Over the course of this semester and due to the nature of my research, I have learned a great deal not only about national public education, but issues unique to Louisiana state and New Orleans public education as well. As part of my final project I was asked to complete a case study on teacher evaluations and accountability in Louisiana. Recently, legislation passed and rules promulgated that guide the implementation of value-added assessments, a new system created to measure student achievement and teacher impact in the most objective and effective way possible. As part of a brief explanation to the aims and components of the value-added model, or VAM at it is often referred, it is important to understand that:

• The purpose of VAM is to create an individualized progress scale tailored to each student based on past test scores and other predictive data so as to provide school management, and sometimes teacher evaluations, objective information regarding achievement gains of individual students.
• VAMs are designed to control for factors such as socio-economic level, gender, ethnicity, and the effects of home life on students.
• The state of Louisiana has implemented two programs that could support the use of VAM, including the System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP), which provides assistance and skills training to teachers and the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), which grants bonuses to teachers who exhibit excellent performance in the classroom.
• TAP, TIF, and Louisiana’s VAM pilot have received positive educator feedback across the state.

Since working at the Cowen Institute, I have gained a greater understanding of the work that’s being done in New Orleans and throughout the state in pursuit of better schools for our youth. While it is true that Louisiana has one of the most notoriously inadequate education systems in the United States, I believe that it also has some of the most creative minds and dedicated people working to improve these conditions. The staff at the Cowen Institute have been an inspiring team to work with, and it is because of them that I have confidence in a continued commitment to education improvement in Louisiana and New Orleans.

Amanda Brackman is from Bedford, Texas. She is finishing her junior year at Tulane University, where she is majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Political Science. Amanda has worked previously with children in New Orleans public schools and hopes to continue doing so in the future. After graduation, Amanda plans to attend graduate school for Anthropology. She is also considering going into the teaching profession.  

While I have decided to go the classroom route, my work at the Cowen Institute taught me some valuable lessons.  I started the semester compiling a list of contacts with interests in education.  It was interesting to see the large number of people and avenues through which education reform can pass.  It was both encouraging to see the variety of groups working to improve K-12 educational outcomes and overwhelming to consider the difficulty of cooperation between so many.

I then created a list of all education-related bills to be presented during the current legislative session.  At first, I became frustrated with the majority of bills focusing on logistical details, such as governing board authority and facility naming, rather than on students.  As the start of the session grew closer, however, more bills regarding teacher evaluation and school choice were submitted.  The exercise of compiling this list served as a reality check to my understanding of public policy, because it demonstrated that legislators have to deal with the nuances of everything, not only the issues that seem to be most important to me.

In addition to these organizational tasks, I completed two research projects for the Cowen Institute.  The first one was about recent changes made to the Recovery School District’s (RSD) return policy, which outlines the process schools must follow to transfer from the RSD to the school’s original local educational agency (LEA).  This project emphasized the importance of clarity and the inclusion of details regarding logistics I had not previously thought much about, such as timelines for implementation.

Finally, I researched student-based budgeting, which bases a school’s funding on its specific students, rather than on district enrollment or teacher pay scales.  I learned that this has the potential to create more autonomy and transparency at the school level and may impact academic outcomes as schools try to improve in order to retain students and, thus, funding.  I also considered the challenges associated with giving principals new budgeting responsibilities.

Working on this variety of tasks opened my eyes to the challenges facing education reform.  It helped me realize that my passion for education would currently be better channeled toward an environment where I can work more closely with students, while also helping me to appreciate the ways that policy can impact the classroom.  I came to recognize the vital role that research organizations like the Cowen Institute play in informing policy decisions.

Lindsey Shroff will graduate with Honors from Tulane University in May with a B.S. in psychology and Spanish, and a minor in English.  During her senior year, she also worked as a literacy instructor for ReNEW Charter Organization.  After graduation, she will serve as a Teach for America corps member teaching first grade in Phoenix, AZ.

Rising expectations for school performance are being matched by escalating financial pressure. In the last three years, expenses have increased for schools and districts, while the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has not raised the Minimum Foundation Program—the per-pupil funding that districts receive from the State.  Changes to the MFP approved this year by BESE and the Legislature have created additional uncertainty in how much funding districts will lose because of the decision to use local and state funding under the MFP to pay for the statewide voucher program.

The millage increase proposed by OPSB would provide the district with an opportunity to invest in programs, teachers, textbooks, and facilities.  These additional resources for students require an increase of 1% in property taxes, or an additional $158 next year for a property valued at $1,000,000 or $4 for a property valued at $100,000.  The return on this small investment by New Orleans property owners are schools that have the resources to prepare students for college, careers, and to be contributing members of the community.

The Cowen Institute strongly encourages the Orleans Parish School Board to roll forward its millage!

