Views on Life | vincentpbarras

A Silver Anniversary

Twenty five years ago a little phenomenon began with an opening performance of an unknown thriller The Woman in Black. Based on a book by Susan Hill and adapted by Stephen Mallatratt, it began a steady journey through numerous casts but only one director to reach a milestone few West End shows do. While The Mousetrap holds the definite record for longevity and Les Miz for the longest running musical, The Woman in Black with quiet stealth has joined the Pantheon of a select few, a show that shows no sign of stopping.

My interest in The Woman in Black did not start that long ago; in fact it started seven years ago. I was returning to England in 2006 after a drought of eight years, spending a total of four full days in London and had searched for theatre tickets online. The only thing I'd desired to see was the new smash Mary Poppins, a decidedly British show that weakened when it transferred to Broadway. The ticket costs 55 pounds, or $110 then, so I searched for cheaper theatre tickets in order to enjoy more theatre. I'd have to settle for lesser known fare, like Sunday in the Park with George (my first time seeing Jenna Russell, an Olivier winner), Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, Hey Fever with Judi Dench, and the relatively-unknown The Woman in Black.

I couldn't have planned it more fortuitously. I had an extravagant steak dinner at the nearby Marquess de Anglesby, discovering that Tabasco hot sauce was known worldwide. Shortly afterwards I entered the intimate theatre—the last row in the stalls only rose to the letter k or l—and I settled in the last row in the seat on the aisle. What a transformative experience for me. The premise had hooked me, the actors captivated me, and I never jumped so much when the hem of a black dress brushed by me during the performance. I made random friends with two young ladies outside the theatre, and we jabbered for over thirty minutes about the experience.

In many ways that August evening changed the trajectory of my life. I feverishly began plotting how I could reproduce the experience at the local community theatre group which I had just joined. In the eighteen years of community theatre, I had performed in thirty-five plays; in the seven years since then, I have done forty more. Before 2006, I had directed only one show in 1998; since then, nearly ten. I even managed to get permission from the Iberia Performing Arts League to direct and act in The Woman in Black in the summer of 2007. I have returned to London an even dozen times and have seen two more performances of the little thriller that could, once in 2008 and 2013.

Thanks to missing a coach at the Victoria Coach station, and henceforth missing a performance of Hamlet, we were treated to extra play. I chose and highly encouraged others to consider The Woman in Black, and I was rewarded beyond my dreams. Upon arriving at the Fortune Theatre, the front of house told us excitedly that this evening's performance was the 25th anniversary of the play's opening, and we were treated to a free program, Cadbury chocolate, and a glass of champagne at the end of the show. When the curtain fell, producer Peter Wilson stepped forward to delight the audience by introducing Robin Herford, the single director who had shepherded the entire run through its 29 different casts. They marveled how this tiny enterprise had returned five million pounds on its original £155,000 investment and had provided the state with over fifteen million pounds in revenue. Adding a touch of sadness, though, was the lack of a physical presence of Stephen Mallatratt, the genius who adapted Susan Hill's book for the stage and who passed away in 2007. His spirit, however, filled every pore of the Fortune Theatre like a benevolent kindred soul.

As I left the theatre that night, I was struck by another way in which The Woman in Black irrevocably altered the fabric of my life. I've already mentioned how I directed and played in the show in 2007, but the memories are bittersweet. I built the set, directed the show, and practiced the hell out of it before I took another trip to London, the first UL Study Abroad of its kind to England. Seven weeks of relentless rehearsals made me comfortable with disappearing for nearly three weeks, and we would have two weeks upon my return to finalize before opening. Upon landing in London, my sister informed me that my mother had been hospitalized with liver cancer and had a prognosis of two years. I was instantly ready to fly home, but my iron-willed mother grabbed the phone and ordered me to stay. I did, I returned home two weeks later, and she died five days after that. For those excruciating eight performances of The Woman in Black, my dear friend Howard "Mac" Stearns introduced the show for me, telling the audiences of my mother's death and that the show must go on. Life didn't stop then, and it stops for no one, no matter how much they grieve. My mother never got to see me perform in The Woman in Black, but I know she was near me that evening for its silver anniversary.

John White Must Go!

Life has an uneven mix of pleasure and pain, fatefully intertwined. Education, too, has such a mix, and educators are struggling with a new world of technology and societal changes in the family structure. Louisiana presently has a reputation, deserved or not, as being near the bottom of the barrel in terms of its education system. Over decades, leaders have struggled with providing a quality education to its 700,000 students, and that struggle will never end. While no clear answers have surfaced, one thing is painfully clear: State Superintendent John White is incapable of shepherding Louisiana’s educational situation through these tumultuous times.

John White’s qualifications are appallingly slim, and they betray a pattern of short-term jobs without any accurate measure of his effectiveness in those brief positions. A 2003 English graduate of the University of Virginia, he became a Teach for America teacher and taught THREE years at Dickinson High School in New Jersey until 2006. From 2004 to 2006, he also became the executive director of Teach for America Chicago and Teach for America New Jersey. From there, he has been fast-tracked with inordinate speed into positions of leadership that far outstripped his abilities. In 2006, White became a Deputy Chancellor under New York City Education Chancellor Joel Klein. While there, he attended the Broad’s Superintendent Academy, which trains him to become a superintendent after a paltry six seminars over ten months. When Paul Vallas left as New Orleans Recovery School District Superintendent, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal courted White to take the job, even though he had never been a superintendent before. Within months, Jindal made it clear that he wanted White as the State Superintendent, and after serving only eight months as RSD Superintendent, White was elevated to the top education position in the state, where he has now served for sixteen months.

