Some of you may have seen reports in the Picayune or from Leslie Jacob’s “Educate Now” organization touting an educational resurgence taking place in New Orleans. One of the claims is that only 5% of students are now in “failing” schools. I’ve had a little time to look at her stats and the reporting put out by the State and thought I’d make my own fancy graphs and charts and point out some glaring logic flaws, but instead I decided to just look at the raw numbers. I will publish my data for you to critique. I don’t have access to all the data, but that Leslie Jacobs can get with her friendly relationship with John White and LDOE, but I can still deduce a few things, and I have been accumulating files from folks who had older reports, that LDOE removed from their website, archived on their local machines.

Let’s examine one of Leslie’s claims before showing you what I’ve found:

Claim: Only 5% of students now attend a failing school – down from 62% in 2005.

Only 5% of students now attend a failing school – down from 62% in 2005.  In 2004-05, 78 public schools in New Orleans, enrolling over 38,000 students, were failing. Today, only 9 schools in the city, enrolling 2,481 students, are failing.*

As evidence for this claim Leslie uses enrollment from 2013-2014 for school still open. However the test scores and grad numbers come from the previous school year, 2012-2013. She uses the 2004-2005 enrollment figures for the 2005 SPS score comparisons so it is clear this is not a simple “oversight” but an intentional misrepresentation. Much of the press release is filled with accurate numbers but interpreted creatively. If we planning on using the enrollment of the year the scores are released, the 2005 SPS scores would have related to a total enrollment of just 5800 students.

For instance, Educate Now assumes every school without a score is a non-failed school by definition. It’s not really clear why many of the schools without scores or grades were given passes this year. The explanation in the footnote is not sufficient to explain why so many schools that had students on October 1 of 2012 did not take tests or have test results reported for tests given in April of 2013. I have chosen not to automatically assume these charters are “passing” and have assigned them failing grades, which for all we know they may very well be. It is absolutely certain we cannot claim they are passing schools as the press release claims and they may very well be failing schools. Only LDOE knows, and for some reason they are not telling, which I find telling. When I add those schools into the failing category, use the apples to apples test scores of last year, include the proper enrollment from 2012-2013 to make an “apples to apples” enrollment comparison, and include schools that were closed for sucking I get a more modest 22% enrollment of potentially failing schools. When I add in schools graded D or F I get close to 52% of the students in inadequate schools. As Leslie points out in her own release, we did not have an A –F scale in 2005, so she made an assuming about what would have been assigned an “F”/”Failing” grade. Since Bobby Jindal and John White see schools graded “C” and below as inadequate enough to warrant giving parents school choice, the actual failing percentage by the metric LDOE uses for granting parents a school choice option, the actual substandard percentage rises to 69% now compared to 62% in 2005. Who am I to argue with what they themselves have already defined as the failure of our public school systems to provide an adequate education?

White said the 2013 scores for voucher students were low because of the large influx of students from failing schools. The voucher program, officially called the Louisiana Scholarship Program, started in New Orleans in 2008 and expanded statewide just this school year. It is open to low-income students who are either entering kindergarten or who have been attending a public school graded C, D or F. This year, 61 percent of test-takers were in their first year at their voucher school

(*Note: unnecessary bright colors to make chart easy for parents to understand.*)

Bobby Jindal has openly called C schools “failing schools” as recently as 5 days ago when defending his voucher program from federal oversight.

“The Obama administration wants to deny a voice to the very people who will be harmed by this ridiculous lawsuit,” Jindal said in a statement, accusing the department of “trying to muzzle parents who simply want to express an opinion about why their children should have the opportunity to escape failing schools.”

Vouchers, officially called the Louisiana Scholarship Program, let low-income children who are new to the public school system or who attend C-, D- or F-schools attend participating private schools at taxpayer expense.

But just for argument’s sake, let’s see what Leslie is calling a New Orleans non-failing school, shall we?

Here is an easy to read school report card. I know it’s easy to read and “parent friendly” because this seizure inducing message on the official LDOE website tells me so.  Like all parents, I find I can only understand things easily if you dress them up in as many bright, clashing colors as possible.

Wow this is easy!

A “C” average New Orleans elementary school gets something magical, called bonus points. Apparently 43% of their students score below basic on standardized tests compared to a statewide average of 32%. Frankly I’d call that above average (underachievement), but obviously I’m not a LDOE mathematician, just a parent.  Best to stop looking at numbers and focus on the fact my F was curved (altered) to a “C” and that this mess is displayed in an almost unreadable sickly green.

Apparently non-failing high schools in New Orleans get bonus points too! A non-failing high school (in New Orleans) has almost 13% of their students getting a “Good” or better! That is good! (the LDOE geniuses obviously failed basic math and think putting <5% hides the fact only 1% is left when you add the other 99% together. ) Of course the state average is 59%, but who’s counting right? It’s the arbitrarily calculated “passing D” (after New Orleans bonus points) that matters, right?

I’m just a simple parent, so obviously I need lots of unreadable bright color, but I wonder how this school manages to swing a 74% graduation rate when 60% of their students are scoring in the lowest possible category on the very state tests needed to graduate? I know those graduation counts factor into the SPS scores, and graduating is good an all, but I do have to wonder at the quality of the diplomas being issued. . .

We have incentivized schools to churn out graduates, and their very existence depends on pushing out as many of those as they can manage. Do you think some of them might be graduating students who simply attend 4 years?  I wonder if John White and BESE removing the GEE (graduate exit exam) has something to do with this impressive grad rate coupled with a dismal set of performance scores?

Here’s my data in case you were curious how I came to my conclusions. (I had to look up every single fricken school individually to determine its physical address since LDOE did not include a Parish code, so I hope you appreciate the work I put in on this.) There’s only so much LDOE can reveal before the cracks begin to show. There is a reason they are hiding historical info and source info, folks. Fortunately they don’t have a clue what most of the data means so they accidentally release more than they intend to.