Policy Update: Louisiana: A First Step

Vital Statistics
66	Public school districts
1,475	Public schools
781,000	K-12 enrollment
49.4%	Minority students
35%	Children in poverty
11.1%	Students with disabilities
$3.6 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

"We are hopeful that there are a number of factors that will allow this program to continue and to allow Louisiana to show gains in student achievement," says Leslie R. Jacobs, the state board member who headed the state's accountability commission. "National trends [in setting standards and designing accountability measures] create the right climate for this set of reforms to be successful."

The first round of testing under the new system will begin this spring when 4th and 8th graders take tests linked to the state's new content standards in English/language arts and mathematics. In the fall, the state's 1,100 elementary and middle schools will be scored on how they compare with state benchmarks on those tests.

In spring 2000, students will be tested in science and social studies. Tests in those subjects for 10th and 11th graders will be phased in in subsequent years.

Students took the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills for the first time last year. State officials said the results--students averaged at or just below the 45th percentile, with 50 being the national average--were promising, considering that it was the first year they administered the norm-referenced test. When fully implemented, the state and Iowa test results will be the primary factors in determining a school's performance score.

"It is important to remember that we are in the early stages of our reform initiatives," state schools Superintendent Cecil J. Picard said in announcing the test results. "I believe [the reform initiatives] will result in higher performance in the coming years."

The state has been last, or nearly last, among the states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal project that tests a sampling of students in core subjects.

The rigor of the standards and the tests alone will not result in change, some observers argue, unless the state school board is willing to set the bar high.

"Most reforms in Louisiana have fallen down in the implementation phase ... not in the first year, but there was a gradual erosion," says Jackie Ducote, the president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, an independent watchdog group based in Baton Rouge.

"Where the board sets the performance levels will be key. [The plan] can fall apart if they don't raise the level of expectation high enough," Ducote says.

Other educators and policymakers share Ducote's concern but believe that the state board will find the appropriate standard for schools to meet.

"We are going to set a bar and an expectation and not falter from it," vows James V. Soileau, the executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association.

Already the state board has rejected districts' efforts to lower the standard for some schools when it denied requests to provide a "handicap," or adjustment to the performance scores, for the districts that have more minority, limited-English-proficient, and poor students.

Officials hope a reading and math initiative, which has received $50 million from the legislature over the past two years, will help raise student performance on state and standardized tests.

The program provides up to 30 hours of teacher training in reading and math instruction. A 30-minute increase in the school day will be dedicated to core subjects, particularly math and reading in the early grades. Part of a $25 million technology initiative will also go toward professional development.

Although the Louisiana teachers' unions did not wholly support the longer day, the legislature is compensating teachers for the additional time with an annual salary increase of $800 to $1,500 each. The money was included in the state's "minimum foundation program," or per-pupil financial distribution to districts.

The state pumped an additional $105 million into the $2.2 billion program last year in its continuing attempt to establish a more equitable funding system for districts by next school year.

And teachers won't have to dig as deep into their own pockets to pay for more classroom supplies. For the second year in a row, they will get a break from a $12 million pot of state money for that purpose, or about $200 each.

The state is continuing its tuition-exemption program for teachers who wish to take additional courses at state universities to improve knowledge of their subject areas or teaching methods.

The state board was set to decide last fall whether to require prospective teachers to take the PRAXIS examination, which, unlike the purely multiple-choice National Teacher Examinations that are used now, requires test-takers to write essays and analyses and to respond to pedagogical questions about the fields in which they hope to teach.

The attention to improving the quality of the teaching corps in the state has not eased teachers' apprehension about the accountability program.

"We are concerned that school boards may try to put the entire responsibility for improving test scores on teachers, with very little recourse on the teachers' part to dispute such an evaluation," says Bob Crowley, the executive director of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers.

Despite all the supplementary money for schools, the lack of attention to reducing class sizes is a flaw in the plan, Crowley argues.

Ten charter schools opened their doors last fall with the help of $1.3 million in loans from the state.

A 1997 law limits the number of such schools, which receive public support but are free of most state regulations, to 42.

State education leaders won a round in court last year when a state court of appeals dismissed a lawsuit claiming that the state's school funding is inequitable and inadequate. The court, sitting in Baton Rouge, ruled that the state constitution requires only "minimum," not "adequate," state aid to public schools.

An attempt to finance tuition vouchers also failed last year when the legislature rejected Republican Gov. Mike Foster's plan to give parents of disadvantaged children the option of sending them to private or parochial schools.

State policymakers are also focusing their energies beyond K-12 education with a scholarship program designed to encourage students to do better in high school and aspire to higher learning.

The Tuition Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS, allows any qualifying student to attend a state college or university, or an approved occupational program, free for two years. It will also award up to $5,000 for students to attend private institutions in the state.

So popular was the higher education program that 4,000 more students than expectedfor a total of 35,000took the ACT last year.

Despite the tendency for test scores to go down when the pool of test-takers swells, Louisiana's students improved their average scores on the college-entrance test.

State officials challenged the accuracy of the information submitted by high schools for students who applied for the scholarships. The state contends that officials in at least nine schools may have misinterpreted the instructions for calculating grade point averages or in determining core-curriculum courses. Nevertheless, the legislature approved an additional $20 million for the program last year to extend the scholarships to all qualified applicants.

It is a sign that the state has reason to hope for a brighter educational future, says Louann A. Bierlein, the education adviser to Foster. The governor has been credited with building the momentum for the reforms.

"We expected to hear more grumbling that this [latest stage of reforms], too, shall pass," Bierlein says. "But I think there is a growing sense of optimism that maybe this time it will happen."