His path to becoming State Superintendent was typically political. The eleven-member Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) must approve state superintendents, but the 2011 BESE Board wasn’t too keen on White. Four members, in fact, openly opposed him, making his appointment impossible since eight votes are needed. Louisiana politics being what they are, the governor has an undue influence on the BESE Board by appointing three of its eleven members, meaning the governor with seven votes only needed one more to secure White’s appointment. The Jindal political machine, with support from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, began pouring money in the 2011 elections to get those four White critics removed. Incumbent Dale Bayard was unseated by Holly Boffe, who called her first conversation with White “memorable and inspiring.” Jim Garvey successfully beat back two challengers to keep his seat and subsequently voted for White. (One of his challengers was Lee Barrios, another relentless critic of both White and Jindal.) Keith Guice, a former school parish Superintendent himself and therefore highly qualified to judge the qualifications of another Superintendent, said White would not be his first choice. He, too, was unseated by a Jindal-backed candidate named Jay Guillot. Louella Givens was also ousted by Kira Orange Jones, a Teach for America executive director just like John White. Linda Johnson, who also opposed White but chose to retire after serving twelve years on the board, was replaced by Carolyn Hill, who voted for White’s appointment. In a rare instance of Jindal money not getting the desired results, Dr. Lottie Beebee, who flatly stated that White lacked the qualifications for the appointment and was the only board member to vote against him, unseated Glenny Lee Buquet. Still, Jindal got his wish and the BESE board voted for White in January of 2012.

Since then, White has proved a colossal failure. Though he was not responsible for creating the COMPASS system designed to evaluate teacher effectiveness, he is directly responsible for executing it statewide for the 2012-13 school year. It has been so roundly criticized, so badly implemented, so highly demoralizing, and so constantly changed, that even the Louisiana state House of Representatives voted unanimously to delay the punitive portions for another year. (The Senate is considering the house measure now.) The Superintendent at first denied there’s a teacher exodus, and then insulted the very group he’s tasked with improving education by claiming that most teachers who were leaving must be the ineffective ones. You do not save a child by savaging a teacher. Adding insult to injury, White appointed Hannah Dietsch, another TFA alumna in her early 30s, to oversee the COMPASS evaluation system. Though she holds degrees from Tulane and Harvard, Ms. Dietsch, a fellow Broad Superintendents Academy alumna, has limited teaching experience, if any, and her knowledge of evaluation systems is mostly book-knowledge and not hands-on. White’s office has been plagued with inefficiency—it is difficult to determine who’s in charge of what in the LDOE these days—and has been in defense mode from the beginning of his term. Numerous reports keep surfacing of millions of dollars in misplaced money or equipment from the New Orleans RSD or of students in the voucher program scoring lower than students in the public schools. White assured the people of Louisiana that the State Supreme Court would uphold the voucher system and its use of Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funds. He was wrong. Nearly every act that Jindal and White wanted passed through the 2013 legislature has been withdrawn or voted down outright. And whose bright idea was it to evaluate special education teachers according to the same standards as regular teachers? How does the group-teaching-is-best method work for a class of students with autism? While the state legislature is fixing this gross error, the question remains: who at the state department even thought this was a valid concept to begin with? Is this what we call competence in Louisiana?

I am also increasingly appalled at the poor evaluation skills of this state’s leaders and the media. Evaluation is the highest level of knowledge in Bloom’s taxonomy, but the things I have witnessed have only proven our leaders lack this skill. Governor Bobby Jindal has said, “I've been so impressed with not only [White’s] credentials but his on-the-job performance…” White had only been the RSD Superintendent for seven months when Jindal said that, and White came with only five years of experience as a deputy superintendent. How can Holly Boffy, herself a Teacher of the Year, claim that White “understands what it’s like to be in the classroom,” considering his limited classroom experience? Former BESE president Penny Dastague called White the “natural choice” for superintendent, especially “When you look at what he brings to the table…” Again, how does three years of teaching, and five and a half years of administrative positions qualify one for such an important job? Even the Broad Superintendents Academy contradicted their own mission statement (“An advanced development program that identifies and prepares experienced leaders to successfully run urban public school education systems.”) by admitting John White to their numbers with only three years of teaching, which hardly qualifies him as an “experienced leader.” Three days before John White’s appointment as state superintendent, Peter Meyer interviewed him for EducationNext, an educational blog devoted to “bold changes,” and Meyer penned this hagiographic statement: “His three years in the classroom at Dickinson High gives White a firm grasp of these fundamental teaching challenges…” (Please ignore the incorrect subject-verb agreement.) No, they do not. Twenty years of teaching experience might, but three years in a classroom does not enlighten any soul to the true complexities of education nor the needed solutions.

