NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – School leaders have touted the latest batch of newly released LEAP scores, while advocates said there is still much work to be done.

Louisiana saw minor improvements in student English test scores in 2024, while scores for math and science mostly stayed the same.

For grades 3-8, about 43 percent of students statewide achieved “mastery” in the English language arts test, a marginal improvement year-over-year. For the same grade levels, about 31 percent of students statewide achieved mastery in the math test, while about 28.5 percent of students achieved mastery in the science test.

“Mastery” is the state standard for proficiency.

The return to nearly pre-pandemic English scores was noteworthy for education leaders, who pointed to efforts to increase literacy among younger populations.

“Following consecutive years of improvement, these latest scores show students holding steady,” said Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley. “With a need to see increased outcomes, however, these numbers substantiate our recent aggressive efforts to simply let teachers teach, provide students with high-dosage tutoring, refresh our school accountability model, and expand options for students to access high-quality schools.”

The 2024 LEAP scores can be found here.

The Coronavirus pandemic was a major disrupter for school systems nationwide, with school leaders acknowledging recovery is still a work in progress.

“The latest LEAP data released today is encouraging, with overall performance holding steady in line with recent achievement gains. With improvement confirmed in early grades, Louisiana’s emphasis on literacy initiatives and fundamental skills development is beginning to bear fruit,” said Ronnie Morris, President of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“The availability and accessibility of quality K-12 options is a strength of Louisiana’s system, in which families are empowered to provide the best learning environment for their children.”

About 36 percent of high school students achieved mastery across all subjects (English I, English II, Algebra I, Geometry, U.S. History and Biology).

“People have different learning styles, and we’re teaching to one, which is mostly lecture. The things we already know to do, we need to implement them. We just need to implement best practices,” said Ashana Bigard, a parent of two children in the Orleans Parish education system and a longtime education advocate.

“I know everybody’s going to focus on the one percent growth but considering how much money was poured into the system overall, there definitely needs to be more growth.”

Bigard said the results are not consistent with the amount of state and federal dollars that has been poured into education since the pandemic.

“We do have a lot of good teachers, we do have a lot of good people trying very hard, but they don’t have the resources,” she said. “We don’t have the small class sizes. We don’t have the books.”

But education researchers note there is a nationwide trend of low-test scores.

“We’re basically back to where we were pre-pandemic, and that’s a lot better than most states can say, so that’s a plus,” said Douglas Harris, chair of the economics department at Tulane University and director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans.

“We still see improvement after years of continuous improvement, that’s like unusual. You don’t usually see states improving consistently over time, even to a small degree,” he said. “You’ve got the high absence rate, you’ve got students more stuck on their phones, mental health issues, and I think teaching has become less attractive.”

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The push to unionize auto plants in the South appears to have lost momentum. This comes after a big loss in May when workers at a Mercedes factory rejected joining the United Auto Workers.

Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom visited the UAW’s campaign in Montgomery, Alabama to learn why it’s so hard to unionize in the Deep South.

Last week, the large core of the Artemis II moon rocket left an assembling facility in Michoud, Louisiana and headed for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is just the latest journey for the rocket, which is set to launch into space late next year.

NASA engineer Chandler Sheuermann tells us about this upcoming mission to the moon, what will make the launch historic, and Louisiana’s role in assembling the rocket.

This weekend, hundreds of artists from across the country will work on a single project aimed at exploring how artists can help build healthier communities. Their aim is to explore how art can improve the overall health and well-being of communities.

One of the participating locations in this nationwide project is in Baton Rouge. Mike Weary, artist-in-residence at the Arts Council for Greater Baton Rouge tells us about the city’s involvement and what he sees in the relationship between art and health.

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber; our contributing producers are Matt Bloom and Adam Vos; we receive production and technical support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon  and 7:00 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play, and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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A Louisiana businessman who sent more than 800 elderly residents from his seven nursing homes to ride out Hurricane Ida in a crowded, ill-equipped warehouse pleaded no contest to 15 criminal counts Monday and was sentenced to three years of probation.

Bob Dean Jr. also must pay more than $358,000 in restitution to the state health department and more than $1 million as a monetary penalty, but state Attorney General Liz Murrill expressed frustration in a news release that Dean didn’t get any prison time.

“We asked specifically that he be sentenced to a minimum of 5 years in prison, and not be given only probation. I respect our judicial system and that the judge has the ultimate discretion over the appropriate sentence, but I remain of the opinion that Dean should be serving prison time,” her statement said.

Dean, 70, owned seven nursing homes in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana. As Ida approached, Dean moved hundreds of residents into a building in the town of Independence, roughly 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans.

Authorities said conditions at the warehouse deteriorated rapidly after the powerful storm hit on Aug. 29, 2021. They found ill and elderly bedridden people on mattresses on the wet floor, some crying for help, some lying in their own waste. Civil suits against Dean’s corporation said the ceiling leaked and toilets overflowed at the sweltering warehouse, and there was too little food and water.

Within days after the storm hit, the state reported the deaths of seven of the evacuees, five of them classified as storm-related.

By the time Dean was arrested on state charges in June 2022, he had lost state licenses and federal funding for his nursing homes.

According to Murrill, Dean pleaded no contest to eight counts of cruelty to the infirmed, two counts of obstruction of justice and five counts of Medicaid fraud. Judge Brian Abels sentenced Dean to a total of 20 years in prison, but deferred the sentences in favor of three years of probation. The plea was entered in Tangipahoa, north of New Orleans.

Defendants who plead no contest do not admit guilt but elect not to defend against the charges. They are then subject to being convicted and punished as if there had been a guilty plea.

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