DFER Louisiana Applauds Lawmakers For Retaining High Standards

Blogs, Letters & Testimonials

May 13, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Baton Rouge, La. – Today, following the House Education Committee compromise on House Bill 373 and House Bill 672, DFER-LA State Director Eva Kemp-Melder released the following statement:

“Today, the House Education Committee unanimously voted to ensure that we can continue to improve outcomes for Louisiana’s students by retaining the state’s current standards while allowing the review process, recently launched by LDOE and BESE, to run its course.

“Today’s agreement on standards and assessments accomplished two things:

  • It allows us to retain Common Core, providing educators with the clarity and stability they need to effectively teach our students, while allowing for necessary adjustments in the future
  • It reaffirms our commitment to administering rigorous annual assessments, comparable to those in other states, that we need to identify achievement gaps among student subgroups and inform policies that will provide a high-quality education to all children

“This compromise also removes two destructive proposals that threatened to roll back the progress Louisiana has made in education over the past ten years. High standards and common sense assessment and accountability policies have put Louisiana on the path to ensuring that all students, regardless of race or socio-economic background, are prepared for a college or career track by the time they graduate from high school.

“DFER will continue to work with and support our elected leaders to ensure clear and fair benchmarks remain in place in Louisiana.”

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Contact: Eva Kemp-Melder, eva@dfer.org