Inside Report for Sept. 28, 2012

Just eight months ago, John White was hired as state superintendent of education at $275,000 per year.

Big salary? No doubt.

So is the $12,000 per month the state is paying his new communications manager, in part to put the state Department of Education in the best light possible.

Yet few officials in state government face bigger agendas, and hotter topics, than White and his sprawling, often-reorganized agency.

Backers contend the superintendent is a key part of Louisiana’s bid to upgrade a public school system long regarded as one of the worst in the nation.

Critics contend the changes are actually wrecking public education, and that White and others on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s team are yet another here today/gone tomorrow band of self-styled reformers.

In addition, pending lawsuits filed by teacher unions could blow up much of Jindal’s education overhaul, which was muscled through the Legislature earlier this year.

Earlier this week White launched a 26-parish tour, including visits to traditional public schools, charter schools and private and parochial schools that accept voucher students.

White says that, by November, he will have visited schools in all 64 parishes since he took over as superintendent.

Yet in many ways the work is just beginning.

The expansion of Louisiana’s voucher program, which involves nearly 5,000 students, is just six weeks old. How those students fare academically is one of the key questions that will help shape White and Jindal’s legacy.

So will new teacher evaluations, which stem from a 2010 law pushed by the governor.

Under the old system, nearly every teacher in the state routinely got a “satisfactory” rating.

How that could happen in a state where 44 percent of schools are rated D and F, and where one of three students performs below grade level, never has been explained.

Starting this school year, all 60,000 public school teachers face new review methods.

Teachers rated as “ineffective” in back-to-back school years face dismissal.

Starting next year, the annual reviews will be linked to tenure, which is a form of job protection.

Backers contend that linking teacher ratings to student performance is long overdue.

Opponents call the reviews flawed.

Under a bill approved earlier this year, Louisiana is to reorganize its prekindergarten system.

White on Wednesday repeated one of Jindal’s chief criticisms of today’s system — only 52 percent of children in Louisiana enter kindergarten ready to learn, knowing such things as the alphabet.

State education officials plan to submit the initial plans to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in December. Eventually, the state will assign grades to the programs.

It all carries the potential for sweeping changes for preschool students, which could have an impact on how those students fare in the classroom for the rest of their school years.

In another area, the state is about to launch tougher classes as part of a push for nationwide standards that allow state-to-state comparisons on student achievement. Courses will cover fewer topics in more detail, White said.

Topics that used to be tackled in fourth grade, for instance, will surface in third grade.

Exams that used to rely on multiple-choice bubble tests will force students to reason, and explain their reasoning.

Louisiana’s public education system has never had so many far-reaching changes on the launch pad at once.

Will they pan out or fizzle?

Will Sentell covers state education issues for The Advocate Capitol news bureau. His email address is [e-mail]

Comments

1) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 02/10/2012

@bourbon-soda: Forgive me if I am wrong on this, but perhaps @deutsch29 is the only one who mentioned correlations? You are correct that many incorrectly equate correlations to causation, yet in this case he is "spot on." The evidence of correlations of poverty to academic performance has been examined as to causality, and it is the underlying factors in poverty that have been clearly identified as causes of low academic performance. The only people who appear to want to deny this are the same ones claiming that some schools have overcome the effects of poverty. The truth? It just ain't so. So in this case, correlations have indeed been examined to find very real causations. The article he cited is a good one. Did you get a chance to look at it?

2) Comment by bourbon-soda - 30/09/2012

If I were a teacher of critical thinking, I would have my students read this discussion and identify confusions of correlation with causation.

3) Comment by deutsch29 - 29/09/2012

All of this "sweeping" and "launching" and no program is completely and responsibly planned out prior to implementation. No wonder New York was happy to unload John White on Louisiana: http://pureparents.org/?tag=john-white

4) Comment by deutsch29 - 29/09/2012

"How that could happen in a state where 44 percent of schools are rated D and F, and where one of three students performs below grade level, never has been explained." Perhaps it has not been explained by John White; however, the letter grade concept has been explained. School letter grades are an ALEC (Am Legis Exchange Council) creation designed to goad the public into believing that schools are failing. I read it in the model legilation publicized on the Common Cause website. All that the letter grades measure is the socioeconomics of a school. See this link for a study showing the almost perfect correlation between school poverty and letter grades: http://educatorsforall.org/blog/2012/3/8/why-schools-fail-or-what-if-failing-schoolsarent.html

5) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 29/09/2012

@bourbon-soda: a major difference in the profit picture is what I have been pointing to for some time. I actually believe in the provision of services closest to the child, in fact. I am one of the few how have, consistently and for many years, been pointing out that the real reforms that need to take place are not even in the schools themselves. Public, private, and parochial schools show almost no meaningful differences in there effectiveness in educating students. I am NOT an apologist for public schools, unions, poor teachers, or any other group. At the same time, let's look at how the profit system has worked for the privatizers. Teachers making less money, on average. In fact, some of the providers have been able to replace teachers completely with caregivers at minimum wage or slightly above. The profits tend to be focused not on students, of those closest to the students., but on the few at the highest levels. It is definitely a pyramid scheme in most of these programs. And, there is no accountability for any of the groups in the private sector. You can know almost any information you want about how money, tax money, is spent in public schools. You don't know jack about how it is spent in these privatized money machines. (I don't mean "you" personally, of course.) As far as Abercedarian, although I thought Ramey and Campbell actually had a fairly effective response to the article, I, for one, have never been a proponent of the state taking over early education. In fact, I have written and spoken quite a bit about how we have to look at out of school factors, and help families and local groups and communities educate families, young mothers and fathers, about HOW to take advantage of the first few years to ensure better outcomes for kids. The Kiwanis Club of Baton Rouge, in a service project I started, is providing parents with a way to earn books for their children's home libraries, one of the best predictors of a child's academic success. That the students in the Abecedarian Project moved closer to the mean for their non-treatment peers is to be expected. The program "dropped" them off at school. The relative differences in home environments have always been recognized as more powerful, certainly in the long-term. than ANY TREATMENT in schools or other such programs. No surprise here at all for me. The lesson of Abecedarian for most people who actually study it, is NOT to have more expensive programs like that. Because they only reach a few students, and, the students tend in many ways to revert to the mean for their groups. (But, there were key advantages that stayed with the treatment group that the paper ignored.) Instead, what LESSONS can be learned about having families do the things the project did! First 5 years are incredibly important in a child's life!

6) Comment by ultimateliberal - 29/09/2012

I have yet to hear White state that the MOST EFFECTIVE method of teaching is being assigned to SMALL classes. Been there, done that. Recommend 8-12 students per K-4; 10-14 students per grades 5-9. Then, our children will have a chance at success in high school, grades 10-12, where they can handle class size of 18-22 students. We HAVE TO HIRE MORE TEACHERS and REDUCE CLASS SIZE for STUDENT SUCCESS!

7) Comment by bourbon-soda - 29/09/2012

@Noel Hammett - you might be interested in a piece on the Abecedarian Project is under the imprimatur of the U of MD - http://www.welfareacademy.org/pubs/early_education/pdfs/Beshar ov_ECE%20assessments_The_Abecedarian_Project.pdf or if that doesn't work welfareademy.org and use their site search for [abecedarian].

8) Comment by bourbon-soda - 29/09/2012

The idea that public schools don't make a profit off children is naive - public choice economics - government is a business with guns.

9) Comment by Chucky - 29/09/2012

@Noel Hammatt- Thank you, long posts but read them all, found them informative and thought provoking.

10) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

@bourbon-soda: I understand now, I was actually being a little sarcastic, since I am often fighting the status quo! I am on a mission to demonstrate to the people of Louisiana that the accountability action does a lot more harm than good, and that is has no basis in reality. You can, in fact, base school-wide accountability on a variety of factors, and race doesn't have to be one. @Chucky: The home and community explain about 70% of a student's academic achievement scores, and you need to understand that the evidence is pretty clear that the gaps that exist when children arrive at school, those gaps are, for the most part, there to stay. The 48% of students arriving at Kindergarden "not-prepared to learn", according to White, well, it has nothing to do with the pre-K programs being sub-standard. That is foolishness. The reason no one wants to really talk community and family information campaigns is that no one has figured out how to make a buck of it. So much of the "reforms" are driven by profit. It is sickening. I have nothing against profit in business, I graduated with a business degree from University of Maryland. I do despise people taking advantage of children for their own profit. It is, to put it mildly, despicable! What can we do> Let parents know the importance of talking with, and to their children. The importance of reading. The importance of turning off the television. So many things we can do that don't cost anything at all. Instead we pay high-priced consultants to come in and pretend that we can "fix" the schools, when, for the most part, if ANYONE was being honest in this administration, there would be a wholesale admission that the public has been sold a defective bill of goods in our accountability system.

