Now the state ranks districts using a program that has been called the seventh best in the country by The Princeton Review and the fourth best in the nation by Education Week. When state rankings were first issued, Lafayette ranked 18th. Last year, we were 20th. This year, we rank 22nd. But our overall rank is not the worst of the news. We rank 30th in the state in the education of minority students. In the "performance gap" between black and white students, we rank 61st out of 68 districts. However, we did even worse when it comes to the education of "at-risk" students, 34th last year and 35th this year, indicating, yet again, that poverty is more of an issue than race.
The Chamber of Commerce brought in an expert in December 2004 who told us exactly what to do if we were serious about "improving" student performance, especially for our lowest performing kids, and it involved lowering class sizes. Since then, we have done exactly the opposite. By the way, the staff's presentation also attempts to establish that we have "small" classes. In fact, their presentation claims that "56.3% of our classes have 20 or less students." For these numbers to be accurate, they can only be talking about percentages or ratios, which the Chamber's expert specifically said we must not do.
According to all the research and the expert the Chamber brought in, a "small" class is between 13 and 17 students. We do not have "small" classes in Lafayette, not even close. Anyone who doubts that need only ask a teacher. In fact, we have not lowered class sizes in the critical grades of K-3 since 1998, and as our class sizes have gone up, our state rankings have continued to go down.
If we do not do something about this now, we will end up with more schools in the same situation as N. P. Moss. This is one board member who is prepared to hold someone accountable.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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