There is but one true step that can be taken to improve the state of education in Louisiana: find a competent, highly-qualified state superintendent. Every teacher has to meet certain requirements to attain the definition of “highly qualified.” John White would not even meet those same minimum standards. Rumors abound that White will possibly accept a position under Arne Duncan at the federal level. While I heartily endorse White leaving his present position, the thought of his advancing his pernicious ideas to the federal level sickens me. It only reinforces the notion that only these inexperienced outsiders can fix what’s wrong. If they couldn’t last in the classroom more than three to five years, why are we trusting them to fix education? We don’t let first-year medical students revise and revamp the entire hospital system, so why do grant the awesome task of education to adults with so little first-hand experience? Just take a glance at John White’s biography on the Louisiana Schools’ website to witness his hubris: he claims that he initiated “12 commitments to the city of New Orleans” and in eight short months, fulfilled all those commitments. John White was never qualified for this job, and it is past time he relinquished it. So, John White must resign or, in the words of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV to Pope Gregory VII, “come down, come down, and be damned throughout the ages.”

http://theadvocate.com/home/4127328-125/la-superintendent-reorganizes-staff

http://www.broadcenter.org/residency/network/profile/hannah-dietsch
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/fashion/weddings/16DIET.html?_r=0
http://www.geauxteacher.net/2012_10_01_archive.html
http://www.broadcenter.org/academy/
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/11/john_white_the_natural_choice.html
http://educationnext.org/the-new-superintendent-of-schools-for-new-orleans/
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/10/3_bese_runoffs_will_loom_large.html
http://lft-aft.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html
http://theadvocate.com/home/1003907-79/bese-hopefuls-split-on-jindal.html
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/05/louisiana_voucher_students_sco.html
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2012/01/state_board_of_education_votes_1.html
http://bese.louisiana.gov/about-bese/bese-members
http://www.broadcenter.org/academy/network/profile/john-white
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/05/john-white-english-major-oligarchs-boy.html
http://louisianavoice.com/2013/05/22/reports-surface-that-doe-superintendent-john-white-is-out-the-door-for-washington-position-to-validate-peter-principle/
http://www.louisianaschools.net/lde/uploads/19215.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investiture_Controversy

What a Difference a Year Makes

In a year of disappointment and disheartenment, I have recently become hopeful, only just slightly, with the state of education in Louisiana. My, how things have changed.

One year ago, state legislators looked upon the recently-reelected Governor Bobby Jindal and his newly-anointed State Superintendent John White with glowing praise. These young, intelligent figures had all the answers, with White crafting a teacher-evaluation system called Compass, and Jindal ramrodding it through the legislature. Jindal and supporters hobbled together one omnibill including teacher evaluations, elimination of state pay scales,

tenure changes, charter schools, and voucher programs. Two legislators, who will remain nameless, essentially told me that Jindal had the votes to pass his comprehensive education reform package, so to oppose it in its entirety was futile. The best they could do was minimize the damage.

No amount of protest had any effect. Teachers rallied on the Capitol building steps and were treated like vermin, with some legislators caustically asking whether teachers took a personal or sick day to attend. Police blocked the Capitol entrances and herded teachers into rooms with video of committee hearings but no sound. Legislators, parents, the media all accused teachers of being lazy, ineffective, union-backing sycophants who were only out for themselves and that fat salary we all pull, for everyone knows we all became teachers for the incredible paycheck we earn. Heaven knows we couldn’t be there for the sake of the students. The bills passed with easy majorities, but teachers warned of ominous tides to come.

A year has passed; so much has changed. Jindal’s approval rating has plunged to new lows as the residents of this state realize he will willingly do anything for his naked presidential ambitions. Five straight years of budget cuts to education and health care have opened people’s eyes to the calculating, cold demeanor of an emperor with no clothes. While it is not his fault that the Louisiana Constitution has every part of the annual budget protected except education and health care, he wasted all his political capital passing an educational reform package instead of tackling constitutional reform that would have stopped such draconian cuts to two items so crucial to our state’s health.

Our legal system, though cumbersome, did its job. Teacher unions sued, claiming the reform package was unconstitutional because it covered too many topics. Our constitution strictly limits any legislative act to one topic, and eventually a judge agreed, throwing out the entire act. Though the state has appealed the ruling to the State Supreme Court, Jindal and some legislators have attempted to create individual bills that do the same thing, thereby passing constitutional muster. Those laws were introduced but never made it out of committee.

Teachers rallied again, but in smaller numbers. I did not participate in 2012 because there were so many more articulate educators in attendance. I chose to participate this year as I have begun to express myself more forcefully on these issues. This year legislators talked to us on the steps when we called them, returned our voicemails, even allowed themselves to be videoed for potential newscasts. This time, the education committee unanimously approved House Bill 160 which would delay the punitive effects of the fatally-flawed Compass evaluation system for one more year to work out the kinks. That same committee also shelved all the individual bills that educational reformers wanted, and they haven’t resurrected them yet.

