Calcasieu Teachers Take Field Trip to Oppose New Accountability Standards for Louisiana Public Schools
It’s 11 am on a school day; do you know where your child’s public-school teacher is? If you are the parent of a high school student in Lake Charles and had been asked this last week, the chances are pretty good you had no idea your child’s teacher wasn’t in the classroom.
That’s because the Calcasieu Parish School Board hosted an unofficial “field trip” for high school teachers and employees last Tuesday. Rather than teaching students math and English, dozens of teachers and other school system employees loaded up on a LaGrange High School bus and took the two-hour drive to Baton Rouge to oppose the adoption of higher accountability standards for Louisiana public schools.
Is this a good use of teacher time or taxpayer dollars?
Louisiana currently ranks 43rd among all 50 states for public school education outcomes, and today just over one-third (35%) of all K-12 students enrolled in Louisiana public schools are on grade level in English, reading, math, science, and social studies.
Less than half of public school graduates are demonstrating proficiency on high school end-of-course exams. And yet somehow, under the state’s current accountability system, most high schools across the state receive A or B grades. That math doesn’t add up.
Those staggering numbers are unfortunately true for Calcasieu Parish students as well, who are far from mastering basic skills in English and math.
Percent of Calcasieu Parish Students at Each Achievement Level for Fall 2023 & Spring 2024 LEAP 2025 High School Tests
With these abysmal outcomes, it’s no wonder why the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) adopted new policies to improve accountability for K-12 public schools earlier this year. The new accountability system known as "Grow. Achieve. Thrive.” is based on three fundamental drivers:
Simple and Transparent: Utilizes a new 100-point grading scale
High Expectations: Raises the bar for student outcomes
Career and College Readiness: Emphasizes career education, college preparation, or military service readiness
“This revised system will drive performance to new levels and provide the public with a transparent understanding of school quality,” said Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley when the policy was unanimously adopted by the board in June.
It is obvious these improvements are much-needed and long overdue. Why then are teachers, local superintendents and education swamp leaders so vocal in fighting against the adoption of higher standards for Louisiana schools?
Well, let’s recall, these are the same groups that spent years fighting to hide accountability data from public view so they could keep families in the dark about the dire performance of Louisiana's public schools under their leadership. And now that the data is publicly available, they have nowhere to hide.
It should not come as surprise then that while BESE prepares to implement the new accountability system, the education swamp is once again citing concerns about "financial constraints.” Of course, this is a familiar refrain from these organizations, who have used a “lack of funds” as an excuse to oppose any kind of transparency and accountability for years.
What’s different now is that many school districts across the state—including Calcasieu Parish—are flush with cash from COVID Relief Funds that still haven’t been spent nearly three years later, and the legislature has recently called them out for not spending money provided by the state legislature, too.
Despite the education swamp’s vague claims about financial constraints and unintended consequences, it is obvious that they want to stop the adoption of improved accountability because they are more concerned about their own interests than the education of our children. Parents, taxpayers, and BESE should not allow that to happen. With thousands of Louisiana children trapped in low-performing K-12 public schools and others zoned to schools that aren’t meeting their needs, it’s clear we can no longer afford to maintain the status quo.