The models were all very different and I looked at both programmatic and systemic types. But I had a particular focus on those that were multi-sector models, meaning they link together partners from the across the social services field. It’s a strategy dubbed “collective impact.” In a collective impact model, the goal is to create a network that systematically links numerous organizations – government, business, and nonprofits – around a clearly defined goal. As a result, there are substantial coalitions of like-minded groups working together in the social sector, instead of isolated spurts of impact. There are a variety of models across the country – some flourishing, others still gaining traction – that exist to support disconnected youth in some way. Some systems are preventive and focus on helping kids before they become disenfranchised from the education system.  And some are reactive and geared towards older youth. The Cowen Institute is working closely with other community partners to try to ascertain how a model like this can be implemented in New Orleans. My final project this semester was a database of research on national models, as well as a short report on some themes and trends that emerged and suggestions for the project.

I am interested in a career in educational policy and systems reform. So a major lesson I learned from researching in this space is that successful reform efforts do not exist in isolation. The ones that are sustainable bring together a multifarious cabinet of advisors and credentials. The collective impact idea is exciting, but it’s not necessarily innovative. It makes sense that we leverage synergy when trying to launch an audacious comprehensive initiative to help kids. Although I liked being able to learn about the range of models out there, I enjoyed most feeling a part of the nascent stages of this project in New Orleans. As the city moves forward with launching its own disconnected youth initiative, I’m excited to see what stakeholders are brought to the table.

The K-12 education experience is not one that is limited to classroom time. It is not one that we can measure simply by grades, enrollment or graduation numbers. A true quality education should be seen as a holistic investment in the whole child. And being able to explore various multi-sector models focusing on education for disconnected youth reaffirms that perspective.

I first heard about the Cowen Institute when Debra Vaughan spoke to my intro education class. I was immediately fascinated by the uniqueness of New Orleans’s school system. With nearly 80 percent of public school students in charter schools, New Orleans is on the vanguard of cities exploring new education models and school reform efforts. The backbone of this system is the idea of school choice. Parents get to vote for good schools by sending their kids there, and bad schools will be closed because parents will refuse to send their children there. As an economics student I wanted to learn more about how these market forces worked. The Cowen institute is one of the few organizations that study this open enrollment system in New Orleans, so I decided to intern for them the following semester.

As an intern at the Cowen institute, I collected, processed, and analyzed parent surveys from the Urban League of Greater New Orleans’ Schools Expo held at the Mercedes Benz Superdome in March 2012. The survey asked parents important questions such as “What is your biggest challenge to engaging in your child’s education?” and “What information is most important to you when applying to schools?” Parents were also asked to rate the Expo itself. Although much of the work was data entry,  it paid off at the end when I got to see my hard work in a detailed statistical break down of how parents responded to the survey questions. I then compared the responses on this survey to past data collected, including the Cowen Institute’s October 2011 parent opinion poll. Based on that poll, Urban League Schools Expo attendees (survey respondents who reported getting information from the Expo) are predominately low income, with 72 percent reporting an annual household income below $25,000. I highlighted my findings and presented them in a report to the Urban League. The staff at the Urban League was thrilled with the report.

Parents who completed the Urban League’s survey reported that time and transportation are the biggest challenges to engaging in their child’s education. When asked about the ways in which they are engaged, 78 percent of parents checked “at home,” 65 percent checked “at school,” and 37 percent checked “in the community.” Parents were also overwhelmingly satisfied with the Expo event in general.

Working for the Cowen institute as an intern was fun and rewarding. I would recommend it to anyone interested in education.

Hunter Kramer is finishing his junior year at Tulane University, majoring in economics with a history minor. He is also pursuing teacher certification with the Tulane University Teacher Preparation & Certification Program. He has volunteered as a classroom helper at Banneker Elementary and volunteers coaching lacrosse at Brother Martin. After he graduates he hopes to teach high school social studies. 

Last December, I visited Tulane University’s Center for Public Service to locate an internship for the spring semester.  During my internship search, the Cowen Institute proved to be a great fit for me.  My parents are teachers, and my parents’ parents were teachers.  Clearly, my family is passionate about education.  My personal passions regarding education extend beyond the classroom to the realm of policy, and as a Political Economy major at Tulane I have studied public policy closely.   When I visited the Center for Public Service, I believed that the Cowen Institute, as an action-oriented education think tank, would offer me a rewarding experience – I was right.

My time at the Cowen Institute proved to be worthwhile because a passionate team guided me throughout the semester and because I developed my own research project regarding school choice.  In my first days at the Cowen Institute, the workforce’s genuine interest in education policy and reform was clear.  The team cares about what they do, and they realize that they can make a difference.

With my own research project I was able to act on my interests.  My project concerned school choice in the New Orleans Recovery School District.  The RSD recently implemented catchment zones in its elementary school enrollment process; these zones will help the district balance school choice with ensuring families have access to their neighborhood schools.  My task was to compile research on the zones and to compare each zone to one another.  I further developed my analytical and writing skills, while creating a database and report to contribute to the Cowen Institute’s trove of research.  In the end, I hope that my work can help with some important decisions that the Institute will make in the future.