Perhaps more troubling for the Jindal administration has been the questionable effects of the vouchers and the charter school creations. Stories surfaced of hastily-created schools with no physical campuses, of institutions with thinly-veiled religious indoctrination programs, of scores of temporarily-certified teachers from alternative programs who rarely last more than three years. The Recovery School District, which John White ran before being elevated to his state level job, recently was audited revealing millions in missing equipment and shoddy construction work. More money from public schools has been diverted away perhaps when the public system needs it most, yet we have plenty of money to pay bureaucrats with little classroom experience to fix classroom problems.

Teachers with more experience have regaled me with stories of old, that education runs through these cycles of reform and backlash, and that we must simply persevere and survive them. Yet I yell why! Why is it so impossible to pull parents, educators, and legislators together to produce lasting reform? Our educational system is not perfect, and by definition can improve. Why do we entrust that improvement to people from questionable institutions like the Broad Academy, which trains Superintendents in the shortest of time spells to impose sweeping changes on the educational system? There must be a way to determine whether I am an effective teacher or not that does not turn me into a testing monster encouraged to cheat the system as in Washington D.C. and Atlanta. Tying my salary to student performance on standardized tests essentially transforms me from an engaged teacher to a repetitive test giver. Continually giving Edusoft, ACT, EXPLORE, PLAN, AimsWeb, Pre-Tests, Post-Tests, and End-of-Course Tests has proven that we’re trying to measure something that at its core and in its essence is not easily measurable: the impact we teachers have on students.

This too shall pass, so they keep telling me. I wonder what things will be like in another year.

Letters to the People of Louisiana

“I Dreamed a Dream,” the famous song from “Les Miserables,” describes my educational journey this year in Louisiana. As a veteran teacher, I am despondent over an educational system that equates test scores with success and devalues teachers as agents of creativity and change.

The Compass system, flawed to its core, essentially makes teachers an obsolete facilitator versus an engaged catalyst for learning. Students should direct their own learning, create their own assessments and evaluate themselves in some Utopian fantasy. Compass rewards interactive learning, denigrating all other styles, including lecture-style learning, which most students will encounter in college.

My paycheck will depend in part on the scores of temperamental, hormonal teenagers who aren’t responsible adults yet. People use the analogy of stockbrokers who earn bonuses based on successful portfolios, but educators are not handling inanimate stocks. The time we invest will take years to bear fruit, but legislators and parents want results now. We don’t pay doctors based on patient mortality rate, so why is a teacher paid according to teenager performance?

State Education Superintendent John White has publicly stated there is no exodus of teachers, and that those choosing to leave are the ineffective ones. Such callous disregard for human beings is unbecoming of a leader charged with improving the state of education. One does not save a child by savaging a teacher.

I am blamed — three simple words, but they sum it all. Student failure does not reflect on student motivation, home life, parenting skills, economic status or geographic location. A dentist is not blamed for the cavities of his patients, but I am blamed if a student fails.

The closing lines to the song above are prophetic: “I dreamed a dream my life would be, so different from this hell I’m living. So different now from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dream."

Published April 16, 2013 The Advocate

2nd Letter Submitted.

Friends, Louisianians, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears. Though Marc Antony uttered similar words ages ago in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, I feel them appropriate here. I want all the people of Louisiana to know into what beast our education system is transforming.

Education is morphing into a testing institution. Recently the state shut down teaching to give all juniors an ACT test. In a state which always has budgetary shortfalls, we suddenly paid a fortune for students to take this test. One-quarter of a school’s performance score will be based on this SINGLE test taken by thousands of hormonal teenagers. One school—not mine—essentially ordered their teachers in mid-January to stop teaching the curricula and instead present non-stop ACT sample questions until March 19th. With this obsession on a single test, our schools will no longer be hubs of learning and discovery, but centers for testing and data analysis.

On March 19th, all sophomores took a Pre-ACT test called PLAN, therefore making them even more prepared for the ACT to come in a year’s time. With this train of thought, I believe that all high school math courses be replaced with ACT Math Prep I, II, and III, since the test is that important. As if this testing weren’t enough, the freshmen took the EXPLORE test, and we wasted an entire afternoon filling out all the scantron bubbles for all three tests.

In the next five weeks, students across the state will take the End-of-Course Tests designed to see if they know the minimum material the state feels is necessary to graduate. There are six tests, and each one takes three days to complete on computers the schools must provide for themselves. Hence more money spent on computer labs instead of teachers or students. Don’t worry, for soon we will drop the EOC tests for the entirely-new and totally-untested PARCC tests, tied to the Common Core Standards.

We prepare students for the test, teach to the test, and then give the test. Any real learning will be incidental or accidental.

Marc Antony was referring to his friend Julius Caesar, whose body has been stabbed repeatedly by Roman Senators. Sadly, Louisiana is standing over the bloody corpse of real education, stabbed to death with a knife called testing.

Published April 29, 2013 The Advertiser

I am a teacher... and I am tired.

I am a teacher, and I am tired.

Tired of coming home every night angry, abused, and insulted.

Tired of being treated as a child, as a robot, as a steppingstone for politician$ and publi$hing companie$ to make more money.

Tired of ignorance littering the air: “the Common Core is an exciting time in education!” or “APPR is just showing off the wonderful work you already do!”

