There's a fishy odeur emanating from the Bayou these days. The source? A "re-routing" plan that would count the scores of gifted students at magnet schools towards the results of their "home school" (the school they would attend based on school catchment areas). East Baton Rouge Parish spokesman Chris Trahan reasons that since scores from pre-GED centers and discipline alternative schools are "re-routed," magnet schools' scores should be too. Nice try. This isn't "re-routing," it's inflation, or as the Council for a Better Louisiana calls it, "deception." Senior Vice President of the group, Stephanie Desselle, reasons, "School accountability is not about fooling around with scores to make things look better than they are...The heart of the accountability system is to tell us how each school is doing." Quite right. Let's not regress in our accountability systems by camouflaging their scores with those of their gifted neighbors.
"Plan to ‘Re-route' Gifted Student Scores Causes Stir," by Becky Bohrer, Associated Press, September 25, 2008