EdLog

Letter writer gets it right

2012-01-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

Looks like the word is getting out on Gov. Jindal's sham "education reform" scheme. It all sounded good when the governor was a candidate last fall, and made only vague references to a bold reform agenda.

Now that details are emerging, it doesn't look so good. Voters might be starting to question the essence of a plan that relies so heavily on publicly funded vouchers for private and religious schools, radically expanding charter schools without sufficient accountability, and attacking teachers.

This letter to the editor of The Advocate hits a nerve:

The purpose of reforming education is to lower education inequity by
providing every student the same, high quality, and affordable education. Gov.
Bobby Jindal has
worked to do the exact opposite by freezing per-student aid to public schools
for three years. Now his “education reform” plan will pretty much further hurt
the public school system by offering vouchers for private schools.

Who's the job creator?

2012-01-30T17:35:00.001-08:00

Tell Gov. Jindal that he's wrong about teachers and our schools!

2012-01-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

Please click here to sign the petition

This year, Governor Bobby Jindal released his plans for an education agenda that will:

Destroy the teacher salary schedule

Endanger tenure and due process rights

Radically expand vouchers for private and religious schools

Impose even more state control over local school districts

The governor’s overreaching, dangerous agenda threatens our students, our schools and our profession.

We must have the courage to oppose the governor’s radical agenda, and the wisdom and leadership to provide common-sense alternatives to his destructive schemes.

It’s time for action! Take the first step and sign the LFT petition asking Governor Jindal to tone down the rhetoric. Ask him to work with us and build public schools that empower educators, provide the resources that our children deserve, and provide unlimited opportunities for the future.

Please click here to sign the petition

Weasel words leading the voucher charge

2012-01-25T08:26:00.001-08:00

In most surveys, majorities of citizens don't like the idea of public funds being used to pay for tuition at private and religious schools.

Most people understand that vouchers strip funds from public education. They know that those schools are able to pick and choose their students, and that most public schools must accept all who appear at the door.

They know that private and religious schools are not accountable to the public, do not release test scores, and are not carefully monitored by state agencies.

So how does a governor who wants the state to pay for private or religious schooling for hundreds of thousands of children go about changing the public attitude about vouchers?

The first step is to change the name. It's no longer a voucher. Now it's an "opportunity scholarship."

Associated Press reporter Kevin McGill talks about the "weasel words" that cynical politicians use to distort the meaning of things in this column.

See Steve Monaghan on LPB's "The State We're In"

2012-01-20T13:16:00.001-08:00

Louisiana Public Broadcasting Reporter Sue Lincoln has interviewed LFT President Steve Monaghan for two episodes of her program, “Louisiana – The State We’re In.”
Part one, “Jindal Tackles Teacher Tenure,” will air tonight at 7:00 P.M. on Louisiana Public Broadcasting stations.

If you don’t have access to an LPB station, the show will be available online at the www.lpb.org Web site by Saturday morning, under the “News” category.

The second episode, which will cover charter schools and vouchers, will air next Friday at 7:00 P.M., and will appear online the next morning.

Listen to LFT President Steve Monaghan and new State Supt. John White

2012-01-20T13:00:00.001-08:00

Radio host Jim Engster had both Steve Monaghan and new State Superintendent of Education John White on his show yesterday. You can listen to a podcast of the show by visiting this Web site:
http://wrkf.org/multimedia/index.php?id=1
and clicking on “The Jim Engster Show 01-19-12, Jerry Stovall, John White, Steve Monaghan

Jindal's plan: Controversial, unjust and insulting

2012-01-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan has strong words for Governor Bobby Jindal's newly released education agenda.

In a special edition of Your LFT Connection, Monaghan writes:

On January 17, the governor unveiled his plan in a speech to the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. Unfortunately, the governor chose his words very poorly as he framed his controversial agenda.

We had hoped that the governor would identify areas where consensus among stakeholders could emerge in the best interests of children and all citizens. There are more than 30 policy initiatives outlined in the governor’s press material, a barrage of ideas that will have to be carefully sorted when lawmakers come into session on March 12.

To find out more about the LFT's reaction to Gov. Jindal's education agenda, please click here.

Newspaper: Jindal provoking "mother of all legislative battles"

2012-01-20T07:19:00.000-08:00

The Lafayette Advertiser correctly identified the fight that Gov. Jindal has picked with his 30-some-odd point education "reform" agenda.

How will lawmakers react when they discover that the governor would like to pay for nearly 400,000 Louisiana students to attend private and religious schools?

As The Advertiser puts it,

Exactly how many slots in private schools would have to be opened to
accommodate so many eligible students? If new private schools are rushed toward
opening to meet the new demand, who ensures that they're of adequate quality?
How do school systems provide transportation? Or should they? Should disabled
students be eligible for more valuable vouchers because their needs cost more to
meet? If not, will they get left behind? What if choice results in a
re-segregation of publicly financed education in violation of consent decrees
developed painstakingly over decades?

Is a Value Added teacher evaluation good for Louisiana?

2012-01-20T06:50:00.001-08:00

Politicians believe the Value Added Model is right for Louisiana teachers. LFT isn't so sure.

Beginning in 2012-13, Louisiana teachers will be evaluated using a new instrument that incorporates what is known as a Value Added Model. The VAM makes judgments about a teacher’s performance based on student growth as measured by standardized tests.

From the beginning, LFT opposed passage of the bill that created the Value Added Model for teacher evaluation. But the bill had strong support from leaders as diverse as President Obama, Governor Jindal, Senators Landrieu and Vitter, the State Superintendent of Education, the BESE Board and the House and Senate Education Committees.

Aware of the strength of VAM’s support, LFT worked with lawmakers to improve the bill as much as possible, even as we continued to oppose its passage.

Some leaders in Baton Rouge want you to believe their new evaluation scheme is fail-safe. To find out why we disagree, and to learn much more about the Value Added model, please visit this Web page.

Tone of Jindal’s speech uneven, in part offensive, teachers say

2012-01-18T19:42:00.000-08:00

(Baton Rouge – January 17, 2012) In a lengthy speech before members of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, Governor Bobby Jindal unveiled what he has characterized as his bold plan for public education. The governor outlined a broad agenda divided into categories including teachers, parents, school officials and early childhood education.
As expected, the long list of ideas included a significant number of controversial initiatives.

However, it was the governor’s word choice that proved most surprising and that many educators may find offensive.

“It is unfortunate that the governor chose to frame his agenda in a way that demeans teachers,” Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said after reading the governors’ prepared comments.

“On one hand the governor acknowledged teachers as the backbone of education and urged that teachers be celebrated and appreciated. However, just moments later he inaccurately and unfairly asserted to this audience of influential business leaders that teachers “are given lifetime job protection…and short of selling drugs in the workplace or beating up” their students, teachers couldn’t be fired.

To read the rest of this story, please click here.