Tired of being told to “wait it out,” that the “pendulum will swing the other way eventually” while witnessing the casualties pile up – causalities with names and dreams and futures and the RIGHT to the BEST EDUCATION we can give them.

Tired of being afraid to stand up for what I know is right for our kids and our country because I am afraid of losing my job and being unable to pay my bills.

Tired of my superiors being afraid to stand up for what they know is right for our kids and our country because they, too, are afraid of losing their livelihood.

Tired of wanting to be better, volunteering to do additional work, and watching helplessly as any progress I have made is brushed aside by the newest educational reform acronym.

Tired of being told, “Ohh, sorry, but my hands are tied,” accompanied by a half smile, a shrug of the shoulders.

Tired of spending hours of my life documenting and sorting and filing instead of revising and learning and improving.

Tired of wasting taxpayer money on binders and tabs and computer paper and ink.

Tired of being a taxpayer, watching as my money is spent on binders and tabs and computer paper and ink instead of STUDENTS and STUDENTS and STUDENTS and STUDENTS.

Tired of paying my student loan bills and nostalgically remembering that I chose to be a teacher, that I wanted to teach, blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead.

Tired of my two degrees and experience and individuality being ignored and devalued.

Tired of knowing what’s best for my students, but being told NOT to do it.

Tired of telling the best and brightest young people NOT to be teachers – and meaning it.

Tired of being told that if I love literature, then I’d better choose another profession.

Tired of Googling “what can I do besides teach?” only to close out of the browser every time, knowing there is nothing I’d be better at or love more than what was formerly known as “teaching.”

Tired of living in a country where my dream job no longer exists – where “teacher” is now synonymous with data-collector, test-prepper, script-reader, automaton.

Tired of grappling with the notion that I now have a job instead of a life or even a career.

Tired of disillusionment poisoning even the best of days.

Tired of telling my students that they will be heard if they support their arguments with evidence, yet knowing in my heart that that is a lie.

Tired of worrying about my own future children, who will either be numbers under this developing “educational” system – or dealing with the wreckage of a failed, expensive national tragedy in which all of the best teachers have either abandoned this sinking ship or remain on board as empty shells, whispered voices, gasping for air.

I am tired, but I am still here – and there are many of me.

Join us. Say something. Do something.

Our collective future depends on it.

Copied from a post on the facebook page "You Can't Scare Me I'm a Teacher." It was a guest column from another person, whose link is below.

Link to A Teacher's Blog

A Tribute to Nita LaCouture

My mother Rhona passed away on July 21st, 2007. It tore a hole in my fabric of life, leaving a scar from which I have not and may never fully recover. As I've told friends, the absence never fully goes away; it merely becomes easier to live with. On March 3rd, 2013 another dear lady departed my life, the Queen of the IPAL Spotlight, Nita LaCouture. Loving women, especially mothers, hold a special place in our hearts, no less so than in the hearts of their youngest sons. This is my tribute to a most remarkable woman.

I became acquainted with Nita over six years ago, when she convinced her son Matthew Dugan to audition for the play Scrooge and Marley: A Christmas Carol, directed by Fred Comeaux. I still remember the scene where I played Scrooge, and Matt entered the room, holding this huge, feathered thing representing the Christmas goose in a wicker basket. He was so tall, so gangly, and yet so happy to be there. I can't recall if Nita had begun to work with the upstairs spotlight, but I know that three months later, she was moving that light around on the stage for IPAL's musical My Fair Lady. Nita would always comment, “There's not enough light in that corner,” and she would turn the spotlight on and direct it there. Eventually directors, myself included, simply gave her free range to add light whenever it was needed, and she loved experimenting with the colors. She directed that beam of light for my Summer Youth Musicals (Aladdin, Jr., Beauty and the Beast, Jr., and Mulan Jr.) as well as my straight plays (the incredible Woman in Black and Playing Doctor).

To mention only IPAL, however, is to shine a light on only a portion of her life. She was a nurturing force of nature who enjoyed having her “peeps” over to her house, and she always greeted them with her signature, “Hello Buddy!” Nothing pleased her more than having a Saints Football gathering at her house, something I started to attend as I was dating a Saints fan at the time. Even though that relationship didn't last, my love of the Saints did, and I enjoyed watching those games and how the participants gently tutored me in the intricacies of the sport. There is no greater memory I have of Nita than when the Fabulous Five (Nita, Erin Segura, Matthew Dugan, Cindy Hebert, and myself) erupted into spontaneous dancing in her second living room when Peyton Manning threw an interception and essentially ended the Colts' hopes for victory. It lasted a full two minutes, we have it on video somewhere, and that memory will stay with me forever. No more devoted Saints fan existed than Nita, proven by the copious amounts of holy water she would sprinkle on the TV screen whenever the Saints had to come back from some deficit, which was often.

