Louisiana Teacher Who “Sees Benefits of Common Core” in Op/ed Is a Paid Endorser
On March 4, 2015, nola.com carried an op/ed entitled, Teacher Sees Benefits of Common Core Playing Out in Classroom.
The column was written by St. Bernard Parish fifth-grade teacher, Angelle Lailhengue.
Here’s an excerpt:
As phase 1 of the PARCC assessment nears, my teachers are doing more and more “test prep.” And I couldn’t be more proud of what I see in their classrooms. Students are reading grade-level texts independently. Students are having discussions about complex texts. Students are writing about texts. “Test-prep,” as we prepare to take the PARCC assessment, means deeper thinking and learning, analyzing and understanding text, problem solving and complex thinking. Teachers aren’t stopping instruction to start “test prep,” and students are still learning as the assessments near. The skills that students are practicing are the skills that they need to succeed after high school.
The article included the following brief bio:
Angelle Lailhengue is an instructional coach at Lacoste Elementary School in Chalmette.
What readers are not made aware of is that “instructional coach” is a euphemism for “teacher leader”– an individual paid to promote Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE)-endorsed policies– such as the Common Core and its assessments.
Lailhengue is under contract with LDOE and is being paid $5,930 in “100% federal fund” from October 15, 2013, through June 30, 2015, for work including “serving as a Common Core expert & assist[ing] in building a growing network of teacher leaders throughout the state.”
Lailhengue tweeted the following four days after being under contract to promote Common Core:
One more bit of info:
Lailhengue was a presenter at the June 2014 Teacher Leaders Summit in New Orleans:
ELA Unit Plan Preparation, Grades 3-5 (Sessions A & B) (P4) 3 Rotations (4.5 Louisiana Teacher Who “Sees Benefits of Common Core” in Op/ed Is a Paid Endorser | deutsch29: