According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, 38% of the high school seniors in Louisiana fail to graduate with a regular high school diploma. According to the same group, only 51% of African Americans in Louisiana graduate. That’s a low number, a number that the state is not, and should not, be proud of. So what is the state legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s solution to this problem? Lowering the graduation standards for students who feel they can’t graduate with the normal standards if they get their parent’s consent and placing them on a career track designed to get them into the state’s community colleges and technical schools, but not 4-year colleges.

According to Gov. Jindal those students will be trained for blue collar jobs instead as an effort to retain them in school, and build Louisiana’s economy at the same time. I don’t disagree with that. The state’s legislature agreed with him passing a law, through broad bi-partisan support, that will enable students who cannot pass the basic requirements for English and Math at the end of their 8th grade year, to bypass those requirements and go to high school on a “career track” that includes overall lower standards. While I, personally, am not a fan of using standardized tests to determine the quality of education from grade to grade year to year, I also disagree with allowing some students to skip the test while requiring others to participate. Exempting certain students who may struggle through the test and then placing them in a special program that results in what is essentially a “lesser” degree is not the answer.

Blue collar jobs are essential in America, but those who work them are no less capable of graduating from high school than others if they have the proper support. There are plenty who disagree with me and feel there are some students out there who are simply incapable of graduating from high school without having the standards lowered for them, but I refuse to believe that it is impossible. There are a lot of students out there who won’t go to college because that’s their choice, but they shouldn’t be making that decision at the age of 15. Most students probably don’t even start considering which colleges they want to go to or if they want to go until their Junior year of high school. Personally, I didn’t narrow my choice down until I was in my Senior year.

To be fair, the actual bill does seem to replace the classes they wouldn't be taking with "comparable" classes in the community colleges and technical schools where the kids will be going instead. It really largely depends on what those schools consider "comparable" to English that can be tied to the career. Somehow I don't think the classes will be all that comparable. Here are the requirements:

(2) The course requirements for the career major shall consist of the following:

(a) At least four English credits in courses with content equal to that of college preparatory English, including English I, English II, and two additional courses comparable or identical to English courses offered by the Louisiana Technical College, as approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

(b) At least three four mathematics credits, not fewer than two courses of which have content equal to that of college preparatory mathematics including Algebra I, Algebra I PartOne and Algebra I Part Two, or an applied or hybrid Algebra course, and additional applied or hybrid mathematics courses comparable or identical to courses offered by the Louisiana Technical College as needed to fulfill the mathematics course requirements as approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

(c) At least three science credits, not fewer than two courses of which have content equal to that of college preparatory science including one unit of Biology and two additional courses selected from a list of science courses related to the student's chosen career major as approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

(d) At least three social studies credits, not fewer than two courses of which shall have content equal to that of college preparatory social studies including one unit of American History and one additional course selected from a list of social studies courses approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Each student shall successfully complete a course in free enterprise Free Enterprise, as provided in R.S. 17:274, and civics Civics, as provided in R.S.
17:274.1.

(e) At least two credits in health Health and physical education Physical Education.

(f) At least six or more seven credits consisting of four credits in an area of concentration and two related credits, including one credit in a computer technology course in career and technical education courses with end-of-course testing as appropriate and approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, including at least one-half credit in a career readiness course and one credit in a computer applications course. Courses shall be selected to prepare a student for postsecondary education or a career.

(g) Additional electives or career and technical education courses required by the city, parish, or other local public school board as approved by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The words or phrases with the strikethrough are things that were in the old law that they took out of the new law, what follows the strikethrough is what was added in its place. The question is, how close to the actual classes in the high school will the "comparable" schools be.

Also, in the interest of being fair, the student and the parents will have to go through some counseling before making the decision.

Vocational programs at schools are a good thing, students should have the ability to prepare for a career straight out of high school if that is what they are going to do. But vocational programs can be successful without lowering the standard requirements. Simply because someone is going to work a blue collar job instead of a white collar job does not mean they shouldn’t be able to pass the basic requirements necessary to get a high school diploma.

During the 2008 general election campaign President Obama was the only candidate that was talking about education. When he talked about education he laid out specific goals for what is necessary to help a child be successful and graduate. About a week ago President Obama had
this to say:

“We will use the best evidence available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform -- and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant. Not every state will win and not every school district will be happy with the results. But America's children, America's economy, and America itself will be better for it.
And one of the benchmarks we will use is whether states are designing and enforcing higher and clearer standards and assessments that prepare a student to graduate from college and succeed in life. Right now, some states like Massachusetts are setting high standards, but many others are not. Many others are low-balling expectations for students -- telling our kids they're prepared to move on to the next grade even if they aren't; awarding diplomas even if a graduate doesn't have the knowledge and skills to thrive in our economy.
That's a recipe for economic decline, and it has to stop.

I agree Mr. President.

