‘Career diploma’ measure passes

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 24, 2009 - Page: 1A

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Ending eight months of controversy, a bill that would offer public high school students a new curriculum in hopes of trimming the dropout rate won final legislative approval Tuesday.

The measure, Senate Bill 259, cleared its final hurdle when the Louisiana Senate voted 38-0 to go along with minor House changes.

The House passed the same bill on Sunday 87-10. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office said Tuesday evening that he will sign the legislation.

Critics contend the measure represents a dangerous lowering of state education standards.
Backers disagree.

“The main significance of the bill is to stop dropouts,” said Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe and Senate sponsor of the bill.

“They are dropping out mainly because they do not find any relevance in most of the things that are being taught,” Kostelka said after the vote.

The bill would allow some students to pursue the curriculum even if they fail a math and English test called LEAP, which stands for Louisiana Educational Assessment Program.

That would be a rollback of current rules, which require eighth-graders to pass LEAP, and meet other rules, to move to the ninth grade.

The bill would also make Louisiana one of the few states in the nation that offer students a “career diploma.” The aim is to help prepare students for a career or entry into a technical or community college.

About one in three students in Louisiana fail to graduate from high school on time.

The legislation is an outgrowth of an appearance by Kostelka and others before the state’s top school board on Oct. 18.

Critics said then that the state was not offering students enough to prevent dropouts and that, without action, they would push legislation to offer a new curriculum.

“They don’t see any relevance in reading Beowulf and Chaucer and trigonometry,” Kostelka said Tuesday, a reference to the epic English poem and English poet.