Tag: LDOE

LDOE Invests Over $4 Billion in COVID-19 Stimulus Funds

The Louisiana Department of Education recently announced in a press release that it will commit $4 billion in congressional stimulus funds to combat instructional gaps made apparent by the pandemic. The $4 billion investment is provided through Congress’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund.

School systems will be able to access these funds through a grant application program called “Achieve!” This grant program will provide districts with a budgeting process and planning method set to support priority-aligned educational initiatives through September 2024.

Dr. Cade Brumley, the Louisiana State Superintendent of Education, added to the excitement by announcing that the state would additionally invest another $300 million to support educators, students, parents, and their larger communities. This amount is in addition to the state’s announced $4 billion capital infusion that is funded by three separate stimulus recovery packages approved by Congress in recent sessions.

The LDOE press release stated that over 90% of these state funds will be fed directly into Louisiana school systemswith the remaining 10% being allocated to stakeholders in schools and communities. Speaking on both the state’s billion-dollar investment as well as his office’s pledged $300 million, Dr. Brumley stated: “this once-in-a-lifetime resource gives us a chance to make short and long term impact for students across our state. We must overcome the very real pandemic-related deficits, but also recognize this catalyst opportunity to be better for our future.”

To determine where their recovery efforts would best be served, the LDOE had asked community stakeholders to identify the top areas where school systems needed the most support from the stimulus. The following were identified as the main areas to address: “student engagement and attendance, mental health and well-being, support for learner’s diverse needs, and academic recovery and acceleration.”

At the conclusion of the 2020-2021 school year, the American Enterprise Institute had recognized Louisiana for having the eighth most aggressive reopening plan in the nation while also being the state with the seventh-greatest percentage of students actively participating in daily, face-to-face instruction. As the school year concluded, Louisiana reportedly had over 70% of its students participating in face-to-face instruction on a daily basis.

Despite the multitude of mitigation efforts implemented by the LDOE in the previous school year, many gaps in academics, student-offered services, educator development, and other areas began to emerge not just for Louisiana but the United States as a whole. These barriers to higher quality learning were made much more apparent and prevalent due to the pandemic, thus signifying an area for growth.

The over $4 billion investment announced by the Louisiana Department of Education will be used to close these academic, instructional, and educational gaps while also following the direction of guidelines previously unveiled by the Department in January 2021.

The stimulus plan is called “Believe to Achieve: Educational Priorities,” and it aims to serve as the state’s blueprint for combating any loss to instruction, particularly for the most vulnerable of Louisiana students. In the full statement, Dr. Brumley commented on the plan, saying that it’s being implemented at an opportune time when both public trust as well as transparency are necessary within all levels of the government. He added that “this multi-year plan will provide long-lasting, positive outcomes for Louisiana students. Our department was already committed to enriching student lives, but this influx of funds will provide an opportunity to create a more robust learning experience for every learner, especially following a year of unprecedented academic and emotional challenges.”

LDOE assured the public that the Department would keep stakeholders informed throughout the implementation of the “Achieve!” program by committing to keep the public up to date on the following three tenets:

  1. Transparency of funds.
  2. Planning that is priorities-based and strategic.
  3. Collectively impactful investments.

LDOE is set to release a fiscal dashboard in August to report on how the state’s school systems are budgeting and spending their relief funds. The dashboard will include both state and local data released on a monthly and quarterly basis.

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LDOE Releases Data from Teacher Preparation Quality Rating System

Programs designed for teacher preparation in the Educational workforce will now have a new data-driven tool in their ever-growing arsenal, according to a news release from the Louisiana Department of Education.

When the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, also known as BESE, established the Teacher Preparation Quality Rating System in 2017, the 27 teacher preparation programs across the state had to tweak their programs, curriculums, and methods to account for the new rating system. The system, which is required by federal regulations, is designed to provide teacher preparation providers with meaningful information that they can use to identify programs of excellence, improve their program, and to reward specific providers for meeting the needs of Louisiana’s educator workforce.

As of the first week of March 2021, the first round of information results received from the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years has been released by LDOE, and the initial data proves to be promising for the future of Louisiana educators. The data highlighted numerous positive trends in a majority of Louisiana ‘s teacher preparation programs, such as:

  • Within just the past 18 months, 43 percent of teacher preparation programs sought approval from the Board to train teachers in high-need certification areas.
  • More than 50 percent of aspiring educators who had completed a residency in a high-need school were retained in a high-need school for the following year, creating a much-needed pipeline of talent for the state’s highest-need schools.

BESE President Sandy Holloway called the provided initial data “very encouraging,” saying, “We are seeing that educator training providers are working to strengthen their programs and more state-approved, quality providers are coming online. Going forward, Louisiana’s rating system and the valuable information it generates will help ensure that these positive trends in educator preparation, readiness and retention continue. A stronger teaching profession in Louisiana results in stronger outcomes for students.”

Not only is this data indicative of more prepared teachers exiting the state’s preparation programs, but it’s only the first wave of data from two years of school. While this data is publicly available now at LouisianaTeacherPrep.com, they will only be used for informational guidance and purposes for the time being. It won’t be until 2023 that the results from the Teacher Rating System will be used by BESE to inform continued program approval decisions.

When speaking on the efforts made recently, State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley said, ““I commend the efforts over the last few years to build this informational system. This system will help inform the public, recognize success and provide a basis for continuous improvement.”

While the LDOE states that this preliminary data will be used in an informative capacity, that is also to say that this baseline data will be shared with the state’s teacher preparation programs. According to the Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed, the data provides “valuable feedback to our teacher preparation programs illuminating both best practices as well as areas in which students’ learning experiences can be improved.”

As of November of 2020, the LDOE launched LouisianaTeacherPrep.com, which has already begun to prove beneficial to not only the programs it’s directed towards but to the state’s future workforce. The site serves as a “one-stop-shop” where prospective educators can view data on all of Louisiana’s offered Teacher Preparation Programs, helping them find the right provider to suit their needs.

These programs designed to prepare teachers are post-secondary, state-approved courses of study, including both undergraduate and post-baccalaureate pathways. Completion of such a program signifies that an enrolled teacher candidate has met all training and state educational requirements to be recommended for initial certification.

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