Did you watch John White’s
interpretation of Louisiana’s “Advanced Placement” scores on TV
last week? Secretary of Education White is claiming a success
because Louisiana moved from near bottom to about 38th in the
number of high school juniors and seniors taking AP placement courses
last year (2013-14).
Sounds like an amazing improvement,
except for one thing: The vast majority of Louisiana’s AP test
takers fail the test.
Our high schools are forced to
enroll students in this commercial, for-profit program on the theory
that “rigorous” AP classes will prepare our students for college
success. Our school performance score depends on the number of
students who take and pass AP classes.
White thinks we should celebrate
that our state ranks 38th for participation rate. (The accolade comes
from the company that designs and sells the classes to our state.)
But, the percentage of students who actually passed the tests
declined from 34.1% in 2013 to to 30.3% in 2014.
I solidly believe that human beings
learn from failure. But I don’t understand how White is serving our
students by forcing them to take classes they are not prepared to
pass. Professional educators (White is a Teach for America survivor
and a political appointee) would never claim they were successful as
teachers if only 30% of their students passed their classes.
Can you imagine being forced to put a
certain kind of roofing on your house, and then, after the first
rain, you discover only 30.3% of your roof works to prevent water
damage? Secretary White forced you to put that roof on your house,
and he claims success, because at least, your shed is still dry.
Can you imagine being forced to buy a
certain brand of Thailand crawfish, only to find that 69% of the
product is not consumable? Metaphorically speaking, Secretary White
is forcing you to buy that product, and he claims he did a good
thing because his corporate backers told him Thailand crawfish is a
better crawfish than our own home-grown products.
Why did news outlets participate in
White’s deception about our rankings? Why did the media fail to
check the facts before giving this con man free press? We may rank
38th in the number of students taxpayers subsidized for AP classes,
but we are 49th in passing rate.
White is hiding data and facts from the
public. Data that should be on the state website is missing.
Every week, I check the Louisiana Department of Education website to see if White has the courage to post real information about our school and district performance on state LEAP, End of Course tests, and college preparatory ACT and Advanced Placement (AP) tests.
Every week, I check the Louisiana Department of Education website to see if White has the courage to post real information about our school and district performance on state LEAP, End of Course tests, and college preparatory ACT and Advanced Placement (AP) tests.
Alas, when you go the state website,
you can only find clear, honest data for the school years prior to
White’s takeover of the Louisiana Department of Education.
Google helped me track down the real facts from the College Board, facts printed as a table by The Times Picayune. The passing rate for all those taking the AP test in Louisiana was down four percent; women passing declined by 3 percent, African Americans by almost 1 percent.
If White would give us the true
data, parents and teachers could work together to fix the problems
that contribute to our declining scores.
If AP courses are necessary for the
neighborhood schools to survive, for example, they need to be run properly. All AP
instructors would need to be exempt from White’s mandatory
“COMPASS” teacher evaluation system. I was trained by the lead AP Music
Theory test designer. He insisted that students could only pass the
music test if they engaged in rigorous drill and kill. When I
explained his teaching methods would get us fired as Louisiana public
school teachers, he had a few choice words to describe the foolish
COMPASS rubric that is dragging down our achievement scores.
AP classes need to be run as
full-year classes. Louisiana high schools embraced the one-semester
block program, making it impossible for teachers to do adequate
instruction and review before the tests are administered in the
spring.
Our Secretary of Education may
have forced all these conflicting changes on our public schools with
good intentions, but, in every instance, the outcome has been
disastrous.
Our children’s future is at
stake. We cannot afford to put them in situations where 70% fail
because of bad policies and bad financial investments.
It’s time for the media to stop
re-telling John’s Big White Lie.
For more information you can google
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