Education leaders want to look more before changing LEAP

(AP) – State education officials are not ready yet to implement a plan that would make it easier for public school eighth-graders to pass the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program test, which is required for promotion to ninth grade.

“I think there is a little more work to do on this before we come to a conclusion. This is a tricky problem,” state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek told the Louisiana Accountability Commission, meeting in Port Allen last week.

The commission includes superintendents, principals and other educators.

It often takes stands on controversial issues before they are adopted by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which meets this week.

However, top educators said they need more time before backing LEAP changes.

“I don’t have enough information,” said BESE President Linda Johnson of Plaquemine, who is also a commission member.

Critics have said that making LEAP passage rules easier would water down state education standards, which have won national praise in recent years.

Any change could take effect for LEAP tests students take in the spring.

LEAP results fall into five categories: advanced, mastery, basic, approaching basic and unsatisfactory.

Eighth-graders are supposed to achieve scores that equate to at least “basic” in one subject and “approaching basic” in the other for passage.

Officials of the state Department of Education have offered a change in the appeals process that would apply to students who fail the test in the spring, attend summer school and fail the test again. Such students could move on to ninth grade if they achieve “basic” in one subject and fall within 20 scaled points of the cutoff score for “approaching basic” in the other or if they have scored “approaching basic” in math and English and their highest score is within 20 points of the cutoff score for “basic.”

State educators said they are considering changes because too many eighth-graders are failing the test, remedial efforts have had limited success and too many overage students are stuck on middle school campuses.

Nearly one in four eighth-graders failed the test earlier this year, which triggered widespread complaints from parents and helped prompt the current debate.