11) Comment by bourbon-soda - 28/09/2012

@Noel Hammatt - you said to me "I know you are going to find it hard to believe" and I responded that I had no reason not to. I agree that "comparing schools without digging into the demographics and student characteristics, is a bit ridiculous," but discussion of this has become so freighted and contentious that a lot of people don't want anything to do with it. Suppose someone said well, gee, all you'd have to do to level out the evaluation of the schools on the tests is race-norm the scores, which is essentially what competitive colleges do; identify the substance that would hit the fan.

12) Comment by Chucky - 28/09/2012

@Noel Hammatt-OK teachers are good schools doing well student failing, what part is the home life/parent ? How do we address the issue of when the student leaves campus and goes home and to the streets?

13) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

@bourbon-soda: Thanks, about having no reason to disbelieve me about my army career. Sort of an interesting comment though. Anyway, I always invite those who want to claim that schools are "failing" to actually go and visit the school. My point is that they often find no reason to believe that the teachers are NOT doing all the right things for students. Like the 100s of parents that flocked to the Department of Education building for a BESE meeting and said, "Don't take our school." The message they got, even though they were often at Capitol High School and had their children in the school, is that such first-hand experiences were NOT as meaningful as the "data" the state had. The state took over the school, gave it to 100 Black Men, who sold off the management to Edison (an educational profiteer) who managed to promptly run the school into the red, ran the students off, and emptied the school, leaving a reported $400,000 shortage in the balance sheets. When asked to pony up records, Edison simply replied that they were a private company, and had no need to report anything to mere taxpayers and our government. I can tell you what you will find. On average, for every district and in every state, on virtually every standardized test. Money matters. Needing special services matters. Being a non-English native speaker matters. So comparing schools without digging into the demographics and student characteristics, is a bit ridiculous. Schools are only a very, very small part of the equation in evaluating student academic achievement. The first three years of life. Hugely important... a child's third grade teacher. Relatively unimportant IF one is evaluating only test scores. Yet every one I know can cite the names of teachers who made a lasting impact on their lives. You just can't measure the most important things in life. And you certainly can't honestly evaluate teachers using the methods the reformers are promoting (although, the promotion leads to lots of profits from a few!) You can find so much of my info and others at educatorsforall.org and we don't hide anything there, unlike the state and the infamous RSD. We are not all bothered by the truth. It is not threatening to us. We seek it!

14) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

@jeffsadow: And people were telling me they thought you had had enough, since each time we have pointed out that you somehow fail the basic reading test, i.e., you never seem to be able to attack a single point being made. The info on your first reference below is lovely. Please, everyone go there. You will receive certain proof that @jeffsadow never actually manages to read the posts. Perhaps he, like Being_Stupid is waiting for the Cliff Notes. The website is from a wonderful anti-union site in DC, but interestingly enough, there is absolutely nothing there to refute anything I have written below. It says 2.38% of "experienced teachers" were fired. I love it, they ALWAYS have to exaggerate, if only a little! It is actually 2.389%, which of course, according to my teachers at St. Aloysius AND at Lee High would normally be rounded off to 2.39, of course. They just can't help themselves. Of course, nothing on that page in any way challenges any of my comments below. And what a riot... such a childish website aimed at attacking public teachers and their unions! At any rate, Jay Greene at Manhattan Institute. Anyone mention prostitutes? J. Greene and Paul Peterson are two of the most prolific writers and quasi-researchers who have NEVER failed to find success for vouchers, even when no one else can! They truly can be accurately described as "blinded by their faith." Come on Jeff, you can do better than this! Try reading! :)

15) Comment by bourbon-soda - 28/09/2012

@Noel Hammatt - I have no reason to disbelieve you about your Army career. Gathering and evaluating information through the modality of walking around and direct observation is not incompatible with gathering and evaluating information from standardized testing and statistics. I have read interesting speculation (speculation, but interesting) that the game of the educationists is to coarsen and lump the data from standardized testing and split it into categories in such a way that it minimized the gap. That's why I'd like to see the curves or some description of means and standard deviations. I think the public could interpret less massaged and coarsened statistical data in context.