Gatherings at her house did not only focus on football; there were numerous reasons to celebrate at her house. Second only to her football parties were her Halloween soirees where all participants were strongly encouraged to dress up. One year Travis Guillory did a spot-on impersonation, complete with wig and press-on nails, of a local acting personage who will remain nameless. Another year, Sean Comiskey dressed as John McEnroe, with short shorts and a ridiculous wig, and Lainey Comiskey came dressed as a Sean Comiskey fan. Jason Seaux wore glittery wings, I dressed as Scrooge, Matt, Nita and Cindy went Medieval, and Erin showed up all in black as a Twenties flapper. As always, we posed for a picture at her sofa, and Matt would set the camera on a ten second time delay. Christmas time was also a cause for celebration, to exchange gifts and to watch Sean wear those adorable boxers... over his jeans, of course. Lainey has announced that it will probably fall to her to keep up that tradition. Those were good times.

Awards shows and movie nights were also reasons to gather in the Berry. We were there when Alice Ripley went on and on after she won Best Actress in a Musical for Next To Normal, and we would all laugh at whatever Neil Patrick Harris did as host for the Tonys. Nita hated those really bad attempts by actors to be funny—Melissa McCarthy in the last Oscar show was proof of that—but we would all laugh at the jokes that went well and even the ones that fell flat. For one Oscar party in 2009, I was in London watching a late showing of The Reader just a couple of hours before Kate Winslet won the Oscar. Nita loved Seth McFarlane's recent stint as Oscar host, and she thought it was rude to start playing the Jaws music when awardees went on too long. I am eternally grateful to have spent that lovely evening with Nita on 2013 Oscar night, because it was the next day that she had a heart attack.

If we couldn't meet at her house, we met lots of places. We got to know Brett LeBlanc, who worked in two IPAL musicals, and whatever Chili's he managed, we went there, whether it was Abbeville or Lafayette. He always took time to come and talk to us, and Nita always appreciated it. Often we would visit the Planetarium in downtown Lafayette, a favorite of Matt's, and that domed room was amazing, though in my often-tired state, people had to nudge me to stop from snoring should I fall asleep. We gathered at least a dozen people to visit the Star Wars Exhibit when it came, and we have the pictures to prove it. Nita also loved visiting the local scenes, like Jefferson Island or Cypremort Point, where a yellow bumblebee became fascinated with Matt's glaringly yellow shirt and chased him around amorously. We all sojourned to the Acadiana Zoo to celebrate Sean's birthday in 2009, and we all reunited for Sean and Lainey's lovely wedding in 2012. We've never missed a Doc Voorhies' Christmas Eve party until this year, when a severe cough plagued her and made her stay home, but we've got photos of all the other years. Nita organized a troop of followers to come see me as Fagin in Firelight's production of Oliver, and for her 52nd birthday, we all trooped over to Tampico's for a Mexican-themed evening. Nita was often a catalyst for a gathering, and we rarely cared for the reason, just as long as we went.

Nita's hallmark trait—selflessness—was always on display. She took care of so many people, not just her children, but her nieces and nephews, her sister-in-laws, and the people she called friends. She always looked out for us when in reality she really should have let us look after her a bit more. By absorbing so many of the world's troubles, she quietly labored on, slowly and surely taking on more than most humans could bear. Who else would have a truck hit her house? (I was in New York City when that happened, but technology wonderfully keeps us all connected.) Who else would have strange things happen around her house? Who else would adopt so many cats after already caring for two dogs and Isis, after Teenie Tiny passed? She always found time to wish people the best... unless they were Cowboy fans at her old job at Fruit of the Loom. We all worried about her, none more than her closest friends: Maxine, Dory, Francine, Cindy, Erin, Devan, and of course, her sons Josh and Matt.

And so there is one less light visible on this earth, but her memories shine brightly in the hearts and minds of the people who knew her. I'm sure St. Peter has a special spotlight that no one, not even shoo-fly can mess with, and she'll use it periodically to shine light in those dark corners of our lives.

Ill-Advised Changes Proposed for LA

Teachers, parents, and students need to know and understand the proposed changes Gov. Bobby Jindal and Superintendent John White are asking the BESE board to approve next Tuesday. Here is only a summary of a few topics.

The two largest changes come from the insertion of only a few words, but it will result in the possibility of removing all counselors, librarians and libraries from high schools. One section on Comprehensive Counseling (1125) no longer requires secondary schools to have counselors, only that “It shall be recommended that each secondary school provide school counselors….” The same happens to school Librarians. Section 1705 has been reworded in the same manner: “It is recommended that each secondary school have a library and have librarians…” (All italics are mine, not in the document.) This will allow school systems to eliminate these highly valuable and necessary individuals. Counselors maintain vital records, identify problems with students, assist in college and career goals, and oversee 504 accountability accommodations.

A new section, incredibly titled “Carnegie Unit and Credit Flexibility,” (2314), allows students to earn Carnegie credit in one of two ways. The traditional path is by passing a course with a grade of D or above, but the student need only attend for 7,965 minutes, no matter what scheduling system the school is using (Block, 6-period or 7-period day). Students in schools that teach six or seven periods a day can therefore miss more days and still pass the course. The new path is for students to demonstrate proficiency in one of three ways. 1. They can take and pass a nationally-recognized test, though no definition of such a test follows. 2. They can take and pass a locally developed test of proficiency, though no definition of that test nor how rigorous it should be, follows. 3. Lastly they can submit professional portfolios that meet a list of requirements to demonstrate proficiency. Students can now attend any amount of time they wish, because should they demonstrate proficiency, they can still earn the Carnegie credit. Truancy has henceforth been solved in Louisiana.

