The members of the Louisiana House of Representatives who negotiated new education standards now say that the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education are not agreeing to a spirit of compromise. Color me not shocked that educrats are not acting in good faith. I do appreciate the legislators calling attention to it.
From a news release sent last week:
The group of House members who negotiated the agreement on developing new standards in the 2015 legislative session, (Geymann, Schroder, Pope, Harris, Henry, Havard and Hensgens), have declared that the spirit of the compromise has not been kept by BESE or the Department of Education. While negotiating the agreement, Superintendent John White made the point that the review committee should have access to anything they need to make their decisions. The legislators who have concerns with the existing standards worked in good faith on this agreement with other legislators and stakeholders. The intent was to identify the areas of concern and make appropriate adjustments to improve the standards and remove the controversy while making them Louisiana’s own. This week the BESE members voted 7 – 4 not to give the standards review committee the data necessary to judge the validity and appropriateness of the existing standards.
Without the appropriate data, the review committee cannot perform their job and have no way of judging the validity of the standards. It is now the opinion of these House members that the majority of the current BESE board and department of education are not willing to allow this panel to achieve the intent of the legislative agreement to remove Louisiana from the existing standards and develop the state’s own high standards that have been improved by making adjustments in the areas of concern.
There is no reason to participate with a committee whose outcome has been predetermined by the lack of data and resources from the Department of Education. The House members also call for the four major candidates for governor to bring forth in their legislative package, legislation that will remove our state from the existing standards and create strong and appropriate Louisiana standards.
They then listed some additional concerns about the review process given to them by some of the review panelists. Which you can read below:
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