BR schools showing improvement

Every school district and almost every public school in the greater Baton Rouge area showed academic improvement, some dramatically, during the 2011-12 school year, according to school performance scores released Monday by the state.

Almost 86 percent of the public schools in East Baton Rouge Parish and the seven surrounding public school districts improved compared with the 2010-11 school year. Among area school districts, Zachary, Central, West Feliciana and Ascension earned “A” letter grades, Livingston earned a “B” and the East Baton Rouge Parish school system improved its letter grade from a “D” to a “C.”

The fastest-improving schools were Walker Freshman High School in Walker, which improved by 40 points, and Donaldsonville High in Donaldsonville, which improved by 32.4 points.

Out of 198 public schools in the area that earned school performance scores in 2010 and 2011, three were unchanged and 25 schools declined. Bakerfield Elementary in Baker and Claiborne Elementary in Baton Rouge declined the most, 7.3 and 7 points, respectively.

The state as a whole improved nine points, from 93.9 to 102.9.

Districts with performance scores of 120 or out of a possible 200 points are rated as “A” districts.

Among school districts in the greater Baton Rouge area, St. Helena Parish, which runs just two schools, had the most improvement, 13.8 points, followed by Zachary, which had 13.4 points improvement.

The school district in the greater Baton Rouge area with the slowest improvement rate was Iberville Parish, which grew by just two points.

Despite its improvement, St. Helena Parish scored only a 71.8 and an “F” grade. Similarly, the state-run Recovery School District schools outside New Orleans, including nine in the greater Baton Rouge, scored 58.9, making it the other “F” ranked public school district in Louisiana.

Schools and school districts earn “F” letter grades if they have performance scores of less than 75, up from 65 a year ago.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, East Baton Rouge Parish Superintendent Bernard Taylor, who took over in June from outgoing Superintendent John Dilworth, credited the “exemplary work” of school staff for the growth of 6.7 points, below the average for growth across the state, but enough to improve one letter grade. The district has improved 18.8 points overall since 2008.

Taylor said the growth is noteworthy coming at a time when the state has made sweeping changes in public education, including tight restrictions on teacher tenure, and an array of new school choice options including state-funded vouchers for private and parochial schools.

“With all the pressures that have been put upon us, no one has thrown in the towel,” he said.

This latest batch of school performance scores were among the strongest seen since Louisiana began school accountability in the late 1990s.

For elementary and middle schools, 90 percent of their school score consists of results from standardized tests given each spring.

The rest is a mix of attendance and dropout rates.

High schools are different. Seventy percent is test scores and the remainder is a “graduation index” that includes several factors, including graduation rates.

The high school tests are changing. The graduation exit exam has been phased out in favor of a growing number of end-of-course exams. In the future, ACT scores will figure heavily into a high school’s score.

A total of 31 schools operating last year did not receive school performance scores Monday. These include six state-overseen charter schools in the greater Baton Rouge area, five managed by Advance Baton Rouge, and Crestworth Learning Academy in Baton Rouge, which was operated by a charter school connected with Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church. All are run by the Recovery School District.

Also not receiving scores Monday were Istrouma High School and EBR Lab Academy. Both shared space on the Istrouma campus in Baton Rouge. EBR Lab was closed in May when the state announced the month before it would take over the management of Istrouma High.

ä ON THE INTERNET

http://www.doe.state.la.us/offices/publicaffairs/press_release.aspx?PR=1697

Comments

1) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 24/10/2012

@BRModerate: Again, you miss the point, actually, neither you nor the reformers seem to "get it." The accountability system? It bears NO relationship to actual quality of the school. If you have heard me speak, or read my work, you know that I always caution people about this. Last year, Ascension Parish elementary schools, when plotted on an XY Chart with the percent of students qualifying for free lunch plotted on the horizontal axis, and the school performance scores plotted on the vertical axis, the resulting line connecting the dots made an almost perfect line that dropped down as the % of low income students increased. And the nearly perfect line was repeated when a similar chart was done for high schools, and middle schools. Correlations were over .95 at every level. What this means, in plain English, is that poverty impacts student achievement (actually that the underlying conditions of poverty impact student achievement) in an incredibly powerful way. Doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, and it certainly doesn't mean that anyone can assume anything about individual students. It does, however, help to explain why the highest performing district in the state (Zachary) has the lowest percent of poverty in their schools compared to the rest of the state (as defined by the percentage of students qualifying for free meals) and St. Helena, which just happens to have the highest percentage of students living in poverty, has the lowest scores in the state. It is NOT a coincidence. When we applaud high scores, and condemn low scores (for schools and districts) without understanding the real reasons for the "rankings" and the scores, we do not help to create better schools, or better communities. We also unfairly judge teachers and students. This is a fact. The scores do not represent the respective quality of districts. The sooner we come to understand this, the sooner we can have real reform for children, for our schools, and for our state. To understand this better, google: Why schools "fail" or what if failing schools aren't? If you don't see a pattern here that makes you question the accountability system, then I can't help you understand why you do a disservice to teachers. I understand you are apparently an advocate for breaking up the district. That is your prerogative. I just ask that your advocacy not blind you to the truth about comparisons you were making.

