Thomas B. Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?

November 1, 2006

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state's track record in implementing bold education reforms. It finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science. In addition, most states making significant achievement gains--including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas--are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

View the press release for this report

Contents

Louisiana

 

 


 

A Long Journey Back to Normal

Educators in battered Louisiana are scrambling to ensure that the storms don't wash away the solid gains made by their students over the past decade on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Yet some are also pumped by the sweeping school reforms now taking root in overhauled systems, above all New Orleans, where resistance to such efforts once ran deep.

Louisiana's education system is struggling mightily one year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wrought havoc, especially on the state's poorest residents. More than half of New Orleans's 128 schools remained closed as the 2006-07 school year began. Thousands of teachers have left the state over the past year in search of stable lives or higher pay-and tens of thousands of students have also exited. State legislators have recognized the strain this places on New Orleans' schools and asked U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings for a one year suspension of the state's accountability system. The request was granted, but it expired this fall.

Yet reform-minded educators see a silver lining as Louisiana-and especially New Orleans-is getting a much needed educational makeover.

"I think we're changing the culture over there" in New Orleans, says Cecil Picard, superintendent of the Louisiana Department of Public Education. "I see this as an opportunity to establish a world-class, inner-city school system."

Much hangs in the balance for Louisiana students. While there has been some improvement among African-American and low-income students, these students had no place to go but up. Before the storm, a mere 5 percent of the state's African-American eighth-graders had reached proficiency or above on the NAEP in math or science. Now the question is whether the state can continue its upward trajectory despite formidable long-term challenges and major league changes.

Success won't come easily. Daily life remains far from normal for children, teachers, and administrators. In one telling sign, Eva Jones, superintendent of the Plaquemines Parish Public Schools, continued to live this past summer behind the local school board office in a trailer from the Federal Emergency Management Administration. On the macro scale, unpredictable migration patterns mean New Orleans schools entered the current school year expecting some 30,000 students. That's an increase of more than 100 percent over 2005-06 enrollment numbers (about 12,000), but the numbers are still far below the pre-Katrina enrollment of 63,000.

Further complicating matters, education remains secondary to survival for many people. Some families "are working on homes, getting them repaired, trying to make sure that they're ready and have jobs and everything they need to have in place in order to come back" to New Orleans, says Robin Jarvis, superintendent of the Recovery School District, a state-run agency set up before the storm to take over the Big Easy's many failing schools. "In other cases, you have families who are kind of waiting to see what this hurricane season brings."

To continue Louisiana's pre-Katrina progress in student achievement, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that the return of the state's nine-year-old accountability system is a good thing. They point out that relatively rigorous performance requirements for middle schoolers account for the state's progress among low-income and black eighth-graders in math. Still, the state isn't ready to re-introduce mandatory high-stakes testing, according to Senator Sharon Weston Broome, the Democratic vice chair of the Louisiana Senate Education Committee.

In the storms' aftermath, "what's going on is not normal," Broome says. "So for us to impose [testing] on them in a time when they're trying to regroup and rebuild their lives-parents, teachers, administrators, everybody-would be a tad bit much."

Local administrators don't share her pessimism. All but three parishes in the state went ahead with high-stakes testing during the 2005-06 year, even though they had the legislature's blessing to forego it. (Testing results weren't available at press time.) Districts around the state are pressing ahead, despite funding challenges, with two-year-old efforts to make pre-kindergarten programs a reality for all eligible children in the state. Over time, lawmakers say, these programs will address one of the state's weakest spots: reading performance among fourth-graders.

But accountability systems are only as good as the curriculum standards on which they're based. And here, Louisiana still has some work to do. Overall, the state rates a C for its standards-a respectable grade, but one that doesn't inspire teachers and students to greatness.

Also, the state could do a lot more to attract teachers to the schools' ranks. Alternative certification is available in the state through three programs, but all require the candidate to jump through innumerable hoops before entering the classroom. For professionals in math and science who might wish to bring their talents to the classroom, the litany of requirements is sure to make them think twice before committing.

But the most important key to Louisiana's educational future is the creation of an environment where new educational systems can thrive.

Consider, for instance, charter schools. Just 18 existed in the state pre-Katrina, largely because urban school systems fiercely resisted them, according to Jim Geiser, who served as executive director of the Louisiana Charter Schools Association until June 30. This fall, however, at least 36 charter schools will be up and running, most of them in New Orleans. Some of these are conversions of schools that were failing before the storm-and are overseen by the Recovery District-while others were converted from decent public schools that survived Katrina intact. Still others are new start-ups.

But these schools face challenges beyond those that charters must normally contend with (e.g., facilities and funding), Geiser says. Because they came on line under emergency circumstances, they may not have sufficient expertise in leadership or adequate buy-in from key constituencies to thrive over the long term.

"The jury is still out as to whether these schools will retain their identity as charter schools," Geiser says. "A lot of those who are taking over these schools didn't know what a charter school was a year ago."

Now the race is on to fill positions with personnel who could well become tomorrow's education establishment. Statewide, some 40 principals and 500 teachers are being hired, Picard said. The question is: will all this new blood infuse vigor into a downtrodden system? It's a question Louisiana will surely need years to sort out.

"We started from an extremely low point" in terms of student performance, says state Senator Gerald J. Theunissen, a Republican member of the Senate Education Committee, "and we've got an awfully long way to go."

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