Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely. This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).
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22.2.17
Solomon White pleasing everybody, nobody
Perhaps Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education
John White should change his first name to “Solomon,” such as it seems he has
tried to thread a needle in recent policy decisions.
During his tenure as the executive responsible for
carrying out the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s mandates, White
has shown marked preference for expansion of school choice as a means to
improve delivery quality, and also backing ever-escalating accountability
standards. Typically, this has pitted interests who focus on increasing achievement
as a means of spurring economic development and improving life prospects
against those invested in a one-size-fits-all model that advocates for
increased inputs into the system that disproportionately flow to state-run
providers and their allies.
Typically, the former group has supported his
efforts while the latter has opposed White. Yet a few recent decisions by him have
scrambled alliances, sometimes putting those who see progress as inducing greater
efficiency out of schools in the same camp as those who view as best a state system
monopolizing education flush with cash, for and against him.
Part of White’s job involves fleshing out administrative
rules from BESE directives, and he issued
such standards recently involving the Child
Care Assistance Program. This program subsidizes child care for children age
4 or younger for lower-income households, provided the breadwinner works or
attends educational programs. In 2008, it
served around 39,000 at a state budgeted cost of over $26 million matched with federal
money of more than $152 million. When White took over by 2012, the
state contributed no money with the federal government footing the entire bill
of about $104 million, aiding almost 22,000 children. This fiscal
year, the state budgeted nearly $10 million with the federal contribution
dropping to under $28 million, with only some 11,000 children now enrolled.
The main culprit for reduction in service came from
raised eligibility requirements that had the effect of reducing demand and
therefore the need to use state dollars. Both the hours of work/study to
qualify and income levels became some of the highest among the states.
Concerned about this, BESE asked DOE to look at these and White responded by
lowering the hours standards.
But he did not increase the maximum income levels
to qualify, and the pool of money remains the same. Thus, low-middle-income
households could not qualify although eligibility expanded for those of lower
incomes. Still, with no additional resources – with the state continuing to
endure tight budgetary times any significant increase for next fiscal year that
would leverage more federal money seems unlikely – it does not mean more lower-income
households accommodated, just a more diverse mix of them included.
Nonetheless, the move pleased advocates on both
sides. Those wanting more funding saw this as way to demonstrate greater need
for future increases, while those desiring a better-educated population to
improve workforce quality hailed greater facilitation of the goal for more
people.
In contrast, another
decision White made seemed to please nobody. In revising school accountability
standards, he recommended that BESE make academic progress of students count
for 25 percent of a school’s score, up from 7 percent. This came at the expense
of absolute testing levels, promoting many of his usual allies to complain that
this level set too high deemphasized the
actual quality; that is, schools who achieved at a demonstrably lower level but
whose students improved relatively more would score at the same level as
higher-achieving schools whose students showed little progress, perhaps because
they already achieved at a higher level meaning they had less room for
improvement.
However, White couldn’t win with his usual
opponents, either. They called the 25 percent mark too low, penalizing schools
that had disproportionately low achieving student bodies forced on them because
of residential patterns.
Additionally, White caught flak from some typical
allies when he also advised that the scoring system continue to operate on a
curve, rather than absolutely. The state instituted this when it made the transition
to the Common Core State Standards to adjust through the beginning period.
White wants to continue it into another year, which would be its fifth.
Interests stumping for accountability complain this choice dilutes that, while
the move pleases others as the relative scoring system grades some schools
higher than without a curve.
If the sum total of White’s policy-making makes
nobody always happy or mad at him, then maybe, as the old aphorism goes, he’s
doing something right.
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