POSITION
STATEMENTS
- I oppose Common Core and all its elements including: The developmentally inappropriate standards, humanistic exemplars, high stakes testing, and so-called aligned curriculum.
- I believe in a local controlled school district accountable to local people, and I oppose Federal Government intrusion, and the State’s total control of education.
- I support the Bible being available to be taught in Louisiana as it is now under current state law.
- I do not support the expansion of Type II Charter Schools under private management.
- I support the creation of Type III Charter Schools when only necessary to protect the local community, and with support from local school boards.
- I support creating an extensive oversight group of experienced professional educators, and administrators to provide oversight to Type II Charter Schools to insure they are in compliance with the law and BESE guidelines.
- I do not support the current voucher system where children leave a failing public school to attend a failing private school.
- I strongly support Vocational Education and particularly Vocational Agriculture and FFA.
- I support the expansion of fully equipped area Vocational Educational Schools
- I support an audit of the Louisiana Department of Education and BESE.
- I do not support the current ‘Test and Punish” system of evaluating teachers.
- I support a re-organization of LADOE to include a viable Special Education Department in addition to replacing inexperienced supervisors who are TFA certified with more highly qualified administrators.
- I support an aggressive teacher training program at all levels.
Platform
It is
easy to identify many of the current problems within education, but solutions
may be more difficult.
1. Our children have difficulty reading at acceptable levels. School Districts around the country have been aware of this for many years, and administrators and teachers everywhere have been attempting to remedy this situation without much progress as evidenced on many tests.
1. Our children have difficulty reading at acceptable levels. School Districts around the country have been aware of this for many years, and administrators and teachers everywhere have been attempting to remedy this situation without much progress as evidenced on many tests.
Solution:
I
propose we develop a statewide Reading Platform based on Phonics at all grade
levels. We can not afford to wait for the Common Core experiment to come to
fruition over the next ten years. By Statewide platform, I mean we should provide BOOKS, magazines, and teacher trainings (not webinars), and utilize current
programs that have proven to work like Spalding, Project Read, Phonics 101, for
lower grades. We must fund RTI’s at the state level and provide them to school
districts. We should implement Dr. Debra Hollimon’s program now being used by the Prep
School at the US Air Force Academy. There she has implemented a stellar program
where she has been able to get students reading at 150 words per minute and 70%
comprehension rate to an astounding 400 words per minute and 90% comprehension
rate. She is the recent recipient of this year’s “International Award for
Reading Solutions." I can only imagine what ACT scores would look like if we
could get our high school students to increase just half of what is being
accomplished by Dr. Hollimon. The BEST thing is her permanent residence is in
Louisiana. The answer to many of our educational problems is READING!
2. According to research done by LSU, approximately 90% of all high school students entering the 9th grade will never finish a University, Community College of Technical School degree. So, what is the answer? Jump Start is a program designed to provide training at the high school level so a student can continue on to a Community or Technical School, according to John White, Superintendent, LADOE, and stated in the Louisiana Believes Creed. Jump Start is a great idea, but its implementation is a wreck. It was created by curriculum developers, many of whom who have never been in a school shop. While polling over 300 vocational agriculture teachers, who will be the major teaching instructors, not one were ever asked about how to implement the program. In BESE District 5, Jump Start Pathways vary from 1 to 9. The average is 3. We now provide only two paths to a high school education: College Prep and one of 30 Jump Start pathways. Asking an 8th grade student to choose a career at the age of 13-14 when there is such a limitation to choose from is unthinkable to me. In addition, we are destroying our VoAg programs which have been some of the best in the nation. Again, Jump Start is a great idea, but in its current state it is underfunded, lacks required resources (equipment, certified instructors, and money), and its implementation and sustainability are unworkable.
2. According to research done by LSU, approximately 90% of all high school students entering the 9th grade will never finish a University, Community College of Technical School degree. So, what is the answer? Jump Start is a program designed to provide training at the high school level so a student can continue on to a Community or Technical School, according to John White, Superintendent, LADOE, and stated in the Louisiana Believes Creed. Jump Start is a great idea, but its implementation is a wreck. It was created by curriculum developers, many of whom who have never been in a school shop. While polling over 300 vocational agriculture teachers, who will be the major teaching instructors, not one were ever asked about how to implement the program. In BESE District 5, Jump Start Pathways vary from 1 to 9. The average is 3. We now provide only two paths to a high school education: College Prep and one of 30 Jump Start pathways. Asking an 8th grade student to choose a career at the age of 13-14 when there is such a limitation to choose from is unthinkable to me. In addition, we are destroying our VoAg programs which have been some of the best in the nation. Again, Jump Start is a great idea, but in its current state it is underfunded, lacks required resources (equipment, certified instructors, and money), and its implementation and sustainability are unworkable.
Solution:
I
propose we continue to expand Jump Start opportunities through a combined
effort utilizing funds from Hg monies, private sponsorships, and legislative
action. If this program is to succeed, the state must be committed to funding
it via a cooperative effort and not the local school districts alone. The
minimum of $25,000 from Perkins will not sustain the districts. We MUST involve the instructors and local
administrators in the decision making about how the program is going to be
implemented in the future. An edict by the LADOE to conduct this program
without input from those who will be charged to implement it is not a workable
solution.
