After reading a recent front-page story in The Advocate on alternative schools, Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister wonders whether we are avoiding “the elephant in the room” when it comes to discussing the real challenges of educating Louisiana students.
The article, McCollister explains in his new column, references a state report on three-dozen schools, 139 programs and includes statements from Elizabeth Osteberg, a Harvard-educated principal at NET Charter in New Orleans, who offered the following stats:
- On any given day, three of 10 students are absent and fall behind.
- One in five students is pregnant, a parent or a veteran of the criminal justice system.
- Around 90% are overage and reading at middle-school level (grades 9-12 and ages 15-21). Some work seven years for a diploma.
Ricky Chatman, director of alternative education in the West Feliciana school district, was quoted in the story as saying “every kid can’t learn in the same environment. What we try to do is put them in the right environment.”
Our focus, Chapman added, should be on parents and grandparents, “but with youth today, you have great-grandparents. The great-grandparents can be 45 years of age.”
“That is what he said. That is why this is NOT just an issue of educating these young children. It’s a question of how do you deal with generations of teenage moms,” McCollister writes, noting single mothers in the minority community are 72% and among whites it is 28%. “This is the elephant in the classroom that few want to talk about—but it is a major issue and a source of generational poverty in many families. Few leaders—community leaders, pastors, elected officials, educational leaders—step up and address a growing attitude and culture that says this is acceptable. Meanwhile, our challenges increase.”
McCollister questions whether we’re confronting the root issues or just chipping away at the results of decades of avoiding them. The children are innocent and deserve a chance, he says, but the parents, grandparents—and great-grandparents—need to accept their responsibilities for this situation.
“We as a community need to ask the tough questions and expect leaders to answer them. We all have a role in finding solutions, but we also have responsibilities as parents. And that means not just supporting the status quo,” McCollister writes. “Accepting the status quo and remaining silent is a big part of the problem here, and it must change or public schools will continue to fail while alternative schools increase. And the children will be the casualties. Is that acceptable to anyone?”
Read the full column, in which McCollister also touches on the controversy surrounding Judge Roy Moore. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
