High School Revamp Needs Blanco Push

By WILL SENTELL

Now that Louisiana sits on the verge of making sweeping changes in its public high schools, one question seems obvious:

Will it really happen?

There are lots of reasons that it should.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s 36-member High School Redesign Commission, and others like it around the country, have concluded most public high schools are out of date.

Too many students call it quits in the ninth grade. Too many earn high school diplomas and still need college remedial courses. Too many opt for easy classes that don’t prepare them.

Yet all the high-minded reasons for change mean little if it fails to materialize.

New policies in the works could mean a sea change in public high school operations.

Ninth-graders essentially could have their own academies. Most students would take college prep-like classes regardless of whether they plan to attend college.

Students would be allowed to take “catch-up” classes so they could graduate with their peers, one of several steps designed to remake schools around the needs of youngsters.

One reason those and other changes might become reality is Leslie Jacobs of New Orleans, who is only half-jokingly called a “force of nature.”

Admirers call her articulate, politically savvy and passionate about public education.

Critics call her brash and impatient.

Jacobs, a member of the state’s top school board since 1996, is one of the key architects of the change that has swept through elementary and middle schools during that time.

Mandatory LEAP tests that fourth- and eighth-graders have to pass? Jacobs helped shape, revise and run the program.

Public school report cards designed to improve student performance? She is the unofficial state explainer for how they work and why they matter.

Now Jacobs is a key member of Blanco’s redesign commission. She also chairs the High School Redesign Committee for the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The Blanco commission and the state board are the driving forces behind the push to reinvent high schools in Louisiana.

Jacobs is a player on both panels. She also knows her time on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education could run out in the next year or so.

Both facts boost chances that high schools are headed for some real changes.

The key obstacle is resistance to change, which often applies to public schools in particular and the state in general.

One reason high schools are under the microscope is because they generally have dodged a decade-long push to improve public schools at all levels. Experts say high schools are more like colleges than elementary and middle schools.

Some teachers already are resisting the move to end-of-course tests, designed to ensure rigor statewide. Some superintendents are urging a go-slow approach.

Whether the changes will get a prod from Blanco is another unknown.

One of the key planks of her 2003 campaign for governor was improving Louisiana’s health-care system. It is more outdated, and far more expensive, than its high schools.

Yet little in the way of real change appears to be happening except for lots of complaints from state officials about the federal government.

If redesigned high schools get a push from Blanco, the chance for real change shoots up.

If the issue gets lost in the 2007 race for governor lots of worthwhile plans will disappear, too.

Will Sentell covers public education issues for The Advocate.

(c) 2007 Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.