While I love my schoolwork, I was very happy to spend time every week away from the classroom.  At the Cowen Institute, I engaged in rewarding work, and I conducted research in an inspiring environment.  I also learned a great deal about New Orleans’ public school system.  I am very appreciative of the team at the Cowen Institute for offering me the opportunity to spend my semester at the office.

To view school and demographic information by catchment zone, click here.

Charlie Crosby is from New Orleans, Louisiana.  He is finishing his junior year at Tulane University, where he is majoring in Political Economy and English.  In the past, he has worked with New Orleans students as a private tutor and as a volunteer teacher for Junior Achievement of Greater New Orleans.  After he graduates from Tulane, he hopes to teach elementary school students and attend graduate school for public policy.

The crux of the statewide voucher program remains the same as the pilot program in New Orleans, providing low and moderate income families public funding to attend a private school instead of a poor performing public school. However, there are also several important differences. Below, we’ve outlined many of the similarities and differences between the New Orleans pilot program and the new statewide program.

Eligibility
What’s the Same: To be eligible for a voucher, a student’s family must earn less than 250 percent of the federal poverty line, a standard that both in New Orleans and across the state is met by the overwhelming majority of public school students.

Additionally, students must either be entering kindergarten for the first time or have been previously enrolled in a low performing school.

What’s Different: The definition of a low performing school has been expanded from schools receiving an F according to the state’s accountability system to include schools receiving a C, D, or F. While students at all low performing schools are eligible to receive a voucher, students from D and F schools will get priority in the program.  About 380,000 students—54 percent of all public school students in Louisiana—attend C, D, or F schools, while 265,000 students attend D or F schools.

Additionally, while the New Orleans pilot program began with grades K-3 and has added a grade each year, currently serving grades K-6, the statewide program will begin serving all grades, K-12.

Funding
What’s the Same: The maximum voucher value will be limited to an amount related to the total state and local funding the district would have received for that student or the private school’s tuition, whichever is less. Additional funding is available for special education services.

What’s Different: Vouchers will no longer be funded through a state appropriation. On February 27, 2012, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved a Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) resolution that, if approved by the Louisiana Legislature, will allow vouchers to be funded through the MFP rather than by an annual state budget appropriation. The MFP formula determines the cost of a minimum foundation program of education in all public elementary and secondary schools and is used to allocate the funds equitably to parish and city school systems. The MFP resolution passed by BESE in February 2012 means that when a student is awarded a voucher, public school funding that otherwise would be paid to the local school district will simply follow the student to private school. As a result, the number of vouchers allocated each year will be limited only by private school participation in the program and not by the amount of funding allocated by the Legislature.

Administration
What’s the Same: The statewide voucher program will be administered by the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), meaning the LDOE is responsible for approving participating private schools, providing parents with information about the program, managing the application and enrollment process, remitting payment to private schools, and reporting certain program data.

What’s Different: While the pilot program required the LDOE to report a few data points on participating students and schools to the Legislature each year, the statewide program requires the LDOE to annually publish more detailed data, including average performance on state assessments, the cohort graduation rate for voucher recipients (based on the highest grade offered at the participating school), parent satisfaction, and the program retention rate.

School Participation
What’s the Same: Private and non-failing public schools must elect to participate in the program and can choose how many vouchers to make available. In fact, according to State Superintendent John White and an informal survey by the Archdiocese of New Orleans of potential Catholic school seats for voucher recipients outside of New Orleans, only about 4,000 vouchers (including about 2,000 in New Orleans) will likely be available statewide next year, serving just 1-2 percent of the total public school student population. Comparably, 1,850 students currently participate in the New Orleans pilot program making up about seven percent of all public school K-6 students.

Participating private schools must be approved by BESE, comply with the nondiscrimination requirements established in Brumfield v. Dodd, and, if in operation for less than two years, voucher student enrollment cannot exceed 20 percent of total enrollment. An independent financial audit stating the school’s cost of tuition must be submitted to the LDOE annually. If an audit is not submitted, the school is placed on probation and cannot enroll any additional voucher recipients.

Participating schools are required to use an open admissions process to admit voucher recipients. However, accepted students are subject to the school’s academic, disciplinary, and other standards and policies.

Finally, voucher recipients must take the same state assessments as public school students (LEAP, iLEAP, and End-of-Course exams), and these test results are publicly released along with the rest of the state’s performance data.

What’s Different: H.B. 976 requires the LDOE to develop criteria for participation no later than August 12, 2012 that includes an accountability system for participating students at participating schools. After August 12, 2012, the accountability system cannot be altered except by an act of the legislature. It is not yet clear what sort of accountability system will be established by the LDOE, though the bill language suggests that the focus will be on the voucher recipients rather than the participating schools.

In the New Orleans pilot program, non-failing public schools in Orleans Parish could participate in the voucher program, but the open enrollment system in New Orleans makes this provision irrelevant as all public schools must allow for students across the city to attend. In the statewide voucher program, public schools that received a letter grade of A or B for the most recent school year may participate in the program.