Teachers vote to unionize charter school

2012-01-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

The Board of Directors at Khepera Charter School and the year-old bargaining unit representing its teachers ratified their first contract Monday. The contract establishes a salary scale and regularizes procedures for labor-management communications and teacher evaluation.

Khepera is a K-8 African-centered academy in West Mount Airy that opened in 2004.
The teachers voted last June to be represented by the Alliance of Charter Schools and Employees, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania.

To read more, please click here.

BESE appoints John White as superintendent

2012-01-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

(Baton Rouge- January 11, 2012) As expected, John White was appointed State Superintendent of Education today by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Nine members voted to support Gov. Jindal’s hand-picked candidate, while District 3 Member Lottie Beebe voted “no” and District 8 Member Carolyn Hill abstained. Reportedly, both were under heavy political pressure to support the governor’s choice.

The motion to hire White was made by District 6 BESE member Chas Roemer, who also asked that the board waive the requirements that a candidate would normally be expected to meet for the position.

Beebe objected, saying “Credentials and experience do matter. The governor's nominee lacks a great deal of both in my opinion."Beebe introduced a substitute motion, calling for a nationwide search for a qualified candidate to be superintendent. She was unable to muster a second for her motion, however.

To read more, please click here.

Your LFT Connection - January 2012

2012-01-10T12:42:00.001-08:00

Dear Colleague,

Just before Christmas, Governor Jindal invited the Federation, legislative leaders and other stakeholders to have a conversation about education. During this more than two hour long meeting, the governor listened politely to all comments and repeated his promise to continue meeting and keep listening as he prepares his “bold plan” for education.

The governor did not did reveal specific initiatives or any details; he said he will unveil his plan sometime later in January.

However, the governor’s public statements during and following the December meeting give us a sense of what he may mean by a “bold plan for education.” He has consistently stressed the following overarching themes:

To read more of Your LFT Connection, please click here.

Advocate, LFT agree on "Haynesville Bust"

2012-01-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

In a recent editorial, The Advocate in Baton Rouge pointed out that the state is losing hundreds of millions of dollars because a loophole in our tax law gives petroleum producers a tax break on the boom in natural gas drilling.

The newspaper called it"the great Haynesville bust" because most of the action is in North Louisiana's Haynesville play, where landowners have become millionaires and oil companies are reaping vast profits.

Left our of the bonanza is the State of Louisiana: "In the 1990s," said the editorial, "when horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing were new methods, the state passed at the behest of the powerful oil industry a 100 percent tax exemption for the cost of drilling wells."

In this letter to the editor, LFT President Steve Monaghan wrote of the practical impact of the loophole. "While education, health care, the transportation infrastructure and other vital public services starve," Monaghan wrote, "vast fortunes are being made by the energy corporations."

It was not unexpected, said Monaghan:

Nearly two years ago, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the
Louisiana Budget Project were partners in creating the Better Choices for a
Better Louisiana coalition. The coalition’s main goal was a balanced approach to
our budget crisis and to ensure that Louisiana had the resources required to
provide the services our people need and deserve.
Early on, Better Choices was critical of the state tax loophole granted for horizontal drilling. As new discoveries in the Tuscaloosa Trend come into play, Louisiana stands to lose even more millions.

The LFT President ended his letter by urging Gov. Jindal and the legislature "to examine and reconsider the tax breaks for horizontal drilling and each of the more than 400 tax breaks on the books."

Post-holiday catch up edition

2012-01-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

Important things happened while teachers and school employees were on holiday for Christmas and New Year's. Here are a few items that you may have missed during the celebrations.

Education reform defined: Gannett reporter Mike Hasten wrote this column, in which he asked an important question about the meaning of "education reform."

Here's the takeaway from the column:

But one man's view of reform is another's view of harming public schools and another's view of harming
teachers.
If reform is just creating more charter schools and getting rid of
teacher tenure, it's not going to have the backing of those that have to
implement it — public school systems across the state.
It's got to be much
more than that.

Governor meets with teachers (but offers no clues): Governor Bobby Jindal finally had his first meeting with teacher unions during the holidays. The governor listened politely, but did not say what will be in his education agenda, which he plans to announce later in January.

Also in the room were an assortment of politicians and, most notably, a handful of parents whose children attend religious schools in New Orleans, with tuition paid by state vouchers.

That led LFT President Steve Monaghan to wonder if the governor plans to include expanded vouchers in his plan.

“The major concern is that, in a tight financial construct, which we know we are going to be in, the dollars that will be siphoned away from those schools left behind will be significant,” Monaghan told Advocate reporter Will Sentell for this article.

Voucher concerns confirmed: Worries that vouchers for private and religious schools will play a major part in the governor's agenda were confirmed by Times-Picayune reporter Andrew Vanacore in this article.

Citing unnamed administration sources, Vanacore wrote, "Gov. Bobby Jindal and his allies on education reform are considering an unprecedented, statewide expansion of private school vouchers..."

Tenure also on the line: Also high on the governor's agenda for "education reform" is the protection offered to public school teachers by the state's tenure law.

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education President Penny Dastuge told Advocate reporter Will Sentell that tenure "is the subject that comes up in every conversation" for this story.

As Sentell put it, "Dastugue, a Jindal appointee, said legislation could address anything from how long teachers with unsatisfactory ratings should have before they face formal job reviews, to new tenure policies for future teachers.

Coalition leader hits "reforms": With a consensus growing that the Jindal administration plans to make vouchers and expanded charters big pieces of his education agenda, St. Tammany Parish school Board President Jack Loup is pushing back.

Loup, who recently accepted LFT's Friend of Education Award, told WWL-TV in New Orleans that the governor's emphasis on charter schools is misplaced.

Noting that charter schools can be much more choosy about their students than traditional public schools, Loup said, "Our Constitution says, we take all, we teach all. OK, well we're doing that in the public school system. We're not doing that in the charter schools."

Supremes to hear school waiver case: The case of Gov. Jindal's signature legislation from 2010, the phony-baloney Red Tape Reducation and Local Empowerment Act - will be heard by the Louisiana Supreme Court on January 23.

Advocate reporter Joe Gyan, Jr. writes here that the state will ask the high court to reverse a ruling by District Court Judge Mike Caldwell that the Red Tape Act violates the constitution.

The act gave Board of Elementary and Secondary Education the authority to waive state education laws if requested by local school districts. LFT successfully argued in district court that the act is unconstitutional because the legislature does not have the right to hand off its legislative responsibilities to other bodies.

Will our schools take another budget hit?

2011-12-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

What does this year's looming $250 million state budget shortfall portend for the coming legislative session?

According to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, the governor says it is too early to tell if ongoing budget woes will force yet another freeze on public education's Minimum Foundation Program.

The MFP, the funnel through which state aid flows to public school systems around the state, has been static for the past three years. Just once in the administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal has the MFP received its traditional 2.75% inflation factor boost.

