It’s not enough for parents to sit and complain about lagging school performance scores, just released by the Louisiana Department of Education. It’s the next few steps which are important, and why.

According to the state education department, eight of 19 schools in St. Charles Parish and four of 11 in St. John the Baptist Parish fell short of performance goals. As a marked contrast, of St. James Parish’s 11 schools, only one fell short of its 2002 goal, Vacherie Primary. Sixth Ward Elementary took a quantum leap forward, the best jump throughout their system.

Looking ahead at their 2003 goals, in St. Charles Parish, only seven of their 19 schools are on track to make the goals and only six of St. John Parish’s 11 schools are on track.

What is to be done? First of all, parents must pay attention to these results and go to their children’s schools and find out what they can do to improve their children’s education. If it’s after-school or in-school participation, it is vital to the future of all of us.

The parents also need to get hard answers from their school boards and administrators. It is not enough to ask what happened in the past but also to ask what must be done to stop this slide and reverse the trend.

These administrators also need to find out what St. James Parish is doing right and not be too proud to learn from a successful program.

Looking at a system-by-system basis, St. Charles Parish ranked only 38th out of 66 school districts, and St. John Parish ranked a dismal 59th place, very near the bottom.

This is unacceptable. This is intolerable. Our children deserve better, and parents need to make certain this is not repeated. It is important, to be sure, to local economic growth, but most importantly, the children must have a quality education in a quality district to ensure their own futures.

L’Observateur