Panel Offers Preview Of BESE Fireworks To Come
At a panel on elementary and secondary education reform at the Pelican Institute’s Policy Orientation for the Louisiana Legislature, fireworks lit off over the prospect of Recovery School District head John White taking over as the state’s new education superintendent.
The panelists, including Board of Elementary and Secondary Education members Chas Roemer and Penny Dastugue and state Rep. Steve Carter (R-Baton Rouge), touted an agenda including reform of the state’s teacher tenure system, increasing school choice and transparency in evaluation of schools and teachers.
Roemer noted that between local, state and federal education dollars Louisiana spends just under $9 billion per year to educate around 700,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade, a staggering figure which depending on how it’s calculated comes to between $12,500 and $14,000 per student – enough to fund tuition at all but the very most expensive private schools in the state.
And yet, Roemer said, there are 235,000 students of that 700,000 figure who perform below grade level. And Louisiana ranks among the nation’s worst states in high school graduation rate.
Roemer and Dastugue both touted the state’s new system of giving letter grades to schools which debuted this year. Dastugue noted that there were bills filed in the state legislature last year to do away with tenure for bus drivers and expects to see more of the same this year as efforts are made to rein in or eliminate teacher tenure.
Less than 1/2 of one percent of Louisiana’s teachers are fired for poor performance, in a state where outcomes rank among the worst in the country. Dastugue pointed to statistics which show that the damage done to a student’s educational attainment by a bad teacher is nearly permanent. Modification of tenure and compensating teachers for the pursuit of excellence is key to improvement, she said.
Roemer outlined a four-point strategy for improvement, first focusing on increasing competition both from charter schools and from increased use of tax credits or vouchers. He also touted the use of autonomy for teachers, principals and school districts tied to transparent performance evaluation standards. And he said that ultimately he’d like to see full school choice available to parents, a reform he believes will become permanent once it takes hold.
“As long as we give empowerment to parents, they’ll never accept losing it,” he said.
Roemer also stated that Louisiana has to stop writing off kids from poor backgrounds as uneducatable. “There’s a cancer in this state,” he said, “and that cancer is ‘Poor kids can’t learn.’ It’s nonsense, and it’s nauseating.” Roemer and Dastugue both said that part of the solution of dealing with children in disadvantaged backgrounds has to be the employment of educational entrepreneurs and a myriad of approaches. “We have a cookie-cutter approach in this state,” Roemer said, and noted that differences in educational needs even between his own children are readily apparent – much less all of Louisiana’s myriad disadvantaged kids.
Carter expressed optimism that because education reform is the top line on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s agenda for 2012, and because the bulk of Louisiana’s newly-elected state legislators appear to recognize that education is Louisiana’s top priority, there will be a great deal of momentum for a more market-based, accountable and ambitious educational system in Louisiana the state legislature will pursue in its 2012 regular session.
But a fly in the ointment surfaced when BESE member-elect Lottie Beebe stood to comment during the question-and-answer segment. Beebe launched into a somewhat rambling attack on White, the putative choice among BESE members to take over as the state’s next superintendent of education. Beebe, who acknowledged that she’s seen as a banner-holder for the state’s educational establishment, claimed she’s for reasonable reform – and then assailed White’s credentials and experience, while demanding a national search for his replacement.
Dastugue suggested those concerns might be best assuaged by meeting White, while Roemer said his primary desirable characteristics in a new superintendent were courage and leadership, and “I haven’t seen anybody who demonstrates those any better than John White does.”
Beebe and the state’s educational establishment have been hard at work to brand White as a controversial figure, but with BESE’s current large majority in favor of school choice and school reform – which White, a former Teach For America leader, symbolizes – it appears there will be a great deal of sound and fury signifying nothing where it comes to opposition to his appointment.
As one insider remarked of Beebe’s statements after the panel, “We elected somebody to BESE who can’t count.”
I hope she got her $400 registration fee’s worth out of this.
[...] the meetings on the agenda, though none I went to them turned anywhere as contentious as a panel on education reform he went to did. Maybe there was a method to his [...]
Jeff -
Registration fee was around $40.
To this writer: Lost respect for your “opinion” with your last sentence and unwillingness to name the “insider” whatever that means.
For Mr. Roemer: You are curiously open about your inability to effect any improvement in education outcomes during your tenure on BESE thusfar. But then your strategy for positioning a democratic system of public education that serves all students in our state for failure plays into the hands of the public. Your brand of “leadership and courage” in crafting a failing RSD system of charters and direct run schools is exactly what we fear most when John White takes full control of education in our state.
It will be interesting to see how the legislature handles ”tenure” law as there is no provision for “tenure” in the law now. Teachers certification is classified as temporary or permanent only.
If Mr. Roemer has “the solution of dealing with children of disadvantaged backgrounds” he should share that with the world. It was insightful and quite human of him to acknowledge that even his OWN kids had individual education needs – “MUCH LESS all of Louisiana’s myriad disadvantaged kids.” We certainly need his elitist attitude to put the myriad of Louisiana’s children in their places. After all, you can’t understand what it’s like to be “advantaged” like he is unless you’ve experienced it.
