LaTEACH
How do you feel about the new Common Core Assessments?
Tell Your Superintendent! 
BESE's Superintendents' Advisory Council needs to hear your voice!

September 11, 2013

 

Greetings!

 

Contact your local school Superintendent (or a Superintendent on the Advisory Council from your area) and tell them how the switch to Common Core standards and assessments are impacting your child with a disability!
 
The Superintendents' Advisory Council will meet next Thursday, September 19, 2013 to discuss Louisiana's assessments transition (see the agenda here).

 

Click here for contact information of all public school superintendents.

 

Click here for contact information of superintendents on the Advisory Council.

More Information on Assessment Transition

Louisiana will assess all students in public schools based on Common Core standards this year (2013-2014).  Unfortunately, the assessments being created by PARCC, the national consortia, will not be ready when students are assessed this school year.  Therefore, students across the state will take assessments that will be created by the Louisiana Department of Education in Spring 2014.  Creating assessments that are reliable and valid typically require extensive field work and piloting.  It seems that the assessments created for this school year, the first year of Common Core implementation (i.e., instruction), will not have met the degree of rigor acceptable for release by the national group developing assessments aligned to these new standards.

 

Which assessments are used may not be as critical as HOW assessments are used.  Performance on educational assessments determine:

  • Student progression to the next grade level and/or whether they graduate.
  • Teacher's effectiveness
  • School performance scores or grades (A-F).

However, some LaTEACH members have expressed concerns of possible impacts the Common Core assessments may have for students with disabilities.  Some of these concerns include:

  • increased difficulty for students with disabilities to achieve common core standards;
  • low expectations (student learning targets) being set by teachers out of fear for self-preservation;
  • increased motivation for schools to "counsel out" students with disabilities; and,
  • lack of focus on individualized needs of students (IEP is becoming less and less relevant).
Concerns raised in other states:

Superintendents' Advisory Council Members

SAC_Members
Chair, Mr. Michael Faulk, Central Community Schools

Mr. John E. Bourque         Acadia Parish

Mr. Michael Doucet           Allen Parish

Dr. Patrice Pujol                 Ascension Parish

Mr. William Britt                  Bienville Parish

Mr. Wayne Savoy               Calcasieu Parish

Ms. Karla Tollett                  Caldwell Parish

Ms. Stephanie Rodrigue    Cameron Parish

Dr. Bernard Taylor               East Baton Rouge Parish

Dr. Edward Cancienne       Iberville Parish

Dr. James Meza                  Jefferson Parish

Mr. Danny Bell                      Lincoln Parish

Mr. Patrick Dobard              Recovery School District

Dr. Sara Ebarb                     Sabine Parish

Ms. Doris Voitier                  St. Bernard Parish

Mr. William L. "Trey" Folse  St. Tammany Parish

Mr. Philip Martin                   Terrebonne Parish

Ms. Lisa Wilmore                 Madison Parish

Mr. David Corona                West Baton Rouge Parish

Mr. Hollis Milton                   West Feliciana Parish

Mr. Steve Bartlett                 Winn Parish

 

Click here for contact information of all public school superintendents. 


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