Louisiana Threads the Needle on Ed Reform

Despite persuasive evidence suggesting that a high-quality curriculum is a more cost-effective means of improving student outcomes than many more-popular ed-reform measures, such as merit pay for teachers or reducing class size, states have largely ignored curriculum reform. Joanne Weiss, the former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Arne Duncan, has brought education officials from more than a dozen states to Louisiana in her capacity as a consultant to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). In the next classroom I visit, accompanied by principal Jason Beber, 4th graders are working on a reading comprehension exercise on geology, part of “The Changing Earth” unit of the Core Knowledge Language Arts program, which the district has adopted in grades K–5. The state’s landmark 1993 Education Reform Act introduced not only high academic standards, accountability, and enhanced school choice, but curriculum frameworks with a subject-by-subject outline of the material intended to form the basis of local curricula statewide.