In this Nov. 13 guest column in The Daily Advertiser, Lafayette Parish Superintendent of Schools Dr. Pat Cooper disputes the claims made by one of the paper's regular guest columnists, former educator Nancy Mounce, saying she is misinformed and misleading.
[Editor's Note and clarification: In this Nov. 13 guest column in The Daily Advertiser, Lafayette Parish Superintendent of Schools Dr. Pat Cooper disputes the claims made by one of the paper's regular guest columnists, former educator Nancy Mounce, saying she is misinformed and misleading. The IND asked Cooper for the letter and initially published that version online, not realizing it was different from the one that ran in the Advertiser. Below is the version published in the Advertiser.]
Read Mounce's Nov. 4 guest column here.
Cooper's response is below:
Ms. Nancy Mounce, a member of the editorial board of The Daily Advertiser, has the privilege of regularly submitting letters for this section, more often than not criticizing some aspect of our local education system.
The most recent topic was the state's new grading scale, under which Lafayette Parish maintained its status as a B district, even with more rigorous standards.
The truth is that according to either set of numbers, our teachers and principals are doing tremendous work and deserve all the credit in the world for their success.
Accusations that the new system has been crafted to distort reality are offensive to the teachers and principals who are rightly proud of what they've accomplished. Consider the following:
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Every district across the state was judged by the same methodology; under these measures, Lafayette Parish unquestionably moved up from 21st to 19th in state rankings. This fact is remarkable and should not be dismissed lightly by those with their own agendas.
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Our ACT scores for college qualifiers rose more than any other district in the state.
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The many "bonus points" earned by our schools are not evidence of a lack of standards. Rather, they are proof that the extraordinary efforts of our teachers and staff to help our lowest-performing students are working. Because these students have further to climb, the way we measure their progress is different. Changing the scale to more accurately reflect reality isn't "manipulation" - it's calibration.
Referring to the "100 percent in ... 100 percent out" Plan as "infamous" is ridiculous and telling. What reasonable person would claim that a plan designed by hundreds of community members and educators "has a reputation of the worst kind" or is "well known for being evil or bad?" Serious people can differ over various particulars of any grading system. But the right place to start is with a full accounting of the true facts and without personal agendas that dismiss the heroic work happening every day in classrooms across our district. I encourage everyone to take the time to learn the facts before making unfair and inaccurate assumptions that don't help us move toward our goal of an A school district for Lafayette Parish.