2) Comment by BRmoderate - 24/10/2012

I do a disservice to the teachers/students in EBR??? How so? I am an ADVOCATE for the teachers and students of EBR. My point was that EBR test scores are artificially raised because their worst performing schools are no longer in the equation. EBRPSS is a colossal failure. We need to start over with a fresh community centered approach to education.

3) Comment by Chucky - 24/10/2012

can i sue for my education that i got in the 50's ?

4) Comment by 8point6 - 23/10/2012

noel is on the war path! Oopps. that was "racist" of me. That was sarcasm to all my "progressive"/teacher union members. "Third of public schools receive poor grades from state" What a play on words! A more unbiased headline would have read, " 36 percent of public schools in Louisiana are rated D and F, down from 44 percent last year." Don't hold your breath for a positive headline any time soon.

5) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

@dumbfounded: You raise an excellent point! St. Helena had the largest % increase... but that is because when you are scoring low... like the RSD, it is much easier to make gains. Ask the RSD about that, and if it doesn't work for you, just lie or hide low-performing students. The RSD is GREAT at that! By the way, the RSD in NO... even with all the lying and hiding, still has averaged over 75% of its charter schools being rated D or F in the last two years! In Baton Rouge, they are all "F" grades. Now, about the SPS... they have nothing to do with the quality of the schools. Lower poverty in a school= higher SPS... across the board for non-selective schools!

6) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

@BRmoderate: You do quite a disservice to the many hard-working teachers and students of this parish. You fail to note that schools taken over by the state do worse, not better than they were when they were run by EBR. We have many outstanding schools, struggling against challenges that many in surrounding parishes cannot even imagine.

7) Comment by dumbfounded - 23/10/2012

"Among school districts in the greater Baton Rouge area, St. Helena Parish, which runs just two schools, had the most improvement, 13.8 points, followed by Zachary, which had 13.4 points improvement" Did something get missed, the chart on the DOE website has Central Community schools improvement of 14.1 points Isn't this higher then either one of these two schools and also a higher percentage improvement. Last I checked they were actually have a Baton Rouge address due to postal code issues and are in the Greater Baton Rouge area. Why were they not given the credit that is due to this hardworking community school district? They topped both those other two school districts.

8) Comment by BRmoderate - 23/10/2012

Parents in EBR have to spend thousands of dollars to send their children to good schools. Ascension and Zachary parents just have to put their kids on the bus. We need to blow up the entire educational system in EBR and start over with STRONG community based schools. There are too many schools with too few resources in EBR.

9) Comment by BRmoderate - 23/10/2012

It is easy to improve your scores when the state takes over all of your failures... Hey maybe we could use that same logic in the classroom...fail a test and get expelled...that way our averages always increase

10) Comment by WhoCares - 23/10/2012

Do they or don't they count the schools the state has taken over when determining the district grade?

11) Comment by 8.3 - 23/10/2012

Cousin Dave might be Dave Leftkowith, state deputy superintendent of education. Very interesting resume and background as a motivational speaker. GO for it!!!! etc.

12) Comment by bourbon-soda - 23/10/2012

@Noel Hammett: Mostly you read in the news that education is improving in Louisiana with sporadic communiques that actually it hasn't. Been going on for decades regardless of party in power. Makes me think fundamental reasons are not understood or deliberately obfuscated.

13) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

@Cousin Dave: Joke, right? Please dig a bit deeper. @bourbon- soda, Campbell's Law is fully operational. Must be all those "bold new education policies" kicking in... oh wait, they haven't actually started yet. It was like the claims that NCLB policies were working, before they had even been implemented!

14) Comment by bourbon-soda - 23/10/2012

Significance of the changes is not interpretable using the information presented. The 93.9 to 102.9 improvement for the entire state cannot represent actual measurable student achievement or it would raise statistical red flags for fraud. But assuming the report not snake oil, shouldn't governor Jindal get any credit? His name usually shows up when it's bad news, why not with good news?

