By MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / April 20, 1999

RESERVE – Students will not be the only ones receiving grades at the end of the 1998-99 school year.

Louisiana’s new School and District Accountability system takes effect this year in an effort to reform education in the state. Susan Blythe of theRegion III Service Center made a presentation of the new system to the St.

John the Baptist Parish School Board at its meeting Thursday night.

“Reaching for Results is an outgrowth of some of the problems we have had in Louisiana public schools,” Blythe said, mentioning the state’s high drop-out rate.

Blythe said the plan has two components – high academic standards and assessments and holding schools accountable for student learning. Underthe first component, students will be taking two new state tests.

Students in grades 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9 will take the Norm-Referenced Test, known as the Iowa Tests. Students in grades 4, 8, 10 and 11 will takeCriterion-Referenced Tests, the LEAP test for the 21st century.

Whereas under the old LEAP test students were graded pass-fail, the new tests have five achievement levels – Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Approaching Basic and Unsatisfactory. She pointed out that in the initialperformance on the CRT, .5 percent of Louisiana students are expected toachieve the advanced level, 9.5 percent proficient, 30 percent basic, 25percent approaching basic and 35 percent are expected to score unsatisfactory. Beginning next spring, fourth- and eighth-grade studentswho score unsatisfactory on the math or English-language arts CRT must be offered a summer school program and be re-tested before being promoted.

The goals under the system are that schools reach a 10-year score at basic and a 20-year score at proficient for the CRT and a 10-year gold at the 55th percentile and a 20-year goal at the 75th percentile for the NRT.

School performance scores will be calculated for each school in Louisiana, beginning this year for grades K-8 and in spring 2001 for grades 9-12.

Scores will range from 9-100 and beyond with schools receiving a score of 100 for reaching the 10-year goal and a score of 150 for reaching the 20-year goal.

The scores will be based on three indicators in grades K-6 and on four in grades 7-12. In K-6, the CRT counts for 60 percent of the score, the NRTfor 30 percent and attendance for 10 percent. In the higher grades, thepercentages for the CRT and NRT remain the same while the other 10 percent in divided equally between attendance and the drop-out rate.

Schools of Academic Excellence are those scoring 150 and above; Schools of Academic Distinction score between 125 and 149.9. Schools scoring100-124.9 are named Academic Achievement schools. Schools scoringbetween 30.1 and 99.1 have not been named yet while AcademicallyUnaccepted Schools are those scoring below 30.

Schools will be giving growth targets representing the amount of progress a school must make to reach the 10- and 20-year goals. Schools notmeeting their growth targets or Academically Unacceptable schools will have to undergo corrective actions.

“They are intended to help schools improve and to provide additional support and assistance,” Blythe emphasized.

Assistance to schools included district assistance teams (DATs) and the use of distinguished educators. In level one, schools work with the DATsto identify needs and develop improvement plans. Distinguished educatorsare assigned to schools who must go through the second level of corrective actions. Parents can also transfer their students to anotherschool at this point but not to another Academically Unaccepted school.

School districts having to take level three corrective action must submit a reconstitution plan to the BESE by the spring of that year indicating how it will remedy the problem. Schools must demonstrate a growth equaling40 percent of their growth target by the end of the first year or be reconstituted. In the reconstitution plan has not been approved by BESEprior to the beginning of the next year, the school loses state approval and funding.

School board member John Crose asked what happens to students who attend those schools. Blythe said hopefully the plan will be accepted but ifnot, the state may come in and run the school.

Superintendent Cleveland Farlough said school districts must be ready to take this plan seriously because the state already is.

“It is very ambitious undertaking by the state,” Farlough said. “It’s notjust the governor asking for it, but it’s also being pushed very hard by the Legislature because they are getting complaints from the people in their districts. It is not going to go away. Schools are going to have to be veryinnovative in the way they do things.”

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