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Cross-posted at Daily Kos

So I'm sitting here watching CNN's reclaiming the dream, and they are talking about education. I'm sure most of you know that education was my #1 issue during the campaign, and I still think it's one of the biggest things that needs to be fixed in this country, it's right up there with health care for me. So as I'm watching they have Steve Perry on to talk about the wonderful things he's doing in his magnet school, and then they mention Bobby Jindal supporting LOWERING standards so kids in Louisiana can "graduate" and get blue collar jobs. I think I blanked out for the rest of the segment. I decided to google and see if I could find something about this because maybe I'd heard it wrong.

Unfortunately, I heard right

Under the new law, students 15 and older could leave the standard curriculum and instead take a "career track" if they have parental approval. They would face easier requirements for graduation and a curriculum less geared toward college preparation. It would also allow eighth graders to advance to ninth grade without passing the state's high-stakes standardized test.

Graduates would get a "career option" diploma, different from the state's standard diploma, designed to get them into a two-year technical school or community college but not four-year schools.

REALLY, Louisiana? Really? The solution to low graduation rates is NOT to lower the standards, that's essentially giving up on the students. That's telling them, we know you aren't good enough to go to college, and your parents know you aren't good enough to go to college (because the parents would have to approve it), so why not take this non-diploma and go get a blue collar job.

Now I don't think there is anything wrong with blue collar jobs. But I don't think kids should be basically FORCED into them. What if the child really wanted to go to college but just needed more academic help?

In my high school, we had kids who could go to career centers which was essentially a "career track" but their graduation requirements weren't relaxed, they still had the same requirements the rest of us had. I am so highly offended by this entire notion.

This is also the exact opposite of how President Obama addresses the issue of education. We don't need to make it EASIER and LOWER the standards to "raise" the graduation rate, we need to push those kids HARDER and give them more SUPPORT. The standards for graduation aren't really all that high all you have to do to graduate from high school is show up and do the work. If you need help, get tutoring there are lots of different ways to get it (at least I know there are in Ohio).

Bobby Jindal DISGUSTS me.

I'm going to update in a few with more of what Steve Perry said, I like his ideas. . .

[Clairification] I'm not talking about kids who have actual special educational needs, I'm talking about the kids who aren't graduating simply because they don't want to and/or they aren't getting the support they need. I understand that there are some kids out there who have real educational special needs, and I think it's right for school districts and states to try to help them along, but for these kids who just lack the will to graduate, lower standards is the LAST thing they need simply so a state can beef up its graduation rate.

[UPDATE] Here's a comment from Larin I think may help clear up exactly what it is I'm taking issue with:

The problem with the lower standards is even in blue collar jobs, you need to read and do math. You need to be able to operate expensive and computerized systems. In the chemical plants in Louisiana they are hiring college grads and very few vocational/tech people.

Louisiana's public school system is suffering cuts and cannot get certified teachers fast enough into the classroom. People move to new school districts so their children can get a good education and even in these districts, students do no qualify for TOPS or make it pass the first year of college, maintaining the 2.7 they need to keep TOPS. And those students, who go the vocational tech route will not get TOPS--close to 20,000 dollars given to you to go to state universities here in Louisiana. That's 5,000 a year. Yep that's right, my son will graduate with NO student debt, because of TOPS. His fall semester fees will be about 800 dollars.

That's because we insisted and assisted him so he did get the course work he needed to make it in high school and college.

The LEAP test is administered in middle school and you must score basic to move on. LEAP study and makeups are administered during the summer. In high school, they take exams in their second and third year and if they don't succeed, they have summer sessions and retesting even into the senior year.

It's been awhile since I have been in the classroom, but as a retired teacher and with family recently retired from the state department of education, this new standard is no standard at all.

Don't get me wrong, I think a vocational program would be good and it would help with retention, but I disagree with the notion that standards need to be lowered for students who choose to go the vocational route.

Thank you all for the great discussion!

[UPDATE]: I removed the statement that came off as condescending. Any of you who have been reading me before today know that I'm just not that type of "I'm better than you" person. But as it clearly offended so many people who knew my intent was not malicious, I'll gladly remove it. I apologize to all who were offended, I suppose I didn't realize it was that offensive as someone who will have to deal with lawyer jokes (that are really not representative of the average lawyer) for the rest of her life.

[UPDATE] okay 2 things: when did DKos start automatically putting the date and time of the updates? I like that I was always to lazy to do it myself. LOL.

Second, I've really appreciated all of the discussions going on in this diary. While I may disagree with a lot of you (and I tried to respond to all those I disagreed with), I respect your opinion. I'm glad to see so many of us here are passionate about education, maybe we can get Congress to do something to fix NCLB after they finish health care. We all bring different perspectives to the issue of education depending on where we are from and how much education we have. Maybe I put more emphasis on the standards because I do have a higher education and I think education is so important, especially as a young Black woman. I'm the first person on my dad's side of the family to go to college and graduate, my younger brother followed me (literally, he came to the same out-of-state school I went to ~lol~). Neither of my parents finished undergrad, but they always told us we had two options when we graduated from high school (not graduating wasn't an option), we were either going to college, or joining the military. So that's the background I grew up with, college wasn't a maybe it was a definite.

