BATON ROUGE (CNS)—LouisianaVoice has regularly taken the Recovery School District (RSD) to task for its creative data on school performance that puts RSD in a favorable light compared to public school systems. We have consistently offered the opinion that the Jindal administration’s intent is to make sacrificial lambs of public education in favor of wholesale privatization of education, even if it means cooking the statistics a little.
Nothing has occurred to alter that opinion, but a friend and regular reader recently called attention to the action of a Baton Rouge-area school board that would appear to fly in the face of the professed mission of public education. We had to plead ignorance because we had been so focused on the big picture we lost sight of what went on right under our noses.
So we did some checking of our own.
Sadly, it is impossible to defend the decision of the East Feliciana Parish School Board earlier this month to crater to the interest of interscholastic athletics at the cost of academic standards.
Since Moby Dick was a guppy, anywhere one went in this country, the minimum “C” grade standard has always been a 2.0 on a 4.0 scale.
Not in East Feliciana, however.
In the not-too-distant past, athletes in Louisiana high schools were considered academically eligible with a 1.5 or better.
State Rep. Rickey Hardy (D-Lafayette) has been trying for years to increase the minimum requirement for sports eligibility to 2.0. He even managed to get the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) to consider phasing in tougher standards. At last year’s state convention a proposal was introduced to require at least a 1.75 for the 2011-2012 school year and 2.0 next year.
“I’m certainly satisfied with phasing it in,” Hardy said last year. He first introduced the 2.0 legislation as far back as 2008. He noted that Texas and Mississippi have already raised the minimum GPA to 2.0.
But not in East Feliciana.
Before any bouquets are pinned on the LHSAA, which has been content with the 1.5 status quo for three decades, it should be noted that while passing a compromise minimum “C” average requirement, the association failed to define “C,” leaving that determination to individual school boards. In athletic parlance, LHSAA punted.
With apologies to former president Bill Clinton, it depends on what your definition of “C” is.
The East Feliciana Parish School Board saw its opening. Gotta have a “C” average to play? No problem. We’ll just lower the bar. Instead of a 2.0 that even Mississippi recognizes as the minimum standard for a “C” grade, let’s just make it a 1.5.
Give proper credit to board member Rhonda Mathews who attempted to set 2.0 as the minimum requirement. She was supported by fellow board members Melvin Hollins, Mitch Harrell, Debra Spurlock-Haynes and Broderick Brooks.
Blocking the higher standard, however, were Olivia Harris, Henry Howell V, Ben Cupit, Paul Kent, Michael Bradford, Richard Terrell and Rufus Nesbitt.
Cupit, a former Clinton High School coach, said state officials who criticized the move would better serve public school children in Louisiana if they fully funded school systems instead of passing unfunded mandates to the local school systems.
East Feliciana Superintendent Douglas Beauchamp said the board voted in 2002 to gradually raise the requirement from 1.5 to 2.0 by the 2004-2005 school year but the new requirements apparently did not get passed down to the school level during subsequent changes in coaching staffs and central office and school administrators.
Beauchamp was quoted as saying that the lower requirements would have little effect in East Feliciana since most students in the parish were not college material.
Wait. What? Not college material? Is that really his call?
Beauchamp said 30 school superintendents across the state responded to his survey on grade-point requirements. Of those 30, he said 25 districts also allow participation in athletics and other extracurricular activities with a 1.5 average.
So there you have it. The LHSAA punted, the East Feliciana Parish School Board fumbled. And while LHSAA’s dereliction is shameful, the East Feliciana Parish School Board’s actions are shameless. And it has at least 25 other school districts in its corner to provide moral support for the wisdom–or folly– of its actions.
At least 26 of Louisiana’s local school systems, perhaps more, see fit to look the other way in the interest of allowing underachievers to pursue athletics over academics. These kids will be able to explain a pick or a press in basketball. They will know the difference between a 4-5 and a 5-4 defense in football. They will be able to run fast, hit hard and shoot baskets with deadly accuracy.
But will they ever be able to diagram a sentence? Will they know the difference between an adverb and an adjective? Will they be able to identify the three branches of government? Will they be able to even balance a checkbook after the glory days of high school sports are long since forgotten and no one can remember their uniform number or even what sport they played?
Our friend who told us about this travesty has a low opinion of public education in general and an even lower opinion of local school boards in particular. These kinds of decisions only serve to arm him with deadly accurate ammunition.
It is impossible to defend the indefensible or to excuse the inexcusable.
Louisiana Voice 
Mr. Aswell
I wrote and tried, unsuccessfully, to post the note below to Mr. Rolfe McCollister after reading his recent article about education in the Business Report. I think much of the comment applies here as well. Where are the Parents that allow this? Do they not see the long term implications of this for their children?
Mr. McCollister:
With all due respect I find it curious that you did not mention the parents in your second paragraph with respect to accountability. Do you not consider them part of the solution? I would posit the argument that if a majority of the parents of the children in school took responsibility for their children’s attitude about education, learning, and responsibility to become productive citizens you would not have had to write that article. If the parents took care of their business I doubt seriously that “bad teachers” would last very long in an environment where the children AND the parents demanded that they provide the tools and opportunity to learn. And as for those cowards that chose to flee to neighboring jurisdictions “so their kids could get decent educations” instead of staying and fighting I have little empathy or sympathy. We have to subsidize them by building roads out to them for their convenience and at the expense of this parish’s citizens.
Thanks, Louisiana Voice, for exposing some of the problems created by local school boards. There are issues like this throughout the educational system, it isn’t just limited to charter schools or public schools. We have a lot of work to do!