Louisiana is rich in assets, but too few of its citizens benefit from them, far too many are mired in poverty and social ills. The common belief is that improving education is the key to change. While I agree, this view ignores fundamental complications. Few citizens connect educational outcomes with the results of our socio-economic culture, a culture that has drastically declined over the decades. Unless we address the negative issues resulting from our own culture, education will never fulfill its potential.

The relationship between education and culture is complex: Are social issues causing poor educational outcomes, or vice versa? Educational leaders cannot be expected to solve social or economic faults, they only have one avenue, try to improve education within those constraints.

A critical constraint on educational success is that too many children start school without basic skills and social readiness. This is because today’s socio-economic culture cannot but generate significant numbers of such children. We have early childhood programs to address some of these obstacles, but these efforts are mostly limited to very poor 4-year-olds. Large numbers of even younger children and children from middle-income families lack access and therefore critical pre-school preparation. These students are fundamentally ill-equipped when they start school, leading to diminished prospects for success in their overall school career.

Key statistics highlight our challenges:

• Less than half of students enter ready for school.
• Large numbers of kindergarteners struggle with reading and math, a problem compounded throughout their education career.
• A key metric, third grade reading proficiency, is very poor.
• Only 35% of students in grades 3-8 meet mastery levels (mastery is just a basic grasp of standards, not exceptional) in key subjects.
• Too many students graduate with results below mastery.
• Louisiana’s ACT scores highlight that most students fall well below college readiness benchmarks.

Statistics such as these largely result as the byproduct of our culture including high poverty rates, large numbers of single-parent households, and students coming from un- or under-educated households. There is no short-term solution to these societal issues, only increasing overall prosperity holds promise. But that is out of reach until we have measurable improvement in overall education.

Historically, children were expected to come from home to school prepared, but that has shifted away from home and onto schools. Schools are now expected to fulfill roles they were never intended to fulfill. Teachers are expected to supplant supportive-home environments, but that steals time away from their fundamental job, teaching. Not often discussed, under-prepared students hold back those better prepared and negatively impact classroom performance as a whole. All of this results in stagnation of outcomes.

To improve education, evidence shows we must tackle the results of cultural problems that overwhelm our system of education. However, our current programs are severely limited, leaving leaders with limited options:

1. Ignore the issues of underprepared students, guaranteeing dismal results.
2. Continue to expend limited resources on existing programs, resulting in limited, incremental overall growth, while continuing to short-change younger and middle-class students.
3. Acknowledge cultural challenges and implement a comprehensive strategy for early childhood preparation to overcome them.

Such a “Marshall Plan” strategy should focus on reliable funding, expanding access for younger children, implementing the most effective delivery system, and raising income eligibility limits.

Only by addressing negative social and economic problems that result in under-prepared students should we ever expect to see strong growth in education outcomes. Only through such a strategy should we ever expect that high quality education will be effective in breaking the cycle of economic stagnation and societal ills. We, as a state, do not have to be in last place in everything, but in order not to be so we must correct the detrimental cultural outcomes that hamper education.

While immediate funding for such an expansion may not seem feasible, I urge the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to:

• Document and publicize the impacts of socio-economic factors on education.
• Plan for the expansion of innovative early childhood education strategies.
• Evaluate existing models for delivering early childhood education and plan for changes.
• Educate state leaders and the public about the need for substantial change and work with the governor and state legislative leaders to move the process forward.

Education is a continuum starting in early childhood, a continuum that does not function properly unless positive outcomes starting in the very young are compounded year after year. State leaders can change our trajectory but just giving lip service to quality in education without commitment will serve no purpose.

Education is the key to overall prosperity, but ignoring this maxim by merely tweaking around the edges is just folly.

A longtime former Louisiana state senator, Conrad Appel is now a member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.