In The Advocate's article, Gov. Jindal repeats his claim that public education spending has increased by better than nine percent during his administration.

Some of that increase came before the big freeze, but the bulk of it is simply because the number of public school students has risen. The MFP is based on the number of students in our schools, and and must be raised as the student count goes up.

Outside the MFP, Gov. Jindal has sliced some $80 million from vital programs like after school tutoring, literacy and numeracy initiatives, early childhood education and stipends for nationally certified teachers.

It's deja vu all over again...

2011-12-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

They're saying that Gov. Bobby Jindal's plan to cut another $250 million from the state budget "could be worse" according to this article by Gannett reporter Mike Hasten.

Of course, they've been saying that for the past three years, as our colleges and universities fall apart, roads and bridges crumble and health care shrinks.

So higher education will lose another $50 million, and all UL System President Randy Moffett has to say is that cuts will be made with a "careful and conscientious approach."

Not to beat a dead horse, but Louisiana still has over 400 tax loopholes on the books, that add up to a staggering $7 billion in lost revenue. Couldn't we take a closer look at just a few of them, and stop strangling our state's quality of life?

Coalition: Search for the best superintendent

2011-12-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is calling for a nationwide search to find the most qualified candidate to be the next State Superintendent of Education, as reported here by Debbie Glover of The St. Tammany News.

But as Will Sentell of The Advocate reports here, Governor Bobby Jindal and Board of Elementary and Secondry Education President Penny Dastuge have made up their minds. There will be no search for a candidate more qualified than current recovery School District Superintendentent John White.

Estimating conference right to reject salary estimate, LFT says

2011-12-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

How can anyone figure that the average teacher salary in Louisiana has gone up by $2,000 over the past year? Yet that is what the Education Estimating Conference was told on Tuesday, according to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell.

The committee decided not to accept the estimate, part of a much broader report on the state of public education's finances. That was the right decision, according to the Louisiana Federation of Teachers:

The state’s Education Estimating Conference was right to reject the portion of the report guessing that Louisiana’s average teacher salary has climbed to more than $51,000 per year, Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said today.

“In too many of our school systems, it is not possible for a teacher who has advanced degrees and is at the top of the salary schedule to ever earn that much money,” Monaghan said. “I believe it is fair to characterize this report as chatter, as noise that distracts us from inequities in the way we compensate educators.”

The LFT was responding to a report that consultant Mark Brantley presented to the estimating conference on Tuesday, in which he estimated that teachers this year earn an average of $51,560, an increase of nearly $2,000 over last year’s estimate, which Brantley pegged at $49,614.

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

Lottie Beebe on selection of a new superintendent

2011-12-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Lottie Beebe, Member-elect of the District 3 seat on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, has written a letter to the editor of newspapers around the state, making the case for a real search for the next superintendent of education. In case your local paper doesn't print the letter, here it is:

Dear Editor:

BESE’s first order of business will occur in January. With the announcement of Acting State Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler’s resignation effective January 31, 2012, BESE members will need to find a replacement. I strongly advocate the search for a state superintendent of education who can offer leadership to the education profession.

BESE’s action in January is critical to school improvement and education reform. It will set the stage for success or failure. Consequently, it is imperative that BESE fulfills its responsibility to Louisiana’s citizens. There should be a national search for a superintendent who has a proven record of success relative to school improvement.

The individual should be one who has no political obligations and can make sound, responsible decisions independent of Governor Jindal, or Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, and others outside of Louisiana who may have contributed to the campaigns of BESE members. He or she should possess credentials required of district superintendents.

To deviate from such standards is irresponsible and confirms the adage, “It is not what you know; it’s who you know.” This is the wrong message to communicate to our students. On Tuesday, December 6, 2011, BESE’s student representative voiced his support of a state superintendent who has the credentials expected of local district superintendents. I commend this young man for recognizing the importance of standards.

According to my research, the individual who is being embraced by Governor Jindal as the next state superintendent of education is one who has only a BS Degree in English (most superintendents have a Masters plus 30 hours with many years of academic leadership), has served as a Teach for America Executive Director, and deputy superintendent in a New York School System. My understanding is that he has completed the BROAD Academy for Superintendents—a ten-month program requiring weekend attendance. This is insulting to educators who have worked two or more jobs to financially aid themselves in the pursuit of higher credentials and positions of leadership.

There are numerous issues and challenges that await BESE during the next four years. Again, I reiterate that the first order of business for BESE will determine the future of public education and our state for years to come. BESE needs to conduct a thorough national search for the best candidate for state superintendent before a decision is made.

Sincerely,

Lottie P. Beebe, BESE Member Elect
District 3

Tom Aswell's challenge to our leaders

2011-12-12T14:37:00.000-08:00

Louisiana is fixin' to get tougher on our kids, with plans in the works to replace the current high-stakes LEAP test with a new, and so far acronym-less test that will be aligned with the "national drive to make public school courses more rigorous."

The implementation of the new test will probably make hash of the new Value Added Model of teacher evaluation, a fact that doesn't seem to faze the State Department of Education, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education or Gov. Bobby Jindal (but was recognized by Sen. Eric LaFleur at last Thursday's Joint Education Committee meeting).

Note that even as we make schools "more rigorous," we are freezing public education's budget, and cutting appropriations for after-school tutoring, technology initiatives and literacy and numeracy programs. Let's see how that works out.

And what are we really measuring with all these rigorous tests? A child's chance at future success?

If that's the case, all our elected officials should read this post by Tom Aswell over at Louisiana Voice.

He tells the story of a Florida school board member - a successful man who holds a Bachelor's degree and two Masters' degrees - who took that state's high-stakes math test.

Writes Aswell:

“I won’t beat around the bush,” he said. “The math section had 60
questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess 10 out of
the 60.” He got 62 percent on the reading test. “In our system,” he said,
“that’s a ‘D,’ and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of
reading instruction.

Which got Aswell to thinking: Could our own test-happy bureaucrats and politicians pass the LEAP, much less its more-rigorous replacement?

At the risk of great personal embarrassment to myself (as if that would be
a precedent), I would like to issue a challenge to Gov. Jindal, each of his
cabinet members, every other statewide elected official (including the
congressional delegation), each member of the legislature, and especially to
each member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, school board
members from all 64 parishes, and members of the Louisiana Board of Regents for
Higher Education...

I would like to challenge the aforementioned public officials to prove that
they are smarter than an eighth-grader. And to put my money where my mouth is, I will also volunteer to take the Louisiana eighth-grade LEAP test in the same
room, at the same time, as any public official who will take my dare. I’m
certain we can secure a room of sufficient size in the Claiborne Building that
houses the Department of Education.

Aswell lists some sample questions from Louisiana's test. It's worth a visit to his blog to read them, and ask yourself, honestly, how you would fare on the test used to judge our children's academic progress.

And then there was one...