15) Comment by Cousin Dave - 23/10/2012

Gov. Jindal's bold new education policies are already paying dividends, with the statewide scores increasing from 93.9 to 102.9...that's incredible. Just wait till his new voucher programs kick in. This will be one of the most exciting times for education in Louisiana history!

16) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

This note is repeated at the bottom of this list. I liked it so much I thought I would put it here as well! The highest growth in the State of Louisiana was achieved by East Baton Rouge Laboratory Academy, which grew by 46.6 points, or about 5 times the state average! Charles is correct about this; the School Board closed this one down. By the way, SPS scores have nothing to do with the quality of a school. Nothing. But it is interesting to point out the failures outlined below where the state uses SPS to close a school, then they want to change the measures to claim success! RSD is lousy. By ANY measure. Even Rolfe McCollister ought to be able to figure this out!

17) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

The Recovery School District (RSD) is set to take over a large number of North Baton Rouge schools; let's see how they fared in this last year. Perhaps The Advocate will actually decide to do a historical story on this one. Let's take a look at the schools taken from EBR by the State of Louisiana and its "wonderful" Recovery School District (RSD). How well did they fare? As you may remember, four local EBR Schools were taken over by the RSD and given to ADVANCE Baton Rouge. Glen Oaks Middle had a 2012 SPS of 55. Prescott Middle had a 46 SPS. Dalton Elementary had a 64.8 SPS. Lanier Elementary had a 48.5 SPS for 2012. As you can see, being taken over by the State IS NOT a very good thing. I should point out that in the years since being taken over, they also managed to run off most of their students. So the state is now sitting in control of almost empty schools, schools desperately needed by EBR's Middle School population, and schools paid for out of local funds. Completely. It seems, though, that John Spain, who was a key player in the ADVANCE Baton Rouge debacle, and is a key officer in the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (where he makes around $300 K a year) is going to get another bite of the apple, since he is the only officer listed on the New Schools for Baton Rouge "non-profit" start-up. Tell me again, how is this different from ADVANCE Baton Rouge, and their totally horrible record of not improving ONE SCHOOL! Baton Rouge Achievement Zone? Really? We can add BRAZ to the list of groups advocating the taking over schools for profit. Not the community's profit, just their own. You know the list, ALEC, APEL, BRAF, BRAC and the every faithful lapdog of LABI, CABL. Now BRAZ. BRAC, BRAF and BRAZ will make money off the New Schools for Baton Rouge. Just like they did off the failed experiment of ADVANCE Baton Rouge. By the way, if we simply took the average growth of each of the schools taken over by the state in the few years prior to takeover, and advanced them to today, all would have had much better scores than they do now.

18) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

But the RSD didn't just give schools to ADVANCE Baton Rouge; they also gave Capitol High School to 100 Black Men. How well did that go? Not very, the school had almost no students, and was in arrears on its bills by over $400K when the RSD had to take it back over. Still "failing." What about Crestworth Middle? Taken over and handed to Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church. The school was run into the ground, to the point where they had to close it for repairs, and it sat empty for several months. The population at the school was down to well below a third of what had been its student population when it was an EBR school. Their scores, dismal, and not improving, even though it was announced that the church was "returning" the school to the RSD for financial reasons, the real reason had as much to do with the failure to improve scores. It's latest score? 50.1 SPS. Oh, and the church, like 100 Black Men, left a set of unpaid bills, in the case of Crestworth an $18,000 light bill was left for the RSD. Let's not forget Kenilworth, run by the same group, Pelican Education Foundation that ran Abramson Science and Technology in New Orleans. The one that was closed due to horrible atrocities committed within the building, and gross mismanagement, and covered up by both the school and the state until it broke in the New Orleans media. After a FOUR-DAY official investigation, the school was closed and taken over by the RSD, again. Kenilworth, under a number of lawsuits and claims of cheating and mismanagement, came under investigation about 14 months ago, an investigation that, to date has not been officially completed. By not being "officially completed, it means that no one knows WHAT they have found. I suspect someone is protecting this school. BESE members and Paul Pastorek knew of alleged improprieties in this school, and nothing was done. Now we have an "open" investigation into this Gulen-inspired school. So, the record of RSD takeovers so far in Baton Rouge? Not one example of success. So you can see why all ABC's of privatization have to work extra hard to take over more schools! Are you going to let them?

19) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 23/10/2012

Istrouma High School actually went down in their score, and was being operated under a Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) with the Recovery School District (RSD). Their new School Performance Score (SPS) in 2012 was 52.5. The highest growth in the State of Louisiana was achieved by East Baton Rouge Laboratory Academy, which grew by 46.6 points, or about 5 times the state average! Charles is correct about this; the School Board closed this one down.