Members of the Louisiana NAACP and nearly 100 protesters rallied Saturday at the State Capitol to demand the Board of Elementary and Secondary Schools end its “unlawful” policy of requiring fourth- and eighth-grade students to pass standardized tests for promotion to the next grade.
Amid choruses of “We Shall Overcome,” President Ernest Johnson of the Louisiana National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called use of the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program testing by BESE for grade promotion unlawful, unconstitutional and said it should be stopped.
Public school students in the fourth and eighth grades must pass the LEAP test before moving on to the next grade.
Johnson said more than 28,000 public school students failed the exit examination for the 2006-07 school year.
“There is no law in the state constitution that says our children have to take this test before they can pass,” Johnson said.
“I believe that what happened to the 28,000-plus children (who failed the LEAP test) is a curse for those kids and their families. It can’t be considered a blessing that you flunk a kid by a test that is not even required by law.”
Johnson asserted many schoolchildren fulfill their classroom requirements but are being held back because of LEAP test failure.
The protest rally was the second in two months staged on the Capitol steps by the NAACP.
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Helen Stewart, of Covington, said her grandson, Corey Turner Jr., failed the fourth-grade test at Pineview Middle School.
Stewart and her grandson stood before the protesters to speak.
“My grandson did fail the LEAP test and went through the eight-week remediation class,” Stewart said. “I don’t know to this date if he has passed.
“I would like to say to BESE that we are failing our kids, but we should have 27,999 parents here today to speak for their children.”
Vanessa Norman Rivet of Baton Rouge said her children have twice flunked the LEAP test.
“I teach my children to do their best, but when they’ve done their best and they come to you and still fail, what do you say?” Rivet said. “Academically, they have done what they have to do. Change is here today so I’m going to march on, run on and talk on until BESE hears what I have to say.”
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Dear NAACP protesters,
A standardized test is not oppressing your children. It's a test; it merely measures whether or not your kids know some very basic things at the fourth- and eighth-grade levels.
If your kids and grandkids flunk, I would suggest three more likely reasons than Racist Oppression by Whitey:
1) They might be dumbasses.
2) You might be dumbasses who never read to your kids or take much interest in their academic achievement . . . until their dismal failure gives you a reason to mau-mau for the TV cameras.
3) Their schools might be rotten, a small detail you never noticed or raised a stink about because that would have taken away valuable time and energy from pursuing your constitutional right to perpetual victimhood.
Now, might I suggest you stop wasting your time and others' patience with silly protests blaming your youth's non-performance on everybody except those with whom the fault lies. In other words, sorry excuses for parents and a culture of diminished -- or no -- expectations.
I think pathetic protests such as the Louisiana NAACP's marches on the state capitol are graphic evidence of a culture of diminished -- or no -- expectations. If you really want better lives for your underachieving children -- and an actual future for the great majority of the state's African-American population -- I would suggest forgetting the P-R-O-T-E-S-T and start thinking more along the lines of S-Y-L-V-A-N.
Or perhaps L-I-B-R-A-R-Y.
In its long history, the NAACP has fought for noble and serious causes. Its members have suffered greatly for principles like the colorblindness of human dignity and equality under the law.
But if one insists upon the full rights of citizenship, one has no moral standing to shirk its accompanying responsibilities. And it would seem that being accountable for one's actions -- or scholastic inaction -- is so simple, even a child could do it.
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