2011-12-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

After the November 19 election, it seems that there is only one reliable voice against knee-jerk, questionable "reforms" on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

But if this letter to the editor from newly minted District 3 BESE member Lottie Beebe is any indication, that voice will be loud, clear and independent.

In just a few paragraphs, Beebe rankles at the implication that she is against "real education reform," expresses reasonable reservations about the incoming Value Added model of teacher evaluation, and calls for a nationwide search for a new, high-qualified state superintendent of education.

It looks like there may be a lot of 10-1 splits on BESE over the next four years. But never underestimate the power of one, if that one happens to be right.

VAM promises a long and bumpy road

2011-12-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

As expected, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education rammed through, with very little debate, a new teacher evaluation system heavily skewed toward a Value Added Model on Tuesday.

Not that there wasn't objection. As this Associated Press article points out, there were plenty of reasonable objections made by expert teachers and their organizations. The lack of debate was on BESE's side - like obedient children, they did as they were told and approved the new model.

As LFT President Steve Monaghan said, there are significant reasons to question the evaluation tool and its scoring methods, as well as the grievance procedure approved by BESE. Those will be revealed in detail in the coming weeks and months.

But just as a pre-Christmas appetizer, consider these issues.

The algorithm used to determine teacher scores has not been revealed. But based on reports from other VAMs, it is possible that one in three evaluations will not be accurate because the margin of error is extraordinarily high.

No procedure has been produced for a teacher to appeal a VAM score.

The Value Added Model will only apply to one-third of all teachers, those who teach courses measured by standardized tests. All others - two-thirds of our teachers - will apparently be evaluated by a double set of subjective evaluations, which are still to be determined but will go into effect next school year.

Even the new system's supporters agreed that there will be significant problems with the new system. That may prove to be the understatement of the month.

Is Jindal's BESE dominance enough?

2011-12-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

How much did Gov. Bobby Jindal and his allies spend to stack the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education with members simpatico with his idea of eduction reform? We won't know for sure until the next round of election finance reports is released, but it will be a big number, well into the millions.

What they will get for their investment is the subject of this column by Associated Press reporter Melinda Deslatte.

The gist of it is this: Despite the governor's near-total control of BESE, a "sweeping overhaul" of public education is not necessarily a "done deal."

The governor's faction will have their way in matters of policy, including his choice for superintendent of education, Deslatte concedes: "Jindal's got three appointees to the board, and most of the eight elected members espouse his support of vouchers, charter school expansion, school takeovers and teacher evaluations tied at least partly to student test scores."

But while policy is under the jurisdiction of BESE, law is another matter, and that is in the purview of the legislature.

"The new and re-elected BESE members can't just sweep in at the start of the January term and make all those changes on which they campaigned," writes Deslatte. "They can elect a superintendent who agrees with them. Then, they'll have to lobby lawmakers and keep their fingers crossed."

"I expect there to be a robust debate, but in the end, I expect in the House and in the Senate to get these proposals through," Deslatte quotes the governor as saying. Jindal has not revealed just what those proposals will be.

Deslatte notes that most members of the legislature were not elected on platforms of education reform that mirror Jindal's. They will be hearing from others who want to improve education, but may not believe the governor's path is the right one.

Deslatte concludes that the governor will "still have to get majority support in both chambers and overcome the opposition of the unions, school board leaders and other traditional public school supporters to win final passage of his bills."

Report: John White a done deal as superintendent

2011-11-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

This story from Gannett reporter Mike Hasten predicts it plainly: John White will become Louisiana's new superintendent of education when the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets in January.

Despite this plea, printed in The Advocate, from newly-elected BESE member Lottie Beebe, there will be no search for a superintendent, no question of qualifications, no scrutiny of record. Governor Jindal wants White to be superintendent, and he will be. QED.

Post-Thanksgiving catch-up

2011-11-29T08:03:00.000-08:00

The education world did not stop turning just because teachers and school employees had a few days off for Thanksgiving. Here, briefly, are a few things you might have missed:

BESE election: Following the November 19 general election. Governor Bobby Jindal is in complete command of the state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Eduction. Candidates favored by the governor and others who believe in his style of "reform" swept all three BESE runoffs: Kira Orange-Jones won District 2, Chas Roemer took District 6 and Carolyn Hill won District 8.

According to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, that means the governor "could have the support of nine or 10 members after months of 6-5 votes on key school topics."

The governor's only disappointment in the BESE races came in District 3, where St. Martin Parish School Board Human Relations Director Lottie Beebe defeated long-time incumbent Glenny Lee Bouquet in the October 22 primary.

In this article by Gannett's Mike Hasten, Gov. Jindal reports that he is happy with the new, right-leaning BESE. The new members seem to be struggling to maintain their own identity, but will that last when the governor applies pressure?

Expensive charter school: One charter school in Jefferson Parish spends $87,500 per student, according to this article by Times-Picayune reporter Barri Bronston. The school, which was established to serve students who have been expelled from middle schools for various offenses, has seven teachers and eight students.

That news prompted the Monroe News Star editorial writer to question, in very understated fashion, the wisdom of spending that much money on one school: "it's important to note that even charter schools require some close supervision."

"Within our local systems," the editorial notes, " you could ask Ouachita Parish Superintendent Bob Webber or Monroe City Schools Superintendent Kathleen Harris what they could do with $87,500 per student, and we are quite certain either one of them would respond that an investment of that much public money per student would result in a world-class school system."

Teach for America: The growing influence of Teach for America was explored in this article by Times Picayune reporter Andrew Vanacore.

Once seen as a sort of Peace Corps that brought idealistic young college graduates into hard-to-staff schools, Teach for America has become a political as well as educational force to be reckoned with.

Best known is John White, currently the superintendent of the Recovery School District and Gov. Jindal's pick to replace Paul Pastorek as State Superintendent of Education. But newly minted BESE member Kira Orange-Jones is also a TFT alum, along with the new executive director of BESE and Gov. Jindal's new policy advisor.

A little justice for some Filipino teachers: The Caddo Parish School Board has done the right thing and settled with the U.S. Department of Labor, awarding Filipino teachers in the parish some $1,300 each because of their entanglement with a crooked recruiting firm.

It is a small step to correct a much larger injustice. The settlement only applies to a specific charge brought by the U.S. Department of Labor against the Caddo school board. It leaves open U.S. allegations against other school systems, and does not deal with the LFT complaint, filed with the State Workforce Commission, that Filipino teachers were forced to pay fees that should have been paid by school boards under Louisiana law.

Value Added Model: As the state tests a new teacher evaluation scheme called the Value Added Model, questions are popping up about how fair it will be.

Reporter Sue Lincoln filed this story for the Southern Education Desk, in which LFT President Steve Monaghan questions how well the new system will actually measure teacher effectiveness.

The privatization of public education: In an epic article for The Nation, reporter Lee Fang exposed the "quiet but astonishing national transformation" of public education into a cash machine for big business.