In
addition, I propose we look at developing more area technical high schools
rather than more charter schools.
3.
Special
Education in Louisiana has become the step-child of our Louisiana education
platform. All teachers and administrators are spending far too much time data
collecting, documenting, and reporting to the LADOE, and this is accentuated among
Special Education Teachers. Most of the time Special Children contained in a
classroom have many and varied exceptionalities, and there is no one size fits
all category. The same is true for normal classrooms. Special Ed students and
parents struggle each day just to get dressed and get to and from school. While
their cross is difficult to bare, they continue keeping
on. Their will to be like others and to succeed is absolutely amazing. It
appalls me to see children struggle so hard to attain unreasonable standards
using Common Core as a measuring stick with other normal children, and then to
test them as if they are capable of achievement comparable to the normal
student population. Currently, the LADOE uses the $17,000 million federal dollars
earmarked for Special Education Teacher Training to provide supplemental
salaries to supervisors through the entire department. When someone works on
special education within LADOE, they fill out a form saying how much time they
worked on Special Education and that portion of time is charged to the SPED.
According to recent surveys, the average Special Education Teacher will last
less than five years in the classroom. There is no substitute for experience.
Solution:
We must re-construct a viable SPED which listens to the concerns of
teachers, administrators, and parents. The SPED should be one which will act on
the concerns and strive to provide a positive environment for educating our
Special Children through a vibrant teacher training program. The pressure
cooker for all teachers is way too hot, and it is exceedingly hot for Special
Education Teachers. If we continue down the road of “test and punish” we will
find we will have no qualified teachers to monitor. We must re-commit to Special Education Training
in Louisiana. All children can learn if placed in an appropriate environment
where learning is taking place. We must find resources to teach our Special
Children. My wife and I also know the battle a family has to engage in to
insure a Special Child receives the BEST possible education. Let’s call it VERY
DIFFICULT.
4.
The
current teacher evaluation system has driven teachers to teach to the test and
away from teaching skills, while children are allowed to go forward without
mastering the basic skills necessary for future learning. Teachers continue to
be held responsible for the societal woes of poverty. This is an injustice to
our teachers, and it has become so demoralizing many teachers are leaving the
profession and fewer are entering it.
Solution: The first thing we need to
do is to conduct a Teacher Satisfaction Survey so we can identify the real
problems facing our teachers. Teachers need an avenue to express their
concerns, ideas, what is right with the system and what is wrong, and what they
need to improve. This survey should be developed by a group of statewide
teachers and administrators and conducted at the local level. There should be
no names attached, just surveyed as to their opinions. Once this is completed,
then the BESE can create a platform for Teacher Engagement that fits. High
stakes testing has no place in evaluating teachers. I prefer to use the KRA
(key result areas) system whereby the principal and the teacher sit down and
together devise a set of goals and strategies for the particular class they
will teach. A teacher must know where his class is in terms of educational accumulated
learning, she must have pre-determined goals of what she believes she can get
this class to achieve, she must have a plan of work aligned with her goals to
know how she is going to achieve them, and finally an evaluation of her
accomplishments. This must be done at the local level. No two classes are the
same within a school, nor district, or state. The demographics, socio-economic
levels, current educational achievement, and maturity levels are different. There
is a long list of other differentiations that can be identified. I propose an evaluation program that allows teachers to teach, and supervisors to coach. We need more coaches and less
evaluators and data collectors. We must create a positive environment of
collaboration, engagement, and remove the negative environment of learning we
have placed ourselves in. We need to create recognition programs for teachers
where other teachers recognized the accomplishments of others. We need to
listen more and administrate less.
5. Educational
Standards have been brought to the forefront by the introduction of Common Core
standards, although many considered the GLE Standards to be some of the most
rigorous standards in the country.
Solution:
I
believe state standards should be set as ultimate long-term goals, not an
instant fix. Schools should be able to assess their individual situations, then
set goals, strategies, and tactics should be identified. The goals should be
monitored by administrators, supervisors and teachers along the way and be
modified during the school year to meet possible environmental changes. Over
time as short-term goals are met there should be progression toward the state
standards. Over estimating a school district’s ability to acquire
administrative competency, district resources, quality of teachers, and
student’s abilities to meet unrealistic goals or standards is a recipe for
disaster for leaving the poorest children behind. We must allow teachers,
parents, and students the opportunity to set goals which are specific, realistic,
obtainable, and ones whereby the student realizes he has been successful.
Definition of success: “The realization of visualized, pre-determined goals”,
Paul J. Meyer. This concept of success pertains to schools and districts.
Trying to accomplish goals/standards set by entities not familiar with the
demographics, resources, intellectual capital, and socio-economic barriers are
ones destined for failure. Administrators, supervisors, teachers, students, and
parents must be able to visualize reaching the goal, know when they get there
and celebrate success.