Louisiana Voice

At the risk of great personal embarrassment to myself (as if that would be a precedent), I would like to issue a challenge to Gov. Jindal, each of his cabinet members, every other statewide elected official (including the congressional delegation), each member of the legislature, and especially to each member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, school board members from all 64 parishes, and members of the Louisiana Board of Regents for Higher Education.

I do not make this challenge lightly and the stakes for the participants are quite high.

There is a story making the rounds about Rick Roach, a school board member in Orange County, Florida, and he is the inspiration for this proposal.

Roach holds two master’s degrees—one in education and a second in educational psychology and after learning that only 39 percent of his district’s 10th graders were reading at grade level, he decided to take the Florida standardized test in math and reading for 10th graders.

He bombed, getting 10 of 60 questions correct on the math portion of the test and getting a D in reading.

He took the risk, he said, because thousands of Florida students with grade point averages (GPA) of 3.0 or higher (on a scale of 4.0) are denied high school diplomas because they fail at least one portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Last year, he said, 41,000 kids were denied diplomas across the state, including about 70 in his district.

It wasn’t easy for him to even take the test because Florida law allows the FCAT to be taken only by students—a great way to hold students and teachers accountable while at the same time avoiding any accountability for the contents and effectiveness of the test itself.

Can you say, “level playing field?”

Roach did manage to take the test after first having to overcome the Florida bureaucracy. “I won’t beat around the bush,” he said. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess 10 out of the 60.” He got 62 percent on the reading test. “In our system,” he said, “that’s a ‘D,’ and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

“I have a bachelor of science degree, two master’s degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate,” he added with more than a little irony.”

Louisiana is in the process of implementing Act 54 of 2010, a complex grading system for one-third of all teachers, principals and schools districts that incorporates language that does more to confuse the issue of teacher evaluation than clarify it. Here is a sample of the act’s verbiage:

“By the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, fifty percent of such evaluations shall be based on evidence of growth in student achievement using a value-added assessment model (standardized test scores) as determined by (BESE) for grade levels and subjects for which value-added data is (sic) available. For grades levels and subjects for which value-added data is (sic) not available and for personnel for whom value-added data is (for crying out loud, at least I can comprehend that much of the reading test: it should be data are!), the board shall establish measures of student growth. The model shall take into account important student factors, including but not limited to, special education, eligibility for free or reduced price meals, student attendance, and student discipline.”

Act 54 goes on to say, “Any teacher or administrator who fails to meet the standard of performance with regard to effectiveness shall be placed in an intensive assistance program designed to address the complexity of the teacher’s deficiencies and shall be formally re-evaluated.”

There’s more of this same gooney-babble but you get the idea: Teachers in Louisiana’s public schools will be evaluated in large part on the basis of students’ standardized test scores.

Can you say, “Oh come let us teach the test?”

After failing his test, Roach said, “If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th-grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.

“It certainly would be nice to see more policymakers taking the tests that they say are so perfect to assess what students are learning and how well teachers are teaching,” he added.

So, with that in mind, and with apologies to my cousin Jeff Foxworthy (actually, it is his wife who is my cousin), I would like to challenge the aforementioned public officials to prove that they are smarter than an eighth-grader. And to put my money where my mouth is, I will also volunteer to take the Louisiana eighth-grade LEAP test in the same room, at the same time, as any public official who will take my dare. I’m certain we can secure a room of sufficient size in the Claiborne Building that houses the Department of Education.

Before this goes any further, however, let’s consider some sample questions on the eighth-grade LEAP test.

English Language Arts:

• Writing—Students write a composition in response to a writing topic. Each composition is scored in two dimensions that address top development: composing and style/audience awareness. The composing dimension measures the degree to which the composition exhibits focus on a central idea, support and elaboration of the idea, organization and unity of purpose. Features of the style/audience awareness include selection of vocabulary (diction or word choice), stylistic techniques, sentence variety and tone and voice (or personality that shows in writing);

• Reading and Responding—composed of four reading passages: excerpts from novels or stories, articles from textbooks, poems and other materials appropriate for grade eight. Each reading passage is the source for four or six multiple-choice items and two short-answer items;

• Using information resources—this includes tables of contents, indexes, bibliographies, other reference sources, graphic organizers and articles;

• Proofreading.

Mathematics (This is where it gets dicey):

• Darla took a trip to her aunt’s house. Her average speed was approximately 45 miles per hour. The one-way trip took 40 minutes. How many miles did Darla drive to get to her aunt’s house? Be sure to show your work.

• On the return trip, there was heavy traffic and Darla could only drive approximately 20 miles per hour for the first 15 minutes of the trip. How fast did she have to drive, in miles per hour, for the remainder of the return trip for her driving time to be equal to 40 minutes? Be sure to show your work.

Science:

• Accompanying an illustration of nine phases of the moon are these questions: How long does it take for all the phases shown to take place? Explain why the moon looks different at different times.

• Accompanying a drawing of a light bulb and a battery are the questions: How does the form of energy change when energy moves from the battery through the wire to the light bulb? What two forms of energy are produced by the light bulb?

Finally, there is the Social Studies section and this could be really embarrassing:

• Write the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States;

• Explain why the delegates felt that it was necessary to write a constitution in 1787;

• Describe one important issue that caused disagreement at the convention;

• Explain in detail how the delegates reached a compromise to resolve this issue;

• A requirement for becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen is: (A) having been born in the U.S. (B) taking an oath of allegiance to the U.S. (C) singing the national anthem, or (D) reciting the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

With that in mind, here is my proposition:

• Any member of BESE or any parish school board who takes and fails to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test must resign immediately.

• Any legislator who fails to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test will be given a second chance—at the fourth-grade LEAP test. Should they fail to score 75 percent on that, they, too, must resign.

• All statewide elected officials who take and fails to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test must appear on statewide television to apologize to Louisiana voters for being as dumb as a can of hair.

• If I take and fail to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test, I will buy lunch at a restaurant of my choosing that does not have a drive-through window for every statewide elected official and/or state cabinet head who takes and scores 75 percent or higher on the eighth-grade LEAP test.

Any takers?