Lobbyists, he writes, have "combin(ed) the financial firepower of their corporate clients with the seeming legitimacy of privatization-minded school-reform think tanks and foundations."

Focusing on virtual schools, he writes, "This legislative juggernaut has coincided with a gold rush of investors clamoring to get a piece of the K-12 education market. It’s big business, and getting bigger: One study estimated that revenues from the K-12 online learning industry will grow by 43 percent between 2010 and 2015, with revenues reaching $24.4 billion."

Local Federation chapters grow together: Educators in Caddo and Bossier parishes can expect to see their influence grow with the creation of the new Red River United Federation.

As reported here by Mary Nash-Wood of the Shreveport Times, the new organization combines the power of the Caddo Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel and the Bossier Federation of Teachers and School Employees.

"It will essentially be a super group over the two organizations," said CFT President Jackie Lansdale.

You're not paranoid - they really are coming to get you

2011-11-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

Teachers, school employees, parents and supporters of public education have a lot to worry about. Not to sound paranoid, but they really are coming to get us.

In today's Advocate, reporter Will Sentell has a story about the speech that Lane Grigsby gave to Volunteers in Public Schools yesterday. Grigsby is the moneybag tycoon behind the Alliance for Better Classrooms. That's the group that poured tons of money into BESE and legislative races, demanding in return a pledge to oppose teacher tenure.

Grigsby's group is working closely with the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana and others to take the "public" out of public education. As the article puts it, "ABC favors a wide range of steps in the name of school choice, including tax credits and major changes in how public schools are funded."

Grigsby's isn't the only deep-pocketed, corporate-aligned organization to paint a target on the backs of public educators, however. On December 12, the Pelican Institute for Public Policy will hold its "policy orientation" for the Louisiana legislature.

Featured speakers at the conference will be Sen. David Vitter and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, who says he'd like to shrink government small enough to drown it in a bathtub.

Panelists on the agenda include a laundry list of right-wing activists and legislators who are pushing a radical "reform" agenda aimed at privatizing, voucherizing and charterizing our schools.

The upshot of it all is this: Louisiana is now squarely in the middle of a national fight over public policy, with an emphasis on public education. After Saturday's general election, it promises to be a long and perhaps bloody four years.

Reasons to oppose Amendment 1

2011-11-16T20:25:00.000-08:00

The Louisiana Budget Project has published the best reasons to vote against Amendment 1 in this Saturday's election: it "would damage the ability of state and local governments to provide revenue needed to support health care, education, and other essential services."

Aside from the simple fact that a constitution should comprise the broad values that define a state, not a laundry list of issues that would be better addressed in law and policy, this amendment is a bad idea.

It would prohibit local governments from assessing a transfer fee when real estate is sold. But there is only one parish where such a fee now exists, and there are no plans elsewhere to establish a transfer fee.

The amendment's proponents want to make sure that there never will be, and are willing to clog up the constitution with more micromanagement to accomplish that end.

Its supporters tend to be the same people who say they want smaller government, yet they are willing to tie the hands of the smallest level of government. Limiting local authority to raise revenues makes local government more dependent on state and federal resources, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Letter: Jindal fails schools on two counts

2011-11-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

A reader's letter to the editor of The Advocate points out two issues that demonstrate Gov. Bobby Jindal's lack of concern for public services such as education, especially as they affect lower income citizens.

The reader cites the governors "possibly intentional" failure to win an $80 million grant to expand broad-band services to portions of the state that lack high-speed information technology, and his "certainly intentional" failure to apply for $60 million in federal funds to expand pre-kindergarten education.

The comments that follow the letter are enlightening, and demonstrate that both the governor's supporters and detractors are following these issues.

Governor playing reform close to vest

2011-11-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

What's next? Gov. Jindal was handily re-elected, but is reticent to announce his plans for the future, other than to say "education reform" looms large on his agenda.

As Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon writes here, details are lacking. The governor's supporters apparently expect to have their own ideas of reform implemented. Those include abolishing teacher tenure, expanding vouchers for private and religious schools, scaling back on local authority and handing much more control of schools over to the state department of education.

The governor himself is mostly silent, leaving LFT President Steve Monaghan to comment, “To me, it’s almost like you have a gift box and inside you have another gift box. When do you get to what it is?”

They're catching on...

2011-11-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Gov. Jindal may have just won a re-election landslide, but that does not mean his programs and goals are all popular.

In fact, if this column by the publisher of the Livingston News is any indication, people are starting to catch on to the governor's real agenda for public schools, and they don't like it one bit (free registration is required to see the full article).

Jeff David starts his column in terms as stark as any you're likely to see: "Let's be very clear about it. The primary stated goal of the Bobby Jindal administration during its second four years will be the elimination of the public school systems in the state of Louisiana, including the public school system in Livingston Parish."

These are fighting words in Livingston Parish, a reliably Republican, middle-class community that is very proud of its excellent public school system.

"The Governor of the state of Louisiana," David writes, "the one you voted for three times in droves, is about to drive a knife into your back and twist the handle for good measure."

Like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales have fallen from Jeff David's eyes. He understands what the governor is up to, and he's appalled.

"Why would Jindal turn his back on the very people who elected him?" asks David. "So that he can run for President, that's why."

And he seems to understand that Jindal's road to the White House will be paved with contributions from very big businesses - ones that expect to profit from the privatization of Louisiana's schools.

In order to carry through with his commitments, however," David writes, "Jindal needs both the Legislature and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to go along with the plan. Both have a shared constitutional say in where state funds for education are spent.

"That is why you have seen funded PACs, many with outside Louisiana money in them, come into the state this year and get involved in legislative races as well as BESE races."

As the people catch on to the governor's agenda, and as newspapers like the Livingston News start reporting what's really happening to our state, Jindal might have tougher sledding in his second term than he did in the first.

Ethics issues dog Chas Roemer and Kira Orange-Jones

2011-11-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

Two candidates strongly supported by Gov. Bobby Jindal, big business and even New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are facing ethics issues in the waning days of the 2011 election season.

Kira Orange-Jones, candidate for the District 2 seat on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, is the subject of a cease-and-desist order signed by a New Orleans judge.

According to the online publication New Orleans Agenda, "Orange Jones had claimed in her
campaign advertising that she had voted for President Obama in November, 2008, but the
plaintiffs provided the court with a sworn statement signed by Orange Jones on August 17, 2011, that she had never before been registered to vote in Louisiana or any other place."

The order says that Orange-Jones must "cease and desist from misrepresenting her voting record or her registration in violation of Louisiana Revised Statute 18:1463." It is illegal for candidates to make statements that they know to be false or misleading, according to the article.

Chas Roemer, in a runoff for re-election to his District 6 BESE seat, has run afoul of the Louisiana ethics code and must return some $10,000 worth of contributions, according to this article by Mikhail Zinshteyn in The American Independent.

