Inside Report: Pastorek Blunt About Failure- "Pathetic. Dismal. Abysmal"
by LANNY KELLER - Advocate (excerpt)

Pathetic. Dismal. Abysmal. Not the usual adjectives one hears from a state official.

Paul Pastorek has his critics in public education, but the new state superintendent does not lack for bluntness about the failure of many public schools in Louisiana. “The system is failing,” he said. “It is fundamentally flawed and it is failing.”

Pastorek acknowledged, at the City Club’s Distinguished Speaker Series, that there are pockets of excellence in public education, and that even at many failing schools there are teachers and principals working hard every day. The system itself is at fault, because it was designed decades ago to move students through a series of grades, with the end being graduates who could make a good living without higher-level skills, he said.

COMMENTARY: Interesting comments from the guy who runs "the system." He is the only guy with the power to change it!!!

Didn't we just give him a huge pay raise because he was doing such a bang up great job.