EDITORIAL: Report Card For Education
Advocate (excerpt)

With the Louisiana Legislature poised for another session, the Council for A Better Louisiana has released an updated version of its Education Report Card that tracks trends in elementary, secondary and higher education throughout the state.

CABL’s findings should be must reading for the governor and lawmakers, as well as the public at large. The updated report card is available at http://www.cabl.org. CABL, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that studies state issues, notes five major findings in its updated report card. First, statewide LEAP scores are showing some slow improvement, though progress is very slow.

Results from LEAP, which measures fundamental skills in the state’s fourth- and eighth-grade public school students, show a greater percentage of students now score at “basic and above” in English and reading, as well as math, when compared with students tested a decade ago.