Me and Anti-Reform (Part III of. . .)
Posted on August 1, 2013
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So where did I leave off? My story is a little disjointed so I guess I will continue with that technique to further flesh out how I developed my points of view on various education issues. I was chatting with a reporter recently trying to put some pieces together to explain to her how I got to where I am today. Perhaps you would like to hear some of that?
Prior to John White’s arrival I applied for and was interviewed for a few higher profile level jobs. One of those was the head of Louisiana’s Department of Education Accountability department. I’d heard a number of stories about some political manipulation and fraudulent data reporting and I wanted to see if I could do something about that. I was friends with the previous head of the department and we’d discussed at some lengths some of the problems in his area. It was a high stress thankless sounding job for a couple thousand dollars a year more, that would probably doom anyone who took it to a life of jaded failure, but I was (perhaps foolishly) willing to give it a go. I’d worked with many of the folks in the accountability department on data audits, had my brain picked for the dropouts and graduate cohort calculations, and worked with their testing data and School Performance Score data for numerous federal reports and internal projects. While I did not land that job, (I think my lack of a PHD played a role there although I think it should have), nevertheless I stayed in touch with this area and their problems.
One of these problems was the existence of Shadow Schools. EBR and Superintendent Bernard
