State Louisiana’s public school students continue to show poor performance in such disciplines as Math, English and Reading. As a result, State education officials now have plans to introduce an improvement program. According to several researches and studies conducted by the National Center For Education Statistics the state of Louisiana is at the bottom of the list nationwide.

The official website of Louisiana Department of Education states that there are five achievement levels students can attain: Unsatisfactory, Approaching Basic, Basic, Mastery or Advanced and that the State wants students to get to Basic or higher in Math State exams.

In previous years, 4th and 8th grade students had to score Approaching Basic in English and math. Beginning in 2004 for 4th graders and in 2007 for 8th graders, students must score at least Basic in one of two tests “English or math” and at least Approaching Basic on the other test. To be eligible for graduation from high school, students taking the GEE must score at the Approaching Basic level or above in English and math, and either science or social studies.

Education Week quotes Paul G. Pastorek, Louisiana’s schools chief, commenting on their future plans.

“While the state often receives high marks for its school accountability program, student achievement has been mired near the bottom of national scores for years. We are tired of being 50th in the country in 4th grade reading.”