Transparency is supposed to mean clarity – that you can look at something and see what’s really there. Louisiana’s school accountability system has been extremely good about shining the light on the performance of the state’s public schools, but a loophole, of sorts, is threatening the transparency that parents and citizens deserve.
It’s called “re-routing.” It should be called “deception.” Three school districts in Louisiana are doing it, but it’s wrong. What brought it to public attention was the recent move by the East Baton Rouge School District to re-route the state LEAP and iLEAP test scores of students from the schools they attend to ones they don’t. These scores are important because they’re used to determine each school’s official School Performance Score as mandated by Louisiana’s school accountability system.
East Baton Rouge, like many other school districts, has magnet schools for higher-achieving students. In many cases, if those students weren’t in the magnet schools, they would be assigned to the regular public school in their area based on where they live. Some of those schools are low-performing.
Here’s what happened. East Baton Rouge, following the lead of school districts in Jefferson and Iberville Parishes, decided to “re-route” the test scores of students from seven magnet schools to the public schools they may have otherwise been assigned to. So their scores won’t count for the school they’re going to, they’ll count for a school where they don’t attend. Now how much sense does that make? None. It’s a pure deception and flies in the face of the very purpose of Louisiana’s highly-regarded school accountability system.
“Re-routing” scores in this fashion has a number of bad consequences. First, it allows school districts to create a false and inaccurate impression that some schools are performing better than they are. That’s not transparent and it’s not right. It also hurts the magnet schools because it makes it impossible to track their performance and could prevent them from receiving rewards they might earn from the state’s accountability plan. Perhaps even worse, it artificially raises the scores of some schools that may be in danger of takeover by the state because they are low-performing – and in doing so bypasses the intent of our school accountability system.
As one of the architects of Louisiana’s school accountability system, CABL believes this “re-routing” of scores is an unacceptable and outrageous shell game. Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek calls it “cooking the books.” Call it what you will, it should not be allowed.
CABL is asking the state Board of Elementary & Secondary Education to take immediate action to stop this sham and stick to the very clear intent of our school accountability system. The public has a right to know exactly how a school is performing and school districts shouldn’t be allowed to use tricks to bypass the true accountability that is at the heart of our law. Students and taxpayers deserve nothing less.
Comments
Posted by Julie_Baron_Sheffield on September 25, 2008 at 12:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Please try to understand that EBRPSS ALREADY manipulates test scores. They keep the Gifted Program in mostly inner-city schools (which are a mix of regular ed students from the "home" district and gifted students from a broader area, all in one school) to prop up the scores of those schools. This is different than magnet schools which are dedicated (there is no "home district"). Note that the proposal very deliberately addresses only re-routing magnet scores (b/c that has potential to improve other schools scores) and not re-routing gifted scores (b/c that has potential to decrease scores of the schools currently housing gifted programs.)
Posted by kgs on September 25, 2008 at 10:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This letter from CABL is rather interesting. No where do they mention that other school systems in the state are doing exactly the same thing that EBR has proposed. They also fail to fully explain that students who attend Alternative and Remedial School Sites in the EBR school system have their scores route back to their home school. Why can’t they do the same for the higher achieving students who are in magnet programs?
Additionally CABL left out information which points to statements from a State Department of Education staffer that were made in an article printed in the Times-Picayune in September 2007. This staffer was talking about Jefferson Parish routing scores back to home schools from magnet schools.
Scott Norton, director of standards, assessments and accountability for the state Department of Education, said routing scores back to attendance-district schools is not unusual.
"This is one place where the accountability policy provides some local flexibility, which we feel is important," he said. "Some magnet schools route the scores, and some don't. Neither method is considered right or wrong, and whether one or the other gives a false impression would be a matter of opinion."
I wonder why EBR is the only school that is getting beat up by the DOE for doing what other school systems across the state are doing.
Posted by pmccarron on September 26, 2008 at 1:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I want to thank Jerry Arbour for being the only School Board Member to vote against the re-routing.
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