Education Panel Discusses Reform
About 100 people packed a conference room at a local newspaper office last night to participate in a panel on education policy. The panel consisted of local educators, administrators and politicians. And the focus was on recent state education reform.
The non-profit group, Louisiana Progress, and the Monroe News Star assembled seven area education experts to get public input on education policy.
Charter Schools Up for Discussion
Much of the discussion centered on recent changes to state education laws, specifically the legislated increase in the availability of charter schools.
Vice President of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, Sandie Lollie, was in the audience. She asked panelist Ronnie Shelby, who is part of a group that is working to change Neville High into a charter school, why his organization is going ahead with charter plans when the school is already successful. Shelby replied that his association wants to “maintain what [they’ve] got,” and that the charter group hopes to attain even higher academic standards for the school.
A Charter School Recruitment Plan?
Representative Katrina Jackson also sat on the panel. She sees the increase in availability of charters as a means for charter operators to grab the best student from struggling schools.
“The charter schools are able to cherry pick now. We’re going to have a lot of consent decree issues, or issues regarding the deseg plan. They will cherry pick from the D and F schools. And they will take students that are considered by state law underperforming, low poverty schools.”
And her prediction for the failing schools should their best students depart?
“They will close and be privatized.”
Union Parish superintendent George Cannon was also on the panel. He says education reform needs to happen, but it’s happening too fast. Cannon says it’s too soon to tell whether the new education laws ultimately will be successful, but he offered an opinion of Katrina Jackson’s assessment of ramifications of the new charter laws.
“She’s really right when she talks about cherry picking. The one thing that the schools have is an opportunity to pick and select the students that go there. My concern is then what happens to the 20 or 30 percent of your population and communities that will be underserved?”
The Louisiana Progress’ education forum will continue throughout the summer. Panels are planned for Baton Rouge and Lake Charles in August.
Air Date:
Thu, 07/12/2012