Kymyona Burk, Ed.D., is a Senior Policy Fellow at ExcelinEd.
“… Low literacy levels among Blacks in the antebellum South weren’t newsworthy. The fact that they persist today is.”
Collette Coleman
In 1960, Ruby Bridges was one of four black first-grade girls to integrate two all-white elementary schools in New Orleans, Louisiana. Today schools are integrated, with Black students making up approximately 43% of Louisiana’s public school student enrollment.
For over 60 years, many Black students have had the opportunity to attend integrated schools with the intention of creating better academic outcomes by expanding access to equitable resources. But that has not been the case in Louisiana. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s (NAEP) 2019 report, the Pelican State ranks 49th in the nation for fourth-grade reading proficiency, meaning only 26% of fourth graders score proficient or above on the Nation’s Report Card. Fourth-grade white students averaged a scale score of 223, while Black students and Hispanic students averaged 195 and 206, respectively. In 2019, only 42 jurisdictions reported Black students’ scale scores, and Louisiana ranked 39th.
Louisiana is currently near the bottom in education, ranking 48th out of 50 states. In 2019, the high school graduation rate was 80.1%, with White and Black students graduating at a rate of 85.9% and 75.6%, respectively – a 10.3% difference. The state also has the country’s highest incarceration rate and fourth-highest disconnection rate, which measures the share of young people ages 16–24 who are neither working nor in school – Blacks being twice as likely to be disconnected than Whites.
Inequality and equity gaps have persisted in Louisiana for decades. Time is of the essence to address these challenges so that all students are put on a path for success and are ready for college, career and beyond.
Louisiana’s education initiatives include educating the state’s youngest learners, providing educational choice to families and diversifying the teacher workforce. The returns on these investments have been minimal, if anything.
Since 2014, Louisiana has received $72.1 million in federal grants to expand access to high quality early childhood opportunities to the state’s youngest learners. The state invested most of these funds in high-needs communities. Although Louisiana ranked 18th for access to state-funded preschool during the 2019-2020 school year enrolling approximately 30% of 4-year-olds, program quality met an average of only 7.9 out of the 10 National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) quality standards. Despite access to early education, preschool experiences have not translated into a strong, sustainable start for students. Test scores are declining on Kindergarten through 3rd grade reading assessments, indicating that too many students aren’t on a path to read proficiently as adults.
“It’s sobering that more than half of white students fail to meet the proficiency bar. But the figures for black students should outrage anyone who cares about social justice.”
Natalie Wexler
Efforts to hold schools accountable for not just overall performance but also subgroup performance were prominent features of the education agendas of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. To address the current educational challenges, Louisiana has adopted Four Literacy Pillars focused on 1) literacy goals, 2) instruction and intervention, 3) professional growth, and 4) family engagement. The state is also collaborating with external partners to empower parents and families to support their children at home. For example, Louisiana Reads! offers a Digital Family Engagement Library, parent/caregiver workshops, and book distributions to build home libraries. Other opportunities such as School Support Institutes are designed to provide support for school leaders,
Kristen Lewis, author of Measure of America: A Portrait of Louisiana 2020, stated, “When educational resources are inequitably distributed as they are in Louisiana today, opportunity gaps widen, and inequality can really grow. The good news is that just as people and policy can create inequality, they can also dismantle it.” The following State Policy Solutions are meant to protect policies that may be working and strengthen those that are not yielding positive results.
