Reaction notes confusion about what’s next

As the battle in Baton Rouge over Common Core plays out, educators on the home front are being instructed to continue planning for the new school year, which starts in seven weeks.
St. Mary Parish School Board President Murphy Pontiff said, “We’ve got an interesting story on our hands and confusion all the way across the spectrum of education in Louisiana … the BESE board and Superintendent White and all the other concerns — PARCC, Common Core, Act 1. How much more confusing can it get? I don’t know because everything is waiting on judicial litigation and we have no idea.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order Wednesday requiring competitive bidding for public school standardized tests, an apparent attempt to derail Louisiana’s use of tests linked to Common Core education standards.
The Department of Education planned to use tests tied to Common Core, known as PARCC, for students in third through eighth grades.
Jindal said requiring a competitive bid for the test will stop use of PARCC.
Superintendent of Education John White and state education board chairman Chas Roemer disagree, saying they intend to continue the roll-out of Common Core and plan to use the PARCC test under their existing authority.
Common Core standards are English and math benchmarks adopted by most states. Jindal says the standards amount to a federal education takeover.
Brooke Falgout, representing a St. Mary group of parents and educators against Common Core, said, “I think it was a huge step in the right direction for us. It was a big win. But we’re watching them. Our eyes are on them. We know this is going to be a struggle between White and Jindal.”
Falgout said state law requires that the Department of Education, with approval of BESE, shall develop statewide content standards. The law does not say they have to establish standards that were established by some other entity, she said.
“We’re going to hold them to this law and make sure they follow through on this. The law states that the Louisiana Department of Education should be writing our standards. I just think that White keeps claiming that (Jindal) doesn’t have the authority and we’re going to keep implementing these standards, but he doesn’t realize how many times he’s broken the law and he’s breaking the law right now,” Falgout said.
Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Gray, said Louisiana’s approach to Common Core is “probably the worst rollout of a major educational system change I’ve ever seen.”
“The situation we’re in now, they created a monster. They did not allow parents to understand the program and get involved. They did a horrible grassroots to something that is a dramatic change in your children’s education and thought they were just going to force feed them into getting into it,” Harrison said.
“If Gov. Jindal is truly against it, I think he needs to act on it forcefully. I think that he needs to show the state that our people, who the majority are against Common Core, that there are a lot of excellent programs with excellent rigor that we could bring in,” Harrison said.
BESE District 3 member Lottie Beebe, who also serves as the St. Martin Parish superintendent, said her district will continue doing what they did this past year.
“Certainly my response as a superintendent is we have a charge from BESE, and I am going to continue with the charge of addressing Common Core standards. As a BESE member, I would think as a next step is we have to be compliant with the governor’s executive order. I would hope that BESE would convene a meeting to discuss a Plan B. I do also recognize that there appears to be a conflict between White and Jindal and there is evidentially a difference of opinion … I don’t know where we are in that conflict. I do believe we need to resolve it quickly, and we need to get on with the business of educating students,” Beebe said.
When asked about planning for a Plan B scenario, Harrison said, “That’s pretty sad to say we need a Plan B and not already have a Plan B.”
Parent outcry regarding this plan, he said, has been occurring for at least two years.
“They’ve created their own system. This is a political experiment. I don’t care what they say … The BESE board needs to start doing their job. They should have had something in the hopper by now,” Harrison said.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to look at the successes and the grassroots efforts to make sure those things are successful. We did not do that,” he added.
In St. Mary Parish, Superintendent Donald Aguillard sent an email to all instructional staff Wednesday following the news conference indicating staff should “continue working to prepare for the upcoming 2014-15 school term. All planned instructional materials in place to be deployed in 2014-15 have already been selected due their rigor and appropriateness to challenge students. In time, we will likely be provided with additional guidance from BESE about next steps,” Aguillard’s email stated.
St. Mary Parish has been preparing for Common Core and will be ready when school starts, St. Mary School Board member Wayne Deslatte of Centerville said.
However, if a change is mandated, “that’s a problem. The governor saying that he wants to change it and Superintendent White saying we can’t. It would be a problem if we have to jump in and change horses. I’m not quite sure how that’s going to play out,” Deslatte said.
St. Mary Parish board member Roland Verret of Amelia said he believes the executive order is a political move on the part of the governor.
“The sincerity of his actions, I’m not sure about. After all, he does pull the strings on the superintendent he hand-picked,” Verret said.
Verret noted he is not totally opposed to Common Core, but is opposed to the state “throwing it down our throats,” not giving systems time to prepare, and overwhelming children.
Pontiff of Franklin said, “We have been putting this in place in St. Mary Parish for the last six months. Our intention as it stands now is we’re ready to go, and this is not a good time to change horses in the middle of the stream. We’re going to proceed with Common Core and PARCC or whatever they decide … We’re ready to go because all of this is right around the corner and we need to proceed with that.”
Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, said he believes the state should not take part in a nationalized program.
“I think that education should be a locally controlled and local issue between the state and parish school boards. I was a little surprised to see that John White and Chas Roemer put out a statement so quickly saying that they were still going forward with the Common Core.”
Beebe said, “I wish Gov. Jindal had acted prior to yesterday. He didn’t. Nonetheless I applaud him for acting … when presented lemons we’re going to make lemonade. That should be attitude of educators,” Beebe said.