In a new guest column, physician and Alliance for Education co-founder Dr. Phillip Rozeman says the state’s newly-crafted Every Student Succeeds Act plan provides Louisiana the opportunity to have frank discussions about all aspects of school improvement and redefine what it means to be a high achieving school.
“Over the past year, our educators and policymakers have been giving great thought to basic questions,” writes Rozeman. “What is our definition of a great school? What do we want our schools to be to our students, parents and communities? What do we motivate and incent with our accountability formula to reach that vision?”
The process to create the ESSA plan, he says, gave educators and stakeholders the opportunity to discuss all aspects of school improvement—beginning with a fresh look at accountability.
“For years, the benchmark expectation for academic skills in Louisiana was called ‘basic,’ but no college seeks or accepts ‘basic’ performance,” Rozeman writes. “Colleges recruit and accept students who have shown they are proficient in their high school studies. In the future, that will be Louisiana’s expectation.”
The state’s ESSA plan includes the addition of a student growth component to the state’s accountability model, Rozeman says, adding that up until now there has been little focus on individual student achievement.
The proposed change, however, will encourage and incent schools to use more data-driven instruction and encourage the creation of strategies to increase growth in low achievement students while pushing high achievers to meet their potential, he says.
“This will motivate and incent the creation of more great schools in Louisiana. What parents want from our schools is a focus on their individual child—to improve academic achievement and prepare them to capitalize on opportunity in their future,” Rozeman writes. “We all want schools and teachers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of our children—to build on those strengths and help overcome the weaknesses.”
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