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BESE rebukes DOE on council operations, $3 million in Teach for America, Alternative Route Teacher contracts

August 18, 2011 by tomaswell

By Don Whittinghill
Guest Columnist

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) has rejected a move by the State Department of Education to alter the way that BESE advisory councils operate.

BESE member Walter Lee chided the department for initiating an action that would have changed the way that the BESE-appointed Superintendents’ Advisory Council operates. He reminded DOE spokespersons that the council is created by BESE policy and that only the board has the authority to change operation of the councils. BESE also has an 8(g) Advisory Council, Nonpublic school Commission, a Special Education Advisory Council, and a Textbook and Media Advisory Council.

BESE also put on hold a pair of contracts that proposed to pay Teach for America $2,023,197 for recruitment and orientation of teacher candidates; and also $1,275,479 to the Brooklyn, NY, New Teacher Project for the recruitment, selection, training and certification of alternative route teachers.

These large contracts were proposed by DOE in the face of a reported surplus of teachers made by the state education estimating conference just yesterday.

The Department was also taken to task for its calculation of Graduation Cohort Index and Rate, statewide, using a policy that has not been officially promulgated. The policy was adopted by BESE in June, and published in the official state journal. Law requires that the public be provided time to comment on the Notice of Intent proposing the new policy. The rule would become official in November. However, under BESE grilling Erin Bendily, assistant deputy superintendent of the Office of Departmental Support, admitted that the application of the new policy was done because it was deemed to be the latest expression of BESE intent.

BESE member Louella Harding-Givins of New Orleans, protested that the department acted illegally as a Notice of Intent is a warning to the public that something is about to happen, and its intent is to provide the public time to comment and, perhaps, alter the proposal.

Linda Johnson, another BESE member questioned the entire early School Performance Score released this spring by the department.

Testimony was provided by Tom Spenser of the Lafayette Public School District, that the impact on 2011 SPS was significant. A graduation rate of 85 percent would have produced 9 points under currently established policy, but only 2.3 using the pending policy that was used. An 80 percent graduation rate earned by a high school would have earned 6.8 points with the current policy, but zero points by applying the pending policy.

The impact of such losses likely would have a significant impact on the number of schools earning an SPS below 65 this year and thus gain the designation of Academically Unacceptable School. The 2010 listing on the DOE web site showed that Stewart Elementary School, in Webster Parish scored 65.1. A 6.5 point reduction if applying the proposed policy would have cast the school in AUS. Potentially 89 additional schools would have been reported as AUS had the proposed policy been used in 2010.

The multi-million Teach for America (TFA) contract would cover the cost of eight TFA employees working an average of 50 hours per week another 1.5 employees would cost $406,314 for an average of 50 hours work per week, and $1 million was proposed to pay for three employees who are expected to work 50 hour weeks, and one part-time consultant working 20 hours per week.

In still another action, BESE approved a Pre-K assessment that the DOE recommended should be deferred until later. A motion to reconsider the approval so as to allow three non-governmental agencies to consider the assessment proposals was not adopted.

In a nine-hour committee schedule, BESE once again heard a variety of protests from New Orleans education activists Karen Royal Harper. Her protests about RSD facilities decisions, and how nearly a billion dollars had been spent, with little regard for repopulation patterns in New Orleans, drew some support from BESE members.

Posted in BESE, Education | 2 Comments »

Every candidate needs a theme song to jumpstart campaign

August 17, 2011 by tomaswell

As political gaffes go, it has to be one of the worst in the storied history of American presidential campaigns, one from which it is almost certain to be difficult, if not impossible, to recover.

Michele Bachmann, whose tour bus is equipped with external speakers, pulled up to a campaign stop in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Tuesday, August 16 the same way she does at every campaign stop: to the pounding beat of Elvis Presley’s version of Promised Land.

But the Newsweek cover girl from Minnesota wasn’t content with just entertaining the crowd with the Elvis version of the Chuck Berry hit. She decided to give a shout out to Elvis. And what a shout it was:

“Before we get started, let’s all say, ‘Happy Birthday’ to Elvis Presley today!” she exhorted the crowd of 16 onlookers who promptly broke out in stony, perplexed silence.

Elvis was born on Jan. 8, 1935. He died on Aug. 16, 1977. Bachmann was wishing the man happy birthday on the 34th anniversary of his death.

We can’t wait to see what she does on Nov. 22. (Cue the Marilyn Monroe tape.)

Bachmann won the Iowa caucus but she still has a long, uphill fight against a bevy of Republican presidential wannabes. She cannot afford to offend those 73,482 Elvis impersonators and she’s going to need every one of the votes of those 286 Elvis fans out there in America’s heartland.

The Elvis shtick does seem to work for her, however, but it’s really nothing new. Remember John McCain’s Take a Chance on Me (Abba) and Johnny Be Goode (Chuck Berry)? Or Hillary Clinton’s Blue Sky (Big Head Todd and the Monsters)?

And what K Street lobbyist worth his salt doesn’t know the words to Signed, Sealed, Delivered (Stevie Wonder)?

So with that in mind, we’ve come up with some suggestions for theme songs for the other candidates clamoring for voters’ attention, votes, and most of all, campaign contributions. For some candidates, it was impossible to choose just one song, so we offer a choice:

• Michele Bachmann: Yakety Yak (The Coasters), Think (Aretha Franklin);

• Tim Pawlenty: Gone (Ferlin Husky), I’m Movin’ On (Hank Snow);

• Newt Gingrich: Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen), Do Wacka Do (Roger Miller);

• Ron Paul: The Impossible Dream (Pick an artist);

• Rick Perry: Bad to the Bone (George Thorogood), I Won’t Back Down (Tom Petty);

• Mitt Romney: It’s Over (Roy Orbison), Against the Wind (Bob Seger);

• Sarah Palin: North to Alaska (Johnny Horton), You Talk Too Much (Joe Jones);

• Rudy Giuliani: New York, New York (Frank Sinatra);

• Paul Ryan: Crazy (Patsy Cline), Witchcraft (Frank Sinatra);

• Barack Obama, 2008: A Change Gonna Come (Sam Cooke);

• Barack Obama, 2012: Won’t Get Fooled Again (The Who);

• Buddy Roemer: I’m A Nut (Roger Miller), Theme from Rocky (Bill Conti)

• Bobby Jindal: Who Are You? (The Who);

• The American People: This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)

Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

August 14, 2011 by tomaswell

“We don’t live in a Leave it to Beaver, Bill Cosby world. This is reality.”

—East Feliciana Parish School Board member and former Clinton High School coach Ben Cupit, on justifying the board’s decision to define a minimum “C” average as a 1.5 instead of the customary 2.0 in order that students might meet the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s “C” requirement for participation in high school sports.

(Precisely, coach. That’s why reality is going to be tough on these kids in a few years after the cheers have died down.)

Posted in Education, Notable Quotables | 1 Comment »

East Feliciana, other systems sell out academics for sports

August 14, 2011 by tomaswell

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.

Posted in Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators | 2 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

August 12, 2011 by tomaswell

“Every method and path is acceptable, including lying to people. You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers.”

—Fethullah Gülen, founder of a widespread charter school system in the U.S., in a 1999 sermon that aired on Turkish television, shortly before being forced to flee the country after being charged with attempting to overthrow the secular Turkish government.

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Notable Quotables, Transparency, Vouchers | Leave a Comment »

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