Each year when the legislature gavels in for its regular session, there’s no doubt you’ll see a multitude of bills filed to trigger a constitutional convention. Those bills range from a convention that provides a full revision of the Louisiana State Constitution to a convention to make partial revisions to specific parts of the constitution […]
In part one of this two part series, I went through the changes that Act 1 made to school boards and their authority. Dysfunctional is a term used by education reformers to justify their attack on the system; much like calling teachers ineffective. What I find is that the changes made have not resulted in […]
If you ask any teacher in Louisiana who has taught more than ten years what’s the worst thing to happen to the teaching profession, most of them will say Act I; the legislation that defines how teacher are evaluated using invalid student test scores and a Utopian scoring rubric that was designed to be a […]
A few weeks back, a fellow education advocate sent me the link to an article written by Emily Hanford (@ehanford), a senior education correspondent for American Public Media. The article, titled Hard Words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read?, opens up and delves into a spot on analysis of what is missing in elementary […]
Once again, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) has indicated that it feels no need to be responsive to the taxpaying public and will continue to support the education reform agenda of its financiers. From the moment they took office, the current BESE has ignored its responsibility to appoint, and extend, a […]
Maybe you haven’t heard. I don’t know if it was said in a public forum, or in a radio interview, but it was definitely tweeted by Will Sentell of the Baton Rouge Advocate. John White and wife expecting baby any day. Girl.#laed — Will Sentell (@WillSentell) August 15, 2018 I’ve said for years that if […]
It has been some time since I’ve posted a blog. I’m about three quarters of the way through summer break, and I’ve spent the majority of it addressing some long neglected personal health issues with only occasional political sparring with a handful of good friends. The last blog that I published was on June 2nd […]
In the Fall of 2018, schools throughout Louisiana will receive their School Performance Scores (SPS). A school’s SPS is supposed to be a valid indicator of how well each school serves its students. There is much opposition to the use of an SPS derived from the results of student achievement on state assessments because the […]
Last week at this time, teachers across the United States were beginning to receive small tokens of appreciation from their students for “Teacher Appreciation Week.” I have been teaching for 15 years. All of those years have been spent in a special education classroom. My roster of students is generally small, and I am accustom […]
The “Opt-Out” movement may have subsided in Louisiana, but only because of the severity of the threats and consequences being made by superintendents and principals across the state. But judging by the flood of emails, text messages, and FaceBook messages I continue to get, everyday, the concern and contempt for state assessments has not died. […]