Louisiana ranks at the top in percentage of population living in poverty and all research clearly shows that poverty is the number one negative influence on education outcomes for students. No teacher or school can eliminate that factor and thereby improve outcomes without a social support system apart from any system of education. In spite of that, Dr. Noell continues to claim that “his research” concluded that the poverty factor in his value added formula had no measureable effect on teacher evaluation scores – which means they have no effect on a student’s performance on the standardized test being used to measure teacher effectiveness. It’s good that Dr. Noell is bailing out before his reputation is put further into question with this deeply flawed teacher evaluation design.
You can maybe teach, but you can’t comment worth spit.
The insider in question didn’t want his name used for fear of reprisals from folks like you. His quote was no less pithy.
And do you really believe that Chas Roemer, who is but one BESE member among 11, was supposed to revolutionize K-12 education in Louisiana over the course of one four-year term? Such inane statements don’t give us a lot of confidence in the quality of individuals teaching in the public schools – if in fact you actually are a teacher and not just some troll sent by the LAE or LFT to drive the discussion into the gutter.
Mr. McKay –
Do you invite only comments that align with your own opinions? In that case, I apologize for intruding.
Your “reprisal” accusation is a little radical don’t you think?
As for Chas Roemer, again you exaggerate and missed the point. What I referred to was Mr. Roemer’s “inability to effect ANY improvement in education outcomes. . . “ Yes I did expect at least that. But then I don’t count his success at creating a culture of failure in our state by using a high stakes standardized test to measure learning or teacher effectiveness when it is invalid and unreliable for that purpose alone. Nor do I count his success at selling our public education system to out of state charter management companies et al. Yes, admittedly Mr. Roemer can be credited with a long list of “successes,” none of which have begun to address the real solutions to addressing the needs of our children in a state that ranks #1 or #2 in poverty - universally recognized as having a direct correllation with student outcomes and the number one greatest limiting factor.
Merely changing the STRUCTURE of our education system by replacing community schools that are mandated by law to address the needs of every child has not and will not achieve our most important task of providing a quality education. We need policy makers who understand not only the principles of education but those who understand that we won’t move forward without the accompanying support systems, equitable and full funding, community involvement and empowerment and collaboration with professional educators even when they don’t agree with this latest “reform” fad.
Sounds like whining and excuse-making.
The current system has failed miserably despite an outrageous financial cost.
Voters see this and demand something new. It’s as simple as that.
I didn’t sign up to be an orator! Let me set the record straight. It is irrelevant to me what the individual thinks of me and whether I can count. I don’t know if counting is a requirement for BESE. I can always use a calculator, if necessary. I will say this…I was elected to BESE with 56% of the votes, despite the efforts of Bobby Jindal, Bloomberg, and others. Deal with it!
Over the past four years I have been hearing more and
more complaints about education and educators.
Teachers are not teaching well, students are failing, and power should be
taken away from Louisiana local school boards. The last Louisiana Superintendent of Education
divided and attacked teachers and local school board members.
How can teachers or local school board members compete
with a Jefferson Parish charter receiving $87,500 per-pupil expense or more than
seven times the parish average with 8 students in a class? Another charter
school principal receives $203,559 yearly salary. Now Louisiana’s top school board is expected
to approve a detailed plan next week that will link many annual teacher
evaluations to student test scores starting in 2012. Will all things be taken into consideration?
My family is and was a family of school teachers. My
husband’s school had a riot in the 1970’s.
His last year of teaching in 1999, his big toe was fractured in 10 places
while breaking up a fight. Teaching is not an easy job. One thing that has been
learned is that success in school is determined by two factors: good home
support for education and good schools.
Let’s hope that the next BESE appointed State
Superintendent will not be a divider and will unite teachers and local school
board members to work toward better education in Louisiana.
Lots of straw men there.
Teachers and school administrators have been united for a very long time about education in Louisiana and the vigorous defense of mediocrity we currently see has been the result. The voters aren’t stupid, and they want change.
Rather than unity, what we need is division – and specifically, competition. We need schools fighting to produce excellence, or else perishing amid superior competitors who do things better.
What happens to the children while these battles ensue, charters open and close, and students are shuffled from one building to the next? Why can’t we expect BESE and the Dept. of Education to do their mandated job of improving the system they are responsble for administering?
Sounds a lot like the free market at work, and the results all that shuffling and activity produces are a lot better than what the educrats have delivered to us.
Ah yes…the free market. Such a shinning example of firm foundations in ethical practices and economic stability. Perhaps Goldman Sachs can lend advice to us whinning educrats. The federal government has used tax payer monies both collected and borrowed to bail out the giants of our free market system (banks, automakers, energy producers). Well…look at that, public education is acting more like the free market already…both entities need public tax payer money to operate.
MacAoidh…you are so smart…Thanks for showing me the light.
People who can’t spell “shining” or who think government-welfare recipient and crony capitalist epitome Goldman Sachs represents the free market probably aren’t qualified to comment on education.
I suggest MacAoidh spend one year in a school located in a high poverty area. Im sure you are someone who has never one time tried to educate a student who has not eaten since lunch the day before, was beaten before showing up at school, watched one parent murder the other, has no place to sleep, parents addicted to drugs, etc. etc. etc. When you have done this and successfully raised the test scores of your class (after all this is the MOST IMPORTANT thing…RIGHT????) maybe then you can be an expert in the area of improving our education system!!!!!!!!
You might be so angry that you’ve missed the point completely. It’s not about who teaches kids in a classroom, it’s about whether a command-economy model or the free market can best do the job.
Keep beating up those straw men, though. It’s good exercise for you.