Thursday, January 20, 2011

"Red Tape Act" amounts to an attack on teacher tenure

Officials of the state department of education let slip one of the real motives behind Gov. Jindal's Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Act at Wednesday's meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

As Advocate reporter Will Sentell writes for this article, BESE was discussing the governor's signature legislation from the last session, trying to figure out why no local school district has yet applied for a waiver of state law or policy.

Among the so-called "burdensome rules and laws" that "stifle student gain" are teacher tenure, class size, instructional time and curriculum.

As EdLog reported yesterday, the attack on teacher tenure is part of an an orchestrated, nationwide effort. We can add Louisiana to the list of states that have targeted teacher rights.

As noted in The Advocate's article, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers has filed suit to halt the Red Tape act. LFT strongly believes that the legislature has no constitutional right to cede its legislative obligations to bodies like BESE.

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