Louisiana's failure to meet the Educational Excellence for All Children Act goals

Louisiana Education

Educational Excellence Review goals put Educational Excellence All Children Act (1999). Goal 1: Ready learn year 2000, children America start school ready learn. Goal 2: School Completion year 2000, high school graduation rate increase 90%.

Educational Excellence for All Children Act (1999):

How does Louisiana measure up?

When President Clinton reauthorized the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 in the form of the Educational Excellence for All Children Act (1999), he intended to reinforce such concepts as 'high academic standards, top-quality teachers in smaller classes, safe schools" and emphasize the need for a greater degree of accountability of schools and teachers (Kickbush & Winters 1999). The Act set six major goals for all schools. Sadly, the state of Louisiana has received a failing grade from a number of independent, objective review boards in relation to its ability to meet these six goals. The National Center for Education Statistics has consistently ranked Louisiana as the second-worst state in terms of its quality of public education (Todd 2012). For most of its history, "pending for schools and teacher salaries in Louisiana was ranked lower than nearly all of the 50 states" and "salaries still rank 48th in a national comparison," reflecting the discrepancy between goals for students and the actual ability and desire of the state to compensate teachers able to foster a healthy learning environment (Progress of education in Louisiana, 2007, SEDL: 1; 3).

Goal 2: 90% high school graduation rate

Louisiana has also failed to meet the Educational Excellence for All Children Act goal of a 90% graduation rate for high school students. The 2012 graduation rate, according to the Louisiana Department of Education was only 67% (Todd 2012). As a point of contrast, the national graduation rate is 72% (Koebler 2011). One high school located near the high-performing elementary school Ernest Gallet, the O. Comeaux High School of the Lafayette Parish, has only 72% of students performing at grade level and was awarded a C -- in terms of its efficacy (O. Comeaux High School, 2011, Louisiana Schools Report Cards).

Goals 3 & 4: Student achievement and citizenship: Making U.S. students the first in the world in science and mathematics

Louisiana's science education standards have been subject to particularly harsh criticism. "A separate academic index by the American Institute of Physics ranked Louisiana 48 out of 50 in science education, and 47 out of 50 in mathematics (Todd 2012). One of the reasons for this lies in the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act which allows teachers to teach creationism with evolution "even though the religious theories have no grounding in science and evolution is one of the key tenets of modern biology and life science" (Todd 2012). This directly contradicts the Educational Excellence for All Children Act goal of making the United States a leader in science and math education. However, all students in the U.S. have been shown to be lacking in terms of science and math performance. "Fifteen-year-olds in the U.S. ranked 25th among peers from 34 countries on a math test and scored in the middle in science and reading, while China's Shanghai topped the charts, raising concern that the U.S. isn't prepared to succeed in the global economy"(Hechinger 2010).

Louisiana students also rank low in terms of their overall performance on national standardized tests. To remedy this, Louisiana switched to the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), a norm-referenced test to replace the less-difficult California Achievement Test, which it used before. Students in Louisiana traditionally have a high passing rate on the state test but a low passing rate on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (Progress of education in Louisiana, 2007, SEDL: 3). New testing standards are designed to facilitate greater accuracy of measuring school performance.

Goal 5: Adult literacy and lifelong learning

A recent study found that "twenty-four to 26% of the adults in Louisiana demonstrated skills in the lowest level of prose, document, and quantitative proficiencies" (Jenkins & Kirch 2012). To place this in a national context, "the average literacy proficiencies of adults in Louisiana (257 to 263 across the scales) were comparable to those of adults living in the South. The average prose and document scores of adults in the state, however, were lower than those of adults nationwide. In all three populations -- the state, region, and nation -- average scores were in the Level 2 range" (Jenkins & Kirch 2012).

Goal 6: Safe, disciplined, and alcohol- and drug-free schools

Unfortunately, the goal of creating drug-free schools has not been realized in Louisiana or nationally. "Approximately 37,000 (9.4%) adolescents in Louisiana used an illicit drug in the past month; 23,000 (5.8%) used marijuana, and 10,000 (5.9%) used an illicit drug other than marijuana... 19.3% (76,000) of adolescents used alcohol in the past month, and 12.0% (47,000) engaged in binge drinking" (Drug and alcohol abuse amongst teens in Louisiana, 2012, Inspirations Youth). However, in terms of this statistic, Louisiana is well within the national range. In the U.S. As a whole, "22.6% of 12th graders used marijuana in the past month, up from 5.7%, 14.2%, and 18.8% in 2007... In 2011, 21.6% of high-school seniors reported binge drinking (defined as 5 or more drinks in a row in the past 2 weeks)" (High school and youth trends, 2012, Drug Facts).