Our Turn: May 13

Published: May. 13, 2014 at 3:53 PM CDT

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - The headline on the news release heralded the kind of positive progress we all like to hear. It said East Baton Rouge Schools were performing on par with or better than other large urban districts across the country. The school system cited a public education group as the authority for the information.

Only one problem. It was not entirely true.

The Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce blew the whistle on the school system this week pointing out that leaders had done more than simply stretch the truth. What they did was to focus on students from higher income families who were producing good test scores. That's all well and good, but it does not describe what's going on in the system as a whole.

East Baton Rouge schools actually had some positive results the system could have highlighted. Those gains might not have sounded as dramatic, but at least they would have been accurate. Confronting the brutal facts is an important step in any meaningful improvement process. I think we all can agree that this is an area that is ripe for improvement.

That our turn. Now it's your turn. To comment on this segment or anything else, visit us on Facebook or send an email to yourturn@wafb.com.

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