It seems that when the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry pumped $20,000 into Roemer's campaign, the cash infusion lifted him way over the legal limit for PAC contributions.

Gov. Jindal recently sent a fund-raising letter on Roemer's behalf, and his campaign fund for the District 6 seat - which pays no salary - now holds over $220,000. His opponent, former Ascension Parish Superintendent of School Donald Songy, has raised less than $14,000.

Songy's campaign chest is about par for BESE elections. The really curious question is why all the big money is pouring into Roemer's campaign. It is an unprecedented expenditure for the state school board.

But that's not the only ethics question dogging Roemer. His sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, is executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools. Because of her relationship with Chas, she is prohibited from speaking at BESE meetings, and does not do so.

As this article by Louisiana Voice reporter Tom Aswell points out, ethics laws also prohibit elected officials from voting "on any matter in which a member or his immediate family has a substantial economic interest."

The ethics board has never made a specific ruling in his case, but it would seem that Chas Roemer should abstain from any vote involving one of his sister's schools.

Instead, Aswell writes, "In December of 2010 alone, he made motions to approve charter school contracts of $50,000 and under, made motions to approve Crescent City School, the NET Charter High School, the Collegiate Academy Charter School, the Sarah T. Reed Charter Middle School, the ReNEW K-8 Charter School, The ReNEW Alternative High School, and in one case, made the motion to deny an application to commence operation of Joseph A. Craig Charter School in New Orleans."

Value Added's epic FAIL in Tennessee

2011-11-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

New York Times reporter Michael Winerip has written this expose of Tennessee's failed Value Added Model for teacher evaluation.

It's a devastating story of what happens when well-meaning politicians meddle in areas they know nothing about. We will soon see similar stories reported in Louisiana when our own politician-driven Value Added Model goes into effect.

As in Tennessee, our version of the VAM requires teachers to be judged according to their students' test scores. And as in Tennessee, a majority of our teachers have classes that are not subject to standardized tests.

Louisiana is in the process of devising a way to apply a VAM to non-core teachers that will probably wind up looking much like Tennessee's model.

Here's what reporter Winerip says: "Because there are no student test scores with which to evaluate over half of Tennessee’s teachers — kindergarten to third-grade teachers; art, music and vocational teachers — the state has created a bewildering set of assessment rules. Math specialists can be evaluated by their school’s English scores, music teachers by the school’s writing scores."

The result of Tennessee's bad experiment? Low morale, ill-will, micromanagement and loss of faith in the state's political leadership.

This story should be required reading for Governor Jindal, BESE members and the legislature.

BESE runoff elections are underway!

2011-11-07T18:52:00.000-08:00

Early voting started Saturday!

Click here to find early voting locations in your parish

Nov. 5-12, 2011 is the early voting period for the Nov. 19, 2011 General Election (except Sunday and November 11, 2011-Veterans Day).

Early voting hours: 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Early voting takes place at the Registrar of Voters office in each parish and at designated locations in certain parishes.

LFT supports Louella Givens in District 2

Click here to download a flier supporting Louella Givens.

District 2 BESE incumbent Louella Givens is in a tough fight to retain her seat on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Because she has often opposed the governor’s education agenda, she has been targeted for defeat by big-business interests and out-of-state meddlers.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has personally contributed $5,000 to her campaign, aside from the $100,000 he contributed to a new PAC committed to defeating pro-public education candidates.

“Louella Givens has been vilified for her pro-public school positions,” said LFT President Steve Monaghan. “She is a fighter for real education reform, and is a true advocate for all the children of the state.”

District 2 includes St. Charles Parish and parts of Orleans, Jefferson, St. John, St. James and Assumption Parishes.

Donald Songy is the best candidate for BESE District 6

Click here to download a flier supporting Donald Songy.

Donald Songy has a long record of success as a classroom teacher, administrator and superintendent of one of the state’s fastest growing, most successful school systems.

His opponent, Chas Roemer, spent the last four years blaming teachers for our problems and building a bureaucracy of high-paid State Education Department officials.

Here’s what you need to know before you vote:

Donald Songy:

Retired classroom teacher, assistant principal, principal, personnel director and superintendent of Ascension Parish Schools.

Opposes state seizure and privatization of public schools.Supports fair, consistent evaluation of teachers.

Believes that resources should go to the classroom, and that public education’s Minimum Foundation Program should be fully funded.

Endorsed by teacher organizations, school boards, and the coalition for public education.

Chas Roemer

Managing partner of an investment corporation. One-term BESE member, elected without opposition in 2007.

Conflict of interest—consistently votes for taking schools and issuing charters, even though his sister is the executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools.

Asked legislators to sign a pledge to abolish teacher tenure. Major supporter of former Superintendent Paul Pastorek’s “Value Added Model” of teacher evaluation.

Helped Pastorek stack the State Department with over 40 new bureaucrats making more than $100,000 per year. Opposed restoring the MFP’s 2.75% growth factor.

Benefits from a $100,000 contribution from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Supported by an anti-public school coalition of big businesses.

District 6 covers Livingston and Washington Parishes, and parts of East Baton Rouge, Tangipahoa and Ascension Parishes.

Federation urges vote for Jimmy Guillory in BESE district 8

Click here to download a flier supporting Jimmy Guillory.

The Louisiana Federation of Teachers has endorsed Jimmy “Dr. Jim” Guillory in the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s District 8 runoff election.

“Dr. Jim” is a strong, independent supporter of public education. A former member of the Avoyelles Parish School Board, he understands the needs of a district that includes some of the most challenged urban and rural schools in the state.

His opponent is supported by the cabal of big-business and out-of-state meddlers, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who want to seize control of public education in Louisiana.

Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan urged voters to overcome divisions and vote for the candidate whose educational background and unquestioned support for public education make him the best-suited person for the job.

“The stakes are high this year, and the future of public education hangs in the balance,” said Monaghan.

District 8 covers Avoyelles, East and West Feliciana Parishes, and parts of East and West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Ascension, Pointe Coupee, St. Landry Evangeline, St. Martin and Lafayette Parishes.

Advocate editorial: Jindal selling our kids short

2011-11-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

Add Baton Rouge's own Gray Lady to the list of those perplexed by Gov. Bobby Jindal's refusal to apply for a $60 million grant to expand pre-kindergarten services to the thousands of eligible children in our state.

This editorial in The Advocate probes the governor's claim to be focused on education, while at the same time rejecting money for a strategy proven to help children succeed.

"We hope," the Advocate's editorial writer says, "this isn’t a case of Republican Jindal dismissing a promising source of help for Louisiana’s schoolchildren just because the help is being offered by the Democratic Obama administration."

Columnist gets it right on tenure

2011-11-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

Hammond Daily Star columnist Lil Morando gets it exactly right in this journal entry. It should be read by every member of the Louisiana Legislature, because they will be barraged with bills aimed at abolishing teacher tenure next spring.

