The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education met for two days this week, but was largely overshadowed by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s announcement that he is withdrawing from the PARCC consortium (see the full story here).
Student privacy protection will cost $1 million
BESE plans to spend about $1 million to implement a law aimed at protecting the personal information of Louisiana school students.
Superintendent of Education John White told the board that new computer programs will be needed to issue each of the state’s 713,000 students a unique identification number that is safe from hackers.
The new system is required because the legislature adopted HB 1076 by Rep. John Schroder (R-Covington). The bill makes it illegal for the state to maintain any personally identifiable information about a child, including the name and address.
Local school districts will have the information about students, but may not share it with the state. White said that the state will have to purge its databases of all student information, and change the way the state’s data systems interact with local districts.
LFT comments on 70% rule
After analyzing hundreds of columns of figures in the state’s Minimum Foundation report, LFT Legislative and Political director MaryPatricia Wray asked the board to consider the “70% rule” when writing the next MFP formula.
The rule says that 70% of MFP funds sent to local school systems should be spent on classroom instruction. Waivers are available for districts that are fiscally unable to meet the goal.
Wray said that school systems which are able to meet the 70% requirement generally have higher School Performance Scores than those which do not.
“In effect,” she said, “districts that have enough money do well on the performance scores, those that don’t, do not.”
Wray also pointed out that a lower rate of Type 2 charter schools, which are not required to contribute to the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, meet the 70% requirement than do Type 5 charters, which must contribute to the retirement system.
That raises an important question, she said. If Type 2 charter schools have lower costs because they don’t participate in the retirement system, why do more of them fail to spend the right amount in the classroom?
Textbook selection raises hackles
A discussion about textbooks and materials aligned with Common Core standards set off a testy exchange between Superintendent of Education John White and BESE Member Lottie Beebe.
Beebe, who is also Superintendent of Education in St. Martin Parish, said teachers in her district are not satisfied with some of the recommended texts and are working with materials not listed in the Department of Education’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 lists.
She asked White if she would be “chastised” for not selecting textbooks on the lists.
“I’m not going to chastise you,” White said.
“I’m not worried about being chastised by you,” Beebe replied. “You may not be here.”