By Kenny Boudreaux
Reporter

The College of Education recently received an ‘A’ on its 2001-2002 Institutional Report Card given by the Louisiana Board of Regents for higher education as a result of the department’s high passing rate on the Praxis Licensure Examination.

Ninety-nine percent of the undergraduate education students passed the exam, while 87 percent of alternative education students passed the exam. Undergraduate students are students who have not graduated yet, while alternative students are graduate students who are pursuing a teaching career. The Praxis exam is an extensive exam given by the Louisiana Board that may ensure a teacher’s license to those who pass the exam. Students who do not pass the exam cannot receive a license.

“I wasn’t surprised. I knew we would do it all along. For years we have been doing a great job of producing quality principals and teachers, and it is a big lift to our program,” Dr. Cleveland Hill, dean of the College of Education, said.

“Nicholls serves a seven-parish region and most of the teachers who teach at the schools in this region, especially Terrebonne and Lafourche regions, are produced from Nicholls,” he added.

Hill said high state accountability scores, which are based on students’ achievements for local elementary schools, middle schools, junior high schools and high schools that were released two weeks ago also impressed him.

“We weren’t surprised by the high scores, because we know if we produce good teachers, the students will turn out to be good students,” he said.

Every Louisiana university received a grade. Four schools earned an ‘A+’, nine, including Nicholls, got an ‘A’, two received a ‘B’, and three earned a ‘C’. Those schools who received a ‘C’ are in corrective action, and must make improvements in their department. “Those schools must get out of that category, but they are able to access resources from the state and the department of education to help them meet that challenge,” he said.

Hill said the grade was a boost for the department because of the recent probation it was placed under by National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, their national accrediting agency.

“Some people don’t know really what that means. Our agency doesn’t see it as an (unfavorable) decision, but the public does. They (the agency) see you as accredited or not. Probation is not an indictment on our program,” Hill said.

“In fact, they even said there was no doubt in their minds that we were doing what we were supposed to do,” he said.

The reason the department was placed on probation, Hill said, was because the department did not keep up with necessary written documents, not because they were doing anything wrong.

Hill said he feels the report card grade solidifies his claim, and is the first step in correcting the unintentional mishap.

“I think the fact that we have such a high rate of students passing the Praxis exam in the undergraduate program and alternative program says that we are producing quality teachers,” he said.

“It’s like being a millionaire. If someone says ‘let me see your bank book,’ and I might respond, ‘well, I don’t have my bank book.’ That’s where we are; all we have to do is produce the bankbook. We know we have a million-dollar program, but we just need the documents to show it,” Hill said.

This year was the first year of the report cards for Louisiana institutions and the second year for many other state institutions, which were a result of a series of events.

In 1998, The U.S. Department of Education authorized an act and added
a provision that stated that all teachers had to be accountable for the results of their department.

“We began responding to these things last year, but a report card was not issued last year. The state of Louisiana asked the federal government to give them another year before they had to issue report cards. And they granted that request,” Hill said.

This year the department data was sent to the Louisiana Board then the Louisiana Board submitted the information to the Department of Education.

The reports are sent to the Louisiana Board, then the information is sent from there to the U.S. Department of Education. After review and analysis from the Department of Education, the results are then sent back to the Louisiana Board and they issue the report cards.

Originally, the U.S. Department of Education wanted the department data to be sent directly to them, but the Louisiana Board wanted the state institutions to be accountable to them, Hill said.