The other changes are too many to list, but here are a few. No school system is required anymore to participate in a School Accreditation program (311) every five years and receive a classification. The school will no longer be sited for having professional staff not holding a valid Louisiana teaching certificate or for having physical facilities that “do not conform to the current federal, state, and local building fire, safety, and health codes.” One section (1103) removes the minimum amount of time a student must be present in order to receive a Carnegie (high school) unit. A high school student shall be in attendance a minimum of 167 days in a 182 school year, but later Section 2314 says the minimum number of minutes required is 7,965, which actually can be achieved in 159.3 days in a 7-period day, and in 133 days in a 6-period day. Section 2313 for Elementary Program of Studies (covering Kindergarten to Grade 8) has been stripped of its suggested outline of subject areas to be covered. Any school can henceforth design any curricula it deems appropriate. The section on Elementary Summer Schools (2501) and Secondary Summer Schools (2503) have been gutted of most of their requirements, including minimum hours of instruction and class size limits. Technically hundreds of students could be shoved into one class taught by one person without a valid teaching certificate for one week if the school superintendent approves it. (All requirements for Private Summer School Providers (2504) have also been gutted.) Section 1703 also allows local educational agencies to use state money to purchase textbooks that BESE has not approved.

Please contact the BESE board and strongly voice your objections to these proposed changes by Superintendent White and Governor Jindal. No one could seriously believe those changes will improve education in Louisiana.

Reflections of 2012

I’ve never been one for making resolutions, though I have several friends who fervently do so. I like to reflect on the past, on the situations that now carry extra significance which I either could not see before or have since added in hindsight. 2012 is as good a year as any, though the years tend to blur as times slides past us.

Without hesitation, I can admit that 2012 has been a turbulent year in my job, but not just for me personally. All educators are under assault as being the cause of all things wrong in the educational system. In April, the Louisiana legislature, acting under the directives of Governor Bobby Jindal fresh from his re-election, passed education reform supposedly designed to improve the state of education in Louisiana. Designed with little or no input from educators, the new teacher evaluation system named Compass shows what one can design with people who know little about the intricacies of teaching. Any educator worth their salt knows that numerous different strategies are needed to

approach the myriad learning styles of students, and the catchword these days is differentiated instruction. Well, not according to Compass, designed mainly by Teach for America alums. This flawed system emphasizes only ONE style of learning as valuable and henceforth awards the most points for it: group learning. Apparently students always learn best under this system, so we should be doing this each and every day.

Attached to this insanity are several other provisions, some of which have been justifiable deemed unconstitutional by Louisiana courts. One provision creates charter schools, from which the state of Louisiana will divert funds dedicated to students in public schools. While I have no doubt there are Louisiana schools that perform badly, I’ve never understood how legislators—few of whom have ever been teachers or have ever graced a classroom—decide that the best way to improve such schools is to remove students from them and starve that school or system of money. A court has ruled this provision unconstitutional, though the state is presently appealing this. Another provision has eviscerated tenure in Louisiana as we know it, though the present system was thoroughly unjustified. Under the old system, a teacher need only survive three years of teaching to earn tenure, after which principals faced almost insurmountable hurdles to dismiss an unqualified teacher. Under the new system, the state designed a mathematically impossible scale where a teacher has to earn a highly-effective rating for five out of six years in a row to earn tenure, and even after earning it, one ineffective rating wipes out that hard-earned designation. As a mathematician, I designed a chart with 100 random teachers to show that over 20 years, it was possible for NO teacher to earn tenure, even those that had been ranked highly effective for 14 of those 20 years. I emailed that chart to every legislator though with little effect. The purpose of the law was never to reward teachers; it was to destroy tenure and make it possible to keep teachers as at-will employees for the rest of their lives. Tenure provisions are still winding their way in the court system.

I was—and still am—incredibly proud to be a teacher at Lafayette High School, the only A-level high school in Lafayette Parish. LHS has the largest population of any high school in the state and one of the most diverse as well. Adding to that pride was a sense of stability in the leadership team at LHS, consisting of one principal and five assistant principals who had roughly been together most of the five years I’ve been there. LHS, however, is undergoing a transition year in which the administrative turnover has been high: we have three new assistant principals and another on the way, so it’s been stressful on us teachers as well as on the new administrators who are themselves feeling their way into a new position. I wish them all luck, as do I wish all the teachers and students. It will take a while to become a smoothly functioning machine, but it can be done.

I continue to travel and I still am amazed that I can do it. Though my favorite destination is still London, I went three times to New York City and sat through fifteen plays, most of which were excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed Once, Peter and the Starcatcher, Newsies, and Other Desert Cities, and I laughed hysterically through The Book of Mormon and The Performers. I suppose the highlight trip was from August with the Luke family. I have been privileged to act in and direct plays with the Luke children, Taylor, Thomas, and Emma, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know DeeDee and Bob. Generous of spirit and love, the Lukes allowed me to sojourn with them through NYC as part of a family, not just a loner visiting the sites. They exposed me to wonders of an unexpected journey: to eat Belgian waffles on a Sunday morning in Central Park; to search for these hidden items that people leave in parks for you to find via the Internet; to marvel at plays and have someone to share that magic with. I shall never forget their kindness.

