STOP THE STATE TAKEOVER OF OUR LOCAL SCHOOLS!
In response to community input, Delmont and Mayfair were reconfigured by the EBRPSS for the 2013-2014 school year. The community’s response could not have been better. When doors opened in August, both schools were at capacity and reports from parents have been overwhelmingly positive. In spite of this auspicious start, public comments by Superintendent John White indicate the state is poised to take over these schools. Such a takeover would:
>> be in direct contradiction to the spirit of the law governing reconstitution;
>> not improve educational outcomes for the children of these schools or for the children of EBRPSS in general;
>> be a subversion of local control and the will of the people; and
>> be an unfair seizure of assets paid for by local taxpayers.
>> A state takeover of these schools is in direct contradiction to the spirit of the law governing reconstitution.<<
Under current law, when a school is deemed failing by the state’s controversial accountability system, a local school system has four years to turn the “failing” school around. If local officials decide to reconstitute the school—reconfigure its program in an attempt to better address the students’ and community’s needs—the school is typically issued a new site code and it is given four more years to determine if the new reconfigured program is successful.
Currently, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) provides no explicit criteria for reconstitution plans. According to Barry Landry of the LDOE, this is intentional. As he explains, “there is no rubric spelled out in policy for the reconstitution plan. This allows schools and districts – those closest to the students – the flexibility to make decisions to create a plan they feel is best to present to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.”
The reconstitution plans submitted by the EBR School Board—those closest to the students, were designed with the needs of students and the community in mind. Mayfair Middle was turned into Mayfair Laboratory School. Its new program is modeled after the highly successful and well-regarded LSU Laboratory School. In response to parent and community input during neighborhood meetings, Delmont was turned into a PreK-Kindergarten Center. Though EBRPSS reconfigured the schools in response to its community’s needs, Supt. White refuses to issue new site codes for Mayfair and Delmont and has reiterated that these schools are eligible for takeover. His decision to deny the EBRPSS new site codes appears to be arbitrary and capricious. St. Landry Parish’s reconstitution plan for one of its schools was approved during the same time period.
>> A state takeover will not improve the educational outcomes at these schools or for the children of EBRPSS in general.<<
When the state takes over a school in Baton Rouge, BESE gives the school to the Recovery School District of Louisiana (RSD-LA) to manage. The RSD-LA’s stated purpose is to identify a quality charter operator to run the school. Unfortunately, there is no factual evidence to suggest those students will be better served by the RSD-LA or the charter operators it brings in. In fact, there is some compelling evidence that the education offered these students will be worse. After the RSD-LA took control of seven schools in north Baton Rouge in 2008-09 and created the Baton Rouge Achievement Zone, the school performance scores of a majority of those schools dropped. In recent years, it has been difficult to find information on these school’s performance scores. That’s because the schools have continually performed so badly, they have not been given a score but repeatedly reconstituted. Another measure of a school’s performance is parent and student satisfaction. Here, too, the evidence reflects badly on the quality of the education offered in the RSD’s Baton Rouge Achievement Zone. Parents and students have continued to abandon the RSD direct run and charter schools. The RSD currently controls seven school buildings that accommodate approximately 6000 seats. It now serves fewer than 2000 students. More than 4000 of the students have chosen to attend schools still run by EBRPSS. Baton Rouge parents do not see the RSD as a viable option for their children.
The failure of the RSD to attract students has serious consequences for the EBRPSS and the children who attend its schools. Because EBRPSS has lost 6,000 desks in seven school buildings as a result of these state takeovers but has retained over 4,000 of the students who used to sit in them, its schools are overcrowded and its finances are strained. EBRPSS must spend money on temporary buildings and other infrastructure needs in order to serve these additional students while desks sit empty in the RSD. The result is that it is even more challenging for our local schools to serve their students at a time when they are being held to even higher accountability standards putting even more schools at risk of state takeover. In short, our schools are being set up to fail in order to increase the number of schools the state can seize from local control.
>> A state takeover is a subversion of local control and the will of the people.<<
All of the schools in the Baton Rouge Achievement Zone are charter schools. Charter schools in the Zone are not subject to the control of a local school board. This means that when parents have exhausted avenues among the charter’s administration and board, there is not a locally elected official to whom they can go to address their needs. A recent poll conducted on behalf of Louisiana Public Broadcasting for a show on charter schools by Louisiana Public Square indicates that while Louisiana residents approve of charter schools, nearly 70% of them want charter schools to be controlled by a local school board.
Parents from both Delmont Pre-K–Kindergarten Center and Mayfair Lab School have pleaded with BESE representatives to allow their programs to continue, but there has yet to be an assurance...
