints by up to 20% of the teachers at Miller-McCoy that students were prepped for LEAP with practice materials that could only have come from breaches of test security.

But the real shocker in the story is that State DOE policies for handling alleged breaches of test security almost encourage systematic cover-up of violations. That's because once the Department determines that violations of test policy may have occurred, they turn the investigation over to the local school system, for their recommendations and possible corrective actions including the voiding of test scores. As the testing experts quoted in the story point out, "there is a conflict of interest all the way up the line in investigating such allegations". Such conflict is even more pronounced in the case of charter schools that function as their own local school systems. Such schools often have hand picked boards of directors picked by the charter organizers who often serve as the administrators for the charter who are often the very people implicated in the cheating allegations!

The complaints of possible cheating were made by a group of teachers who said they were given the questionable practice materials by their administrators. The students had alerted the teachers to the claim that the practice questions were almost identical to the actual test. But when the school Directors conducted their investigation of the matter they did not bother to question a single teacher about the allegations. They only questioned the administrators. No wonder they concluded there was no wrongdoing!

One of the experts consulted by the reporter said that this process is like the IRS telling a taxpayer: "We have a problem with your tax return. Would you look it over?"

What's even more disconcerting about the DOE and RSD handling of this matter, is that the Department had the authority to void LEAP scores based on its own investigation. And in the case of a non-charter school accused of the same violation, in the RSD, scores were voided and administrators disciplined. (Yes this has happened before) One parent advocate said that the state wants the charters in New Orleans to succeed so badly that they look the other way!

All this makes us wonder; just how valid are the claims of "dramatic gains" in the Recovery District?

Did you know that effective education reform really is happening in Louisiana?

Later this week The Louisiana Educator will examine A new Education strategy that is attracting hundreds of students back from private schools.

Enrollment is open to all students
It's not a charter school
It's not a magnet school
It's not even a school!

But it is the most effective reform seen in recent years in the Iberville Parish school system. How do we know it's effective? Because students who had left the public schools in Iberville Parish and fled to private schools are returning to the public schools of Iberville in droves to participate in this truly innovative educational setting!

I'm still working on this post so please bookmark the Louisiana Educator and click on this site on Thursday, August 25 for a good description on how the Iberville education reform works. Maybe it could be tried in your school system!