2012 also brought some sadness in that I left my home parish of twenty-five years. I first attended Our Lady of Wisdom on the UL campus in 1987, listening to then-Pastor Fr. Steve LeBlanc invite people to stewardship, to join in some aspect of the liturgy. I promptly joined the choir and made Wisdom my Catholic home for a quarter of a century. Pastors came and went, and through the years, I sang as part of the choir at all the different masses, finally settling on the 11:00 mass as my regular one for the last fifteen years or so. It was a wonderful fellowship with others like me, and we journeyed together, holding each other’s hand when some family member died, and greeting each other warmly when a choir member returned after an absence. Without going into specifics, I witnessed the incredible influence a single priest can have on a church parish, a parish undergoing enough significant change that I no longer felt welcome. The choir disbanded, and I now attend Holy Cross church, whose choir has been so welcoming and where I feel a part of a community again. As I grow older, these communal ties become more and more significant, as perhaps they should be.

And lastly—for this one I may get into some trouble—the year 2012 brought me a situation that I neither looked for nor considered possible in my middle years. I have a girlfriend. People who know me know those four words haven’t escaped my lips often in my adult life. I often joked that between teaching and plays, I had little time for dating, and God would literally have to throw someone in my lap. Ironically, that’s what happened. This lady is also a teacher who performs in plays; in fact in her first play, she played an actress who was also my wife. It’s intriguing and interesting, leading to all sorts of questions that require thought and consideration. What things do you enjoy doing and how do you find them out? Who pays for what? (don’t ask Mitch Prudhomme the answer to that). What’s an appropriate gift and for heaven’s sake be careful what it says? (Advice given to me: never buy a cleaning apparatus like a vacuum, UNLESS she asks for it.) Relationships require work, communication, and most of all compromise, something this confirmed bachelor of twenty-five years has difficulty doing. It’s hard to rewire your life when you’ve spent twenty-five years finding happiness from being a single person, and we are both aware of that. Still, she’s a woman of incredible patience and caring, putting up with my idiosyncrasies and still wanting to share her life with mine. I am grateful for this process and this journey, and I’m enjoying this new exploration, as I hope she is too.

So 2013 has begun. For me, it has started with a sinus infection and lots of pills and medication. The nice thing is, it can only get better from here. Here is an Irish blessing for you all as you begin this new year:

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.

We All Grieve

The Tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary

I know that memory fades with age, but sometimes I actually wish it would fade faster. A phone call around 10:30 at night in the summer of 2000 woke me just as I was drifting to sleep in my parent’s house. Janell LeBlanc, the Guidance secretary at Catholic High School, called to let me know that a former student of mine had committed suicide. To this day, I along with numerous others miss that sweet, gentle soul that Marcus Templeton shared so briefly on this earth with us. I taught him for three years, got to know him well, and had texted him just a few weeks before about hooking up at a football game to catch up with him. I no longer possess any memories of my childhood before age five, but this phonecall is etched in my brain in a way I wish it were not.

The sense of loss of just one young adult was devastating, so I can hardly imagine what Newtown, Connecticut is going through. Twenty-six dead, twenty of them young souls just five or six years of age, is a horror of incredible proportions, a staggering loss that leaves people in shock and makes time slow in agonizing ways. The people there are in constant vigils, searching desperately, achingly for answers that may never come. This tragedy has torn an enormous hole in the fabric of individuals, families, and the town as a whole, and it will take years to mend those torn fabrics.

In twenty-two years of teaching, I have been blessed never to face the horror of a Columbine, though death is not new. In the sixteen years I taught at CHS, I lost more students that I cared to know, including a cousin of mine. In one year alone, the CHS community lost a freshman, a sophomore, and a junior, all in different circumstances, and we nearly lost a senior to a car accident. It was a trying year for those families, one I wished they all had been spared. Each year, we have drills and lockdowns at both schools in which I’ve taught, where we shut down the school in case of intruders in order to safeguard the students we have in our presence. The courage of principal Dawn Hocksprung and Counselor Mary Sherlach in attempting to protect their young charges is incredible, even daunting, because I wonder whether I would do that for my students. I would hope that I would, but I’m human, and would fear paralyze me from doing what Jesus would do? Those educators represent the best teachers have to offer in spite of society constantly blaming us for student shortfall.

Please pray for those poor families and that distraught community. They have only begun walking a terrible journey that will stay with them probably till they shuffle off their mortal coils. I have no children of my own, though I have two nieces and a nephew and two grandnephews. Like every other parent out there, I want them to live and grow up in a world that’s safe and nurturing, and senseless killings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary shake us to our core. My mother died at age 78, but her death ripped apart my life and still haunts me a little bit to this day. To lose a five-year-old child, one who has yet to blossom and thrive, must be overwhelming in ways unimaginable. May God grant those who are grieving some comfort and peace as they sojourn through this horrific episode.