False Progress
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The education reform movement in Louisiana requires that improved student performance must be demonstrated by schools each year. In fact the goal is to soon have all students performing at grade level or better (a statistical impossibility sometimes called the Lake Wobegon effect). Another major goal upon which the futures of our education reform leaders depend is that all students should be prepared for college by the time they graduate from high school (another statistical impossibility). Never mind that both of these goals are impractical and impossible, they are politically correct and therefore must appear to happen. Each year that the reform effort progresses in Louisiana we create a more dishonest system.
Operating under the threat of state takeover and the embarrassment of a "D" or "F" being assigned to their schools or school system, local administrators are somehow producing improved results on LEAP and high school end of course tests. Also, faced with a mandate that by 2014 the statewide high school graduation rate
Operating under the threat of state takeover and the embarrassment of a "D" or "F" being assigned to their schools or school system, local administrators are somehow producing improved results on LEAP and high school end of course tests. Also, faced with a mandate that by 2014 the statewide high school graduation rate