It should also be required reading for voters in Board of Elementary and Secondary Education District 6, where incumbent member Chas Roemer has made an obsession of his crusade to get rid of tenure.

With politicians like Roemer banging the drum about tenure, Morando makes an important point: "The reason tenure exists is to keep politics out of the system, to make sure that when teachers are fired it is because they are incompetent. At a time when we should be working to keep politics out of our school system, 'getting rid of tenure' would do just the opposite."

She revisits what educators already know, that tenure is not lifetime job security, nor does it prevent administrators from firing poorly performing teachers. Tenure simply guarantees that there will be a fair, open process to ensure that a teacher's rights are respected.

Morando's conclusion is one that all of us should take to heart: "Yes, Louisiana education needs reforms, but the goal of all reforms must be to improve education for all our children. Getting rid of tenure and laying off teachers will not accomplish that goal."

School discipline's Catch-22

2011-10-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

There have recently been a few disturbing, highly publicized incidents of teachers physically attacking students.

While no one condones it when a teacher loses control like that, Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan explained to WAFB-TV that a changing culture in our classrooms has led to increased frustration in the teacher corps.

"If that teacher is dealing excessively with discipline, discipline, discipline all day long - we're all human beings," Monaghan told reporter Kelsey Davis. "At some point there is a breaking point."

Louisiana has tough laws on the books that ought to guarantee an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning. But all too often, those laws are not enforced.

One reason for that is a "Catch-22" built into our state's school accountability laws. Disciplinary actions such as expulsions and suspensions must be reported, and can help lower the letter grade reported to the public. Doing the right thing can lead to bad results for the school.

Why is the mayor of New York buying Louisiana elections?

2011-10-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Why is so much money being funneled into an election to a board that pays no salary? And why is the mayor of New York City so interested in Louisiana's public schools that he donated $100,000 to a group that is dedicated to stacking that same board?

Those are just two of the questions swirling around the 2011 election to the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. As EdLog has noted before, BESE has risen higher than ever before on the political radar screen.

At the heart of the issue is Gov. Bobby Jindal's desire to have complete control of the state school board, and the ability to name the next superintendent of schools. That requires eight votes on an 11-member board.

The governor appoints three members. The rest are elected. And the person chosen by the governor to be the next state superintendent is a former deputy chancellor of the New York City school system.

Mayor Bloomberg's donation was to the Alliance for Better Classrooms. It was formed by multimillionaire Lane Grigsby in order to elect BESE members who would adhere to a rigid corporatist ideology and support the governor's agenda.

Which helps to explain why a state school board race is being shaped by forces from far outside the borders of Louisiana, from all the way to the halls of power in New York City.

The foolish inconsistency of Bobby Jindal

2011-10-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

"Foolish consistency," Ralph Waldo Emerson once sniffed, "is the hobgoblin of little minds." But what is there to be said about the foolish inconsistency of the Jindal administration's refusal to apply for $60 million in federal funds for pre-kindergarten education?

That's the topic explored by Associated Press pundit Melinda Deslatte in this column, in which she explores an inconsistency that crosses the line into hypocrisy.

The governor had no qualms when he denounced federal stimulus funds for other purposes, then accepted the tainted money and presented huge cardboard checks to local officials as if they were personal contributions to the welfare of the communities.

So what's the big deal about the pre-K program? We all know that early childhood intervention is the best guarantee of future academic success. This sudden, foolish inconsistency will do actual harm to thousands of children who could benefit from pre-K services.

And congratulations to Sen. Mary Landrieu for pointing out the damage that Gov. Jindal's decision can cause.

Livingston issue proves union value

2011-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

If teachers and school employees ever wonder why a union is valuable to them, they need look no further than this article by Advocate reporter Faimon Roberts.

The Livingston Parish School Board had adopted a policy requiring employees to complete an overly intrusive medical history form just in case they are ever injured on the job and need to apply for worker's compensation.

They would have been forced to complete the form, which included numerous questions about very personal issues, and have every page signed by their principal or supervisor.

Unions complained. At a school board meeting, LFT Field Representative Mona Icamena said the information required on the form went far beyond what principals ought to know about their employees.

Thanks to the unions, the board agreed to change the way information required by workers' compensation is collected, keeping sensitive information away from prying eyes.

Stretching the numbers and the truth

2011-10-19T10:25:00.001-07:00

Across the political spectrum, Gov. Bobby Jindal's agenda is being exposed as an exercise in spin aimed more at political gain than the good of the state.

As Mark Ballard, The Advocate's capitol bureau chief, lays out in this column, Jindal's claims of fiscal success ring very hollow.

First, C.B. Forgotston, a right-leaning economic analyst, lays bare the deception in the governor's claims that he has “reduced the state budget by a stunning total of $9 billion..."

In fact, the reduction claimed by Jindal is the result of comparing estimates, according to Forgotston, and not because of any real reduction in the budget.

As the Louisiana Budget Project has demonstrated, when federal funds are subtracted, Louisiana's general fund budget has remained virtually flat since 2005.

Then there is the administration's claim to have actually increased education funding through the Minimum Foundation Program, a claim debunked by the LFT in Ballard's column.

The governor did not increase education funding. Per-pupil funding for the MFP has been frozen for three years, thanks to the governor, the legislature and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

While the total amount of money in the MFP has gone up, that is because of increases in student enrolment and other automatic triggers that the governor does not control. He is taking credit for something he did not do.

Outrage du jour: Jindal turns down millions for pre-K

2011-10-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

Shocking many in the education community, Gov. Bobby Jindal and his underlings refuse to apply for some $60 million in federal early education funds, as reported here by The Advocate's Will Sentell.

Despite a wealth of data proving beyond doubt that pre-K intervention is the best way to ensure future academic success, the Jindal administration has already frozen LA4, a nationally respected program. The result is that tens of thousands of children remain on waiting lists for this service.

Now the administration doesn't even deign to ask for the available federal grant, claiming that it comes with "strings." All that means is that the state has to prove a need - no heavy lift there - and that we have proper organization for our pre-K services.

Just another shameful episode for a state that lags the nation in just about every positive measure.

Truth in advertising: Chas Roemer edition

2011-10-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

To see Board of Elementary and Secondary Education member Chas Roemer's TV re-election ad, you'd think he is shocked - shocked, I tell you - by Louisiana's "bloated" education bureaucracy.

Standing with the wife and kids, he says of Louisiana's $9 billion education budget, "we should put that money into the classroom not into the pockets of bureaucrats.”

And yet, as part of the Jindal administration's majority on the BESE board, Roemer voted to make former State Superintendent Paul Pastorek the highest paid education superintendent in the nation at over $300,000 per year, and Roemer voted to pay Recovery School District Superintendent John White some $250,000 per year.

The state department of education, which Roemer's board oversees, now has 45 staff members who make more than $100,0000 per year.

Bloated bureaucracy? Take a peek in the mirror.

