[Louisiana] Chamber: Poverty affects students

from The Advocate

Performance about as well as expected

By CHARLES LUSSIER
Advocate staff writer

Students in greater Baton Rouge area public schools, except those in the city of Baker and St. Helena Parish, perform about as well as expected, given the relative poverty of their families.

Nevertheless, all 11 school systems in the area have plenty of students who lack basic skills in English and math: They range from roughly one in four students in Zachary to three of four in St. Helena Parish.

These are among the findings of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber in a new report, the first of five, examining public education in the region.

“We’re trying to be comprehensive, but not exhaustive,” said Stephen Moret, the chamber’s president and chief executive officer.

Noel Hammatt, an East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member and an LSU instructor who has studied these issues, said the report is good as far as it goes.

“I think they’ve done a great job of capturing the challenges that we all face,” he said.

Hammatt, however, said he’d like the chamber to more closely examine the impact of race and private school attendance on public schools.

The reports are part of the business organization’s most extensive foray into public education, timed to coincide with school board elections this fall. The effort focuses on Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana parishes.

The chamber also is recruiting and training candidates in many East Baton Rouge School Board races.

FuturePAC, a separate chamber-led political group, will contribute no more than about $2,000 per candidate, based on issues not politics, Moret said.

“This is not a bunch of business guys getting together saying who we should put in office,” he said.

The five reports, produced by in-house chamber researchers, aim to spark conversations about public schools across the region, Moret said.

One theme introduced in the first report is that the deep poverty found in Louisiana and the Baton Rouge region plays a big role in academic achievement.

“There are a lot of factors that go into student performance, only some of which come from the school,” Moret said.

The report released Thursday documents big differences between districts in the area, especially in the percentage of poor children. But, when the chamber researchers controlled for poverty, the differences between districts evaporated.

Only Baker and St. Helena Parish students performed notably below what their student poverty levels would suggest.

Moret said he suspects more detailed student poverty data might explain some of Baker and St. Helena’s low performance.

Some of the differences among the public school districts in the Baton Rouge area are stark.

For instance, four districts — Zachary and West Feliciana, Livingston and Ascension parishes — perform among the best in the state on standardized tests. Four others — Baker and Pointe Coupee, East Feliciana and St. Helena parishes — score at the bottom in Louisiana. Iberville and East Baton Rouge parishes are little better than the bottom four. Only West Baton Rouge Parish is in the middle.

The scores are in inverse proportion to the poverty of the students, as indicated by the percentage of students who qualify for free lunches.

Between 34 percent and 40 percent of students in Zachary and the three other high-performing districts don’t pay for lunch — the national average is 41 percent — while between 62 and 84 percent of the students in Baker and the five other low-performing districts don’t pay for lunch.

The picture is similar when it comes to private school attendance, with the highest performing public school districts having few students in private schools. Meanwhile, the lowest performing systems, led by East Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee parishes, have the highest rates of private school attendance. St. Helena Parish, which has no private schools tracked by the state, is the only exception.

The report shows that even among the top four districts, between 25 percent to 30 percent of students don’t meet state standards in math and English. Among black students and children living in poverty, the percentage falling behind is much greater.

The report also uses ACT college placement test scores to hint at how Baton Rouge area students compare with the nation. ACT scores in the area range from 15.4 in St. Helena and East Feliciana parishes to 20.4 in Zachary. The national average is 20.9.

“Every single school district in Baton Rogue has substantial room for improvement,” Moret said.

Between now and Sept. 12, the chamber plans to release four more reports:

* A comparison of public schools in Baton Rouge with those in metro areas throughout the South and across the country.
* A look at the factors, both inside and outside of schools, that affect student performance, ranging from teacher pay to student mobility.
* Results from a nine-parish phone poll, being conducted by pollster Verne Kennedy with the help of political consultant Roy Fletcher. The poll gauges perceptions of student performance and school quality throughout the region.
* A “menu” of proposed education reforms, complete with pros and cons, for residents to consider as they assess school board candidates.

ON THE INTERNET:
http://www.brac.org/education/research.html