THE ESSENTIAL PROFESSION: Improving Teacher Quality In Louisiana
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Teaching truly is “the essential profession.” Every year Louisiana students spend more than a thousand hours in the company of teachers. Through the knowledge these educators share, they prepare Louisiana’s children for the future. It is a tremendous responsibility, and teacher quality is critical.
This is one of the reasons why in 1999 the Council for A Better Louisiana formed the Forum for Education Excellence — a private- sector organization that focuses on improving student achievement. The Forum’s effort in this arena comes at a pivotal time. Louisiana is on the brink of an education revolution. For the first time in recent memory an environ- ment exists in the state that allows meaningful reform to take place. The result? Progress.
Over the last few years a positive story about education in Louisiana has finally begun to emerge. Test scores in fourth-grade reading are up, scores on college entrance exams are rising, and data shows that Louisiana high school students are better prepared to enter four-year universities. Thus far progress has been slow, and in some cases marginal, but it is evidence that Louisiana is moving in the right direction.
Yet, at the same time, it is fair to say that Louisiana remains an education crisis zone. A number of statistics bear this out. Louisiana’s fourth-grade reading scores are still among the lowest in the nation, the percentage of students who perform at the “proficient” level on national tests is still dismally low, and the state’s own School Performance Scores show more than 90% of Louisiana’s elementary and middle schools are performing below the national average.
For Louisiana schools to show real improvement in student performance, we must address the issue that most impacts student achievement. That issue is teacher quality.
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