I just want to clear up two things before I sign off for the night:

First, I don't think there is anything wrong per se with having a career track. In fact, I believe I've written that I think tying education to real life is the best way to retain students in some of my past education diaries. I simply don't think students need to have any standards lowered even if they do choose to do the career track. The idea of having some vocational education is a good one. I notice most of the comments talking about the vocation programs at their various schools did not involve the kids being unable to meet the state's standards for graduation, and from what the commenters say those programs have been very successful.

Second, the fact that I don't think standards need to be lowered does NOT mean I think every high school student must do a college prep program or something akin to a college prep program. Not every child is destined for college, I get that. That doesn't meant hat every child shouldn't be able to get a high school diploma without the standards being watered down. I DO happen to think that every child could get a high school diploma if they had enough support. If you disagree, that's your right we clearly aren't going to change each other's minds tonight (if ever).

I just wanted to say that before I signed off for the night. I'll try to respond to more comments tomorrow, but I make no promises.

Oh, and here's an interesting op-ed lizard people found that I agree with:

The so-called "career diploma," available for students who fail part of the eighth-grade LEAP, is inherently shameful because it encourages adults to give up on their young students and those students to give up on themselves. It implies that they won't ever be able to learn as much as others, so why go through the pretense of trying to teach them?

The bill is even more shameful because it was signed into law by a governor who got his full quart's worth of education. If you had to make any assumption about a Rhodes Scholar like Jindal, you'd probably guess that such a scholar would place an incredibly high value on education and encourage children to maximize their potential. You wouldn't assume that such a brainiac would dissuade poor students from higher aspirations.

"This looks like social promotion," Orleans Parish School Board Vice President Lourdes Moran said of the career diploma Tuesday. "We're doing a disservice to our children." The Orleans Parish School Board is asking the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to give it a waiver so that the local board isn't forced to create a demeaning career diploma track for its students.

Click for full article

Again, thank you all for the stimulating conversations :o)

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

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President Obama gave a great speech at the NAACP last night, but before that speech he gave an interview to Black Media where he said the following (h/t JJP):

For example, the most important issue for the African-American community, according to the President, is education. "If we close the achievement gap, then a big chunk of economic inequality in this society is diminished," he said, arguing that getting our kids up to speed involves better teachers, greater accountability, and a combination of more resources and education reform.

I agree that education is the biggest problem facing our community, it largely seems like people coming up behind me are almost proud to revel in their ignorance. I remember seeing somewhere where a young Black male couldn't READ, and he was PROUD of that. Unfortunately the "mainstream" of Black culture seems to elevate going to prison, being a thug, and disrespecting women. I do think that all Black folks need to take advantage of all of the FREE education they can, especially considering the fact that there was a time where teaching Blacks how to read and write was a crime.

With that being said, there was something very important missing from that paragraph, COST. I graduated from high school, went straight to college and had lots of scholarships (I managed to end up with only about $8,000 in loans after 4 years at an out of state school), then I took a year off and went to law school (just graduated in May, getting ready to take the Bar in a couple of weeks) and my student loan debt is now astronomical, I did have a scholarship, but it barely covered the cost of books each year, not to mention the rising cost of tuition. When I first got to the school, it was about $900 a credit hour, by the time I graduated it had risen each year to the point where it was $1060 per credit hour. I didn't work (except for the summers), so I also had to take out loans to pay for the cost of living (about $10,000 a year). Luckily I managed to avoid private loans. With that said, my student loan payments are going to end up being approximately a house payment per month. I don't want to work for a big firm, I want to work for a gov't agency or maybe a non-profit organization.

Economically, going to school isn't really helping me right now. I'm sure it will end up paying off in the long term, but I think a lot of the younger Blacks look at people like me who did do the whole school thing, and will be in mountains of debt for YEARS (unless I write a couple of best-selling books or win the lottery), and then they look at their friend "Ray Ray" who dropped out of high school and is doing some illegal activity and living in a big house in a nice neighborhood with a gas guzzling SUV with platinum rims and they wonder why should they bother going to school.

So it's not enough to simply get Black kids though high school and send them off to a community or 4 year college, we need to get the COST of education down. Lawyers and Doctors default the most on their student loans. I wasn't surprised when I first heard that. Yet we need more lawyers and doctors to go into public service. The government loan forgiveness program is nice, but we still have to pay those astronomical loan payments for 10 years before that will kick in (and I'm not sure if whatever is paid off is taxable or not, but it probably is). The Income Based Repayment program also isn't perfect, it's nice that it gets payments down for maybe 25 years, but I know for sure whatever isn't paid off there is taxable, and your loan payments will fluctuate every year which may make it more difficult to budget.

I think fixing the cost of education is right up there with health care as far as draining people. My parents didn't take out any loans for me, all of my loans are in MY name and they are MY responsibility, and the last thing I want to do is default.

Sorry for the long rant, but I hope my point got through. Again, I'm thrilled that he actually TALKS about education that was my #1 issue during the campaign, and the biggest reason why I was supporting his candidacy.

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