16) Comment by jeffsadow - 28/09/2012

The usual blather from @Noel Hammatt. Perhaps he, whose philosophy helped keep LA schools close to the bottom and is continually trying to justify this destructive he and his kind when in positions of power have wreaked upon EBR's and the state's children, can try to dance his way around these stats about teacher retention: http://www.teachersunionsexposed.com/state.cfm?state=LA. He also may wish to look at Jay Greene's postings about vouchers at http://jaypgreene.com/. Other idiocy he spews is debunked effectively in Greene's Education Myths (see http://www.manhattan-institute.org/educationmyths/).

17) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

@bourbon-soda: Having spent a few years in the U.S. Army I agree with your comment about it appearing to be more and more like the Army. I know you are going to find it hard to believe, but I actually fought for change while in the Army, and even had some successes. I guess that, reference your comments about the bell- curve, I would have to ask why. Why? I keep hearing from people that we need to know how well our schools are doing. I keep asking, what's wrong with walking over, or taking a drive over to your local schools and seeing for yourself? The idea that a complex set of mathematical formulas leading to simplistic numbers (School Performance Scores) and even simpler "letter Grades is absolutely necessary for public schools, but we can take our tax dollars and simply let parents choose to send their children to any school (or business, yep, it's coming) they they wish with no accountability that these schools are any better. And, in spite of what a local legislator might believe about the absolute legitimacy of sending money to, in her words, Christian schools and absolutely NOT sending any money to Muslim Schools seems to make a mockery of the Establishment Clause, there is a very real problem that some people have with either approach. Measuring school achievement on the basis of student tests scores tells you one thing, and one thing only. It tells you something about the test scores of the students attending the school, and little to nothing about the quality of the school's teachers and administration. Education Leaders know this, and simply ignore it. And we let them. (Though I try to educate myself and others to try and stop this train.) The train is destroying lives of teachers, children, and families. For one purpose. To create profit for a few.

18) Comment by bourbon-soda - 28/09/2012

@Noel Hammatt - hard to address everything you said, but it is true that the evaluations are so coarsened ("grade level," "mastery," etc.) that no one can interpret any evaluations. If the public doesn't understand basic statistics in verbal or math form, why not publish bell curves comparing the schools? I read elsewhere that virtually everyone, having been to school, feels competent to rush in where angels fear to tread and reform education. OTOH, when you turn something over to the government, don't be surprised when it gets inexorably more like the Army.

19) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

@Whatchange: You raise an excellent point. I guess my only response is, we have been fed misinformation for so long by The Advocate and the "reformers" who have, let's face it, an incredible amount of money with which to get their lies out, that we have to do something! I always invite anyone to examine my comments, to challenge them, and when necessary, to correct them. I have been engaging The Advocate in emails and calls, and we are going to meet soon, but the mistakes and lies out there have taken hold, and they need to be uprooted by every means. Is this not true? Did you read my comments? The teachers, students, and parents deserve honest answers, not "beliefs" and deceit. If there is nothing to hide, why are the reformers doing so much to hide the truth? Why is there not honest and open debates on any of these issues. @tradewinns says all of these reforms are needed (except vouchers) but where is the research to support ANY of them? I do thank The Advocate for not printing the false claims about private vouchers in NYC... and the Business Report for coming back and highlighting the research that debunked the NYC claims. But truth is needed out there.

20) Comment by Whatchange - 28/09/2012

@Noel Hammatt, really, come on now, your comment(s) are longer than the opinion piece. I don't believe very many will read it/them.

21) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

Please read the next three comments together... starting from the top. Or not. At any rate, Being_Stupid, I will have the CLiff Notes ready for you. And so much for the notion that this Op-ed represents "both sides of the debate." Sometimes people pretend we are having debates, as does Will Sentell. Sometimes we actually want a reporter to actually report on FACTS!

22) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

@Will Sentell: I am going to choose to respond this morning to only one piece of this tripe. "Under the old system, nearly every teacher in the state routinely got a “satisfactory” rating. How that could happen in a state where 44 percent of schools are rated D and F, and where one of three students performs below grade level, never has been explained." Well Will, it happens like this. First, your statements are not true. The claim about "nearly every teacher in the state routinely got a 'satisfactory' rating" is a bit of sleight of hand. And you "should" know better. Those who apparently hate teachers and public schools, and love to bash them often use this magicians' "trick". Here is how the trick is accomplished. The handkerchief is placed over reality, and the magician repeats the magic words over and over: "nearly every teacher in the state routinely gets a 'satisfactory' rating." In order for this trick to work the audience just needs to ignore reality, such as the nearly 50% of all new teachers who leave the profession within 5 years. Some, (but by NO MEANS all) were teachers who, even without a formal evaluation by their principal, knew they weren't getting the job done, or that they just didn't like teaching. You won't see "unsatisfactory" evaluations for these teachers. They left. Of course, you also won't see, nor will you hear about, those teachers who were actually counseled out of teaching by an experienced cadre of administrators who know that many teachers, if honestly given an appraisal of their work, will choose to leave their profession. (By the way, I argued often for a change in the ultimate irony, a "tenure hearing" by a group of Board Members who very seldom had ANY training in education. I argued that a group of professionals in education were in a better position to judge teachers.) How many partners at the largest law firms in this country get less than "satisfactory" ratings? Wait though; am I saying that some teachers remaining in the classroom shouldn't be getting "satisfactory" evaluations? No. Certainly it would be foolish to think that, or to think that in ANY field, their aren't some who manage to keep going, year after year, while remaining well below average, at least in the eyes of some people. In fact, we have proof here in our local paper that some reporters should have been getting less than "satisfactory" ratings. On the other hand, some members of the editorial staff might argue that we (the reading public) don't really know enough to make those judgments. That perhaps these reporters, though caught in lie after lie, still have enough redeeming qualities that they can continue on. Might be true! I have to give the professionals, with years of experience, their right to make such judgments.

23) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

Alas, I digress. To put it bluntly, "nearly every teacher in the state" is a lie the "reformers" would have you believe. I think we should give some credence to judgments by actual professionals in the field with years of experience, but the reformers certainly don't want this! Now, on to the second comment by WIll Sentell. "How that could happen in a state where 44 percent of schools are rated D and F, and where one of three students performs below grade level, never has been explained." OK... here is where I have to wonder about The Advocate's judgment. As a rhetorical flourish this works. As "opinion" on the "Opinion Page," I guess we could say it works. As factual, well, it doesn't even come close, and the problem is that this reporter's "opinion" is not really any different than what he writes on other pages. It IS a fact that close to 44% of schools are "rated" D or F. However, it is by an accountability system that bears no relationship to anything related to informed judgments by professionals in education that these schools are doing a poor or failing job. The "Letter Grades" are not at all based on observations, or judgments by parents, principals, or other professionals about the quality of the schools. They are nothing more than a publicity stunt by ALEC and profit- motivated "reformers" made up of non-professionals in education who are no better than prostitutes for their high-paying "johns." (Of course, this analogy, I admit, quickly fails when one looks at who is really getting…. well, you know) Anyway, they get huge salaries, yet they are non-professionals totally untrained in their field, and with far less experience than a journeyman plumber or a lawyer who makes partner in a law firm. Yet through their close- knit connections, none of that is important, in this "Brave New World of Education." In this crazy new world, it is possible not only for a lawyer to make partner with just a couple of years of experience, but he can be running the national firm without ever going to law school, or passing the Bar, or ever being voted on by any lawyers. In fact, their movement up through the ranks of legal professionals can be totally sponsored by the criminals themselves, who, let's face it, have more than enough funds from their illicit enterprises to buy off judges and politicians, right? So then they "reform" education into a new kind of "Orwellian" world in which all teachers are equal, but some, with cloven hooves, are more equal than others.

24) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 28/09/2012

In this new world, many people need to be hired to "explain" the new rules, which apply only to those, well, only to those the "New Leaders" choose to apply them to. In this "Brave New World" parents in private schools don't need teacher evaluations, or school letter grades, or other such accountability measures in their schools because "these parents are smart enough to know good schools without all this falderal." Alas, when parents choose to allow their children to attend "government schools" it is clear that they must have lost their minds. We must provide them with "simple" measures that even they can understand. Heaven forbid the system of accountability tax their weak minds. We must have letter grades... and we must test their teachers every year, and provide notes home to parents about the quality of their school as measured by our secret system of measurement. We can't allow parents and teachers in this scary world of public schools to operate free of a mandated curriculum, and performance measures (that only the "chosen" priesthood can pretend to understand) and we need to ensure that a small group of parents can choose to "save" their children (and the children of non-believers) by selling out their school to the new high priests of the profession. Even a majority can't save the school if the high priests want it though. Wouldn't want anyone to pull that "trigger" if the gun is pointing the other way! Have to protect our brave new world! Almost forgot. What about the one- third of students who "are below grade level" comment beloved by the "new leaders" in this new world? Step back into the not- so-distant past, before the world of education was "reformed" and ask your self one question. If "grade level" is defined as the average performance of students in a particular grade, then what percent of students would be below that midpoint? Sort of gave you a hint there. And about the vast numbers you hear about students being below grade level: has anyone ever defined grade level, or exactly how this is measured? If a student has mastered mathematics, is elegant and efficient in English, and honored in History, is she part of the "below grade level" statistics because she failed to understand evolution? No, that can't be, because there are no questions about evolution on any of the tests! Another hint. Those are more lies. Finally, oh Will of the "Brave New World" of education: all this has "never has been explained" to you? Just because you have not met the standard, Sir, of truth and accuracy, does not mean that many have not tried to teach you. Perhaps you are un-teachable! But in the "Brave New World" that cannot be, for everyone can learn, even Will! Apologies go out to George Orwell, for mixing up brave new worlds and animal farms, along with hints of other treasured works. And to attorneys and members of the world's oldest profession, I offer sincere apologies for including both of your professions in this piece. And to my readers here, "Adieu, cruel world."

25) Comment by coachblades - 28/09/2012

$275,000 a year but they forgot his added $2,500 a month housing and his tax payer provided car/travel and his annual "STEP" raise that he gets regardless of performance. The same type of step raise that he said was bad for teachers to get. Also just to address the concept that "ineffective" teachers could face dismissal....All teachers need to relax. NO ONE IS BEATING DOWN THE DOORS TO TAKE YOUR JOB. My school is a high performing school and we still have yet to replace 2 math teachers a PE teacher and an Inclusion teacher. When you cant give away a PE job its bad. THEY WILL NOT FIRE YOU BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS TO BE IN THIS JOB! We cant even find subs. The fact that our jobs suck so bad is our job security.

26) Comment by [e-mail] - 28/09/2012

This is a good op-ed that fairly presents both sides of the debate; my take on the topic of education reform is that it's just more of the same scam that "educators" have been using to fleece taxpayers for the last forty years. Ever notice that our valiant "educators" are now among the most highly paid bureaucrats in the world? Not even counting their perks. I notice that no matter what "new" strategy i trumpeted, it always costs more and it always expands the budget baseline. Meanwhile parents have to pay up, then sacrifice to be able to afford to send their kids to a private school?

27) Comment by bourbon-soda - 28/09/2012

Chucky - always happy to amuse. Habit of investigating and reading about unsubstantiated and even propagandistic claims in the media.

28) Comment by Chucky - 28/09/2012

bourbon-soda-LOL. How in the heck did you know about the North Carolina Abecedarian project ?

29) Comment by bourbon-soda - 28/09/2012

Leaving aside whether extrapolation of St. Francis Xavier's aphorism to the government schools violates the "wall of separation," he was not asserting a statistically demonstrable, as opposed to individual, phenomenon. The closest collective project to "until he is seven" is probably the North Carolina Abecedarian project, and its effects on adulthood are not convincing.

30) Comment by Chucky - 28/09/2012

tradewinns- I agree, but have no solution, I do think prekindergarten is good but as you say can be undone due to lack of encouragement at home and on the streets (peer pressure) Would like to see some post on how parents/parent can be motivated/changed in helping their children.

31) Comment by tradewinns - 28/09/2012

all of the reforms are needed (except in my opinion, vouchers). however none of the reforms target the primary cause of student non-performance, the parent(s). until the parents of failing student, and therefore failing schools, are held accountable, the needle will not move very much and will cost the taxpayer a fortune. previous studies have shown that prestudent programs have been beneficial to the student till they enter the 3rd grade (on average) at that point peer pressure or lack of encouragement at home take over and the student drops back to the same as one who had no preschool programs.

32) Comment by Chucky - 28/09/2012

St. Francis Xavier “Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man”.

33) Comment by bourbon-soda - 28/09/2012

Is the Louisiana public school system merely "regarded as one of the "worst in the nation" or is it actually "one of the worst in the nation?" Has the "potential for sweeping changes for preschool students" ever been statistically demonstrated to have a beneficial effect on them as adults, which should be be the goal, much less whether it actually will, as opposed to "could," "have an impact on how those students fare in the classroom for the rest of their school years?"