Comments

D. Scott Hughes, Executive Director Alliance For Education

Recent actions by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) have placed eight Caddo schools into a unique operating environment to avoid state takeover and placed two schools, Linwood and Linear middle schools, under direct state control.  It is always sad when a community loses control of local schools.  Caddo Parish has long had a community spirit that believes we can best solve our problems locally.  The Caddo Plan that was created by Caddo Superintendent Dr. Gerald Dawkins is a great example of local creativity and solutions to a local problem. 

I believe in its actions BESE greatly honored our community's desire to solve our own problems.  After New Orleans schools failed children for decades the BESE Board finally stepped in and took control of all schools in greater New Orleans.  To date more than 150 Orleans area schools have been placed under direct state control.  The East Baton Rouge (EBR) School System failed to improve for over a decade and BESE has now taken direct control of 12 of the 16 EBR schools to come before them, including eight of the 12 in this round.   Caddo was allowed to keep eight of 10 this round, and including Bethune Middle School which is currently under an operating agreement, BESE has voted to allow Caddo to keep local control of nine of the 11 schools to come before them for failure to meet minimum standards. 

In its decision BESE sent a strong message about capacity.  Both the capacity of a local district to implement such a bold plan and the capacity of our community to deal with change.  It is clear had we only had two or five or even eight schools in academic failure we would have had the capacity to keep all our schools.  We now have 11 schools in failure and BESE felt that was too many for the same district that failed these children to help these children.  Sadly, as strong as the Caddo Plan is it came too late to save all ten of our schools. 

BESE is also recognizing that Caddo is not Orleans or Baton Rouge.  We are not a charter school market and with over 90% of our children still in public school, BESE understands we want to remain a strong public school market.  The key issue now is not about control of schools.  That is a policy debate that will likely never end.  The key question now is how we will insure the success of the schools we have been allowed to keep.  The Caddo Plan is a bold vision.  It can turn these schools around and prevent others from further failure.  The Alliance For Education pledges to continue to support Caddo Parish and help Dr. Dawkins with the Caddo Plan.  Taking advantage of the opportunity BESE has given us to prove local communities and school boards can solve our own problems can do more than just save our schools.  More than rhetoric, we have the opportunity to show local control can do a better job than state control.