School letter grades become BESE issue

2011-10-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

In this Advocate article, District 6 BESE member Chas Roemer says of the recently released school letter grades, "For the first time we are getting a real sense of how our schools are doing.”

How can that be possible? There are two things that we know about the letter grades: they tell us absolutely nothing new about schools because they simply repackage existing data; and they lump so many key components together that the effect is to slap a meaningless label on schools.

But for Roemer and the other Jindal allies on BESE, letter grades have become a defining, bright-line issue in this year's election. Roemer's two opponents, Democrat Donald Songy of Ascension Parish and Republican Elizabeth Meyers of Livingston Parish, both oppose the way letter grades have been imposed. Both Meyers and Songy have been declared favorable candidates by LFT.

In District 8, the article notes, LFT-endorsed candidate Domoine Rutledge opposes the letter grades while other major candidates are in support.

Educator gives state "I" and "D" for grading schools

2011-10-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

Educator and researcher Dr. Andre Perry says the State Department of Education's letter grades for schools is a "gross, inexact measure that does not reveal the very important details of how a school is performing" in this article from The New Orleans Agenda.

"The State," he concludes, "must add letter grades that separately measure key components of school performance as part of a school report card. In the meantime, the State and individual school leaders must now explain the inaccurate grades without sounding like they're offering excuses for them. Therefore, the State should be given an 'I' for its incomplete efforts to measure school performance. But, following the their own practice, we'll give them a 'D' for their efforts."

School letter grades are intellectually dishonest

2011-10-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

Letter grades have an important function in schools. In each subject, children receive grades as indicators of their progress and to identify areas that need improvement. Letter grades have become so ingrained in our culture that everyone understands "A" means excellent and "F" means failure.

But no child ever comes home from school simply labeled "A", "F" or anything in between. The letter grades indicate levels of progress in a range of subjects.

Which is one reason why the letter grades issued to schools this week are so intellectually dishonest. They simply slap a label on a school without explaining anything. School letter grades take advantage of a common understanding in order to create an impression that can be very misleading.

A second reason why this week's exercise is intellectually dishonest is that the school letter grades tell us nothing that we don't already know. Before Wednesday, schools were rated by a system of stars and labels. The new system assigns grades of “A” through “F” to schools and school districts. There is no other difference in the way that school data is collected or analyzed.

Governor Jindal and his political cohort simply repackaged what we already know about schools in the most negative light possible, then held a press conference to bang the drum for their own idea of reform just weeks before an election.

The news media took the bait, as this article, which occupied most of The Advocate's front page on Thursday, demonstrates.

The media frenzy validated the Louisiana Federation of Teachers' concern that "assigning a single letter grade to a school oversimplifies complex issues and trivializes the numerous factors that contribute to the performance of a school."

It should be no surprise, for example, that magnet schools with selective admissions policies earned an "A," and no one should be shocked that alternative schools which take in troubled children for short periods are labeled with an "F."

What is lost in the hoopla over the new labels is the fact that most schools are improving, and that teachers are going to extraordinary lengths to help their students succeed.

These gains are underway even though resources for public education have shrunk dramatically. The main funding source for schools, the Minimum Foundation Program, has been frozen for three years, even as costs to local school boards skyrocketed.

Over $76 million for after school tutorial programs, classroom technology, reading and math initiatives and stipends for nationally certified teachers - the very programs that help students succeed - was cut by Governor Jindal.

The governor called Wednesday's press conference and touted these questionable labels to further his campaign on behalf of his hand-picked candidates for the legislature and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Their agenda is clear. They want to abolish teacher tenure, turn more schools over to private operators and seize authority over schools from locally elected school boards.

If the governor and his allies are really concerned with improving education, they will fully fund the Minimum Foundation Program and restore the programs that work to achieve student success.

LFT Marches in Solidarity with Shipyard Workers

2011-10-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Louisiana Federation of Teachers marched October 1 in solidarity with workers at Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, which is under threat of closing. LFT leaders from around the state made the trek to New Orleans to show support for the shipyard.

It was a true Second Line parade, with marchers stepping out behind the Treme Brass Band and a grand marshal replete with umbrella, all members of the musicians' union. Hundreds of workers and community supporters met at the Superdome and marched down Poydras Street for a rally at the federal building.

The shipyard workers live in Jefferson Parish and surrounding communities, and their children attend local public schools. Educators already are seeing the ravages of past rounds of budget cuts and the effect they have on students. If the shipyards close, this dire situation will become even worse, so AFT members are doing their best to be there for the workers and their families. (More information about the fight to save Avondale is available online .)

"We all need Avondale, and American business needs more ships," said United Teachers of New Orleans President Larry Carter. "We want to know what elected leaders and the Avondale owners are doing to keep the shipyard open. Our community, our students and our jobs depend on it."

Teachers and school support personnel alike realize that the shipyard's closing would hit the New Orleans area economically and harm the public schools, said Laura Harper, PSRP chair of the Jefferson Federation. "Many of our members have spouses who worked at the yard and have already been laid off," she said. "They can't find other jobs, so they are living on unemployment and the salary of the PSRP member, which tops out, for a paraprofessional, at $23,500.”

See more photos of the march in our Facebook album. Please click here.

Man bites dog story: Forbes article supports teacher unions

2011-09-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

Malcolm Forbes named his yacht "Capitalist Tool," so the last place you'd expect to find an article supporting teacher unions and questioning the validity of market-based "education reform" is the Web site that bears his name.

Yet here it is. Writer E.D. Cain opens with this riff on conventional right wing wisdom: "Teachers' unions are often portrayed by their opponents as standing in the way of efforts to reform our schools. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing."

Cain acknowledges that attacks on teacher unions and support for privatized reform come from both the left and right wings of the ideological spectrum. Both sides, he says, have fallen for a neoliberal scheme to disempower teachers and their unions while funneling vast amounts of public money into private coffers.

About reforms, he says "Vouchers have been met not only with public disappointment, but with few if any real benefits. Most charters haven't fared much better. And for-profit schools come packaged with all sorts of other troubling implications for our public - or should I say "public" - education system."

About the horde of non-educator experts who devise schemes like high-stakes testing "which seeks....to boil down education to learning by rote," he writes, "When technocrats and businessmen take over the hard work of designing a system of education is it surprising that the result of a complex labyrinth of testing schemes aimed at only those subjects that can be measured, quantified and pasted into spreadsheets? Is it any winder that professionals who care about education might see this as a threat?"

And about the unions which defend professional educators, he writes, "I support teachers' unions because they are the best chance this country has to improve and strengthen public education for the long haul. No other organization will step in to protect teachers from political blowback and the reform-trend-of-the-moment."

It's a good read, with important ideas, from an unexpected source.

It's Banned Books Week!

2011-09-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Banned Books Week!

Between now and October 1, read something that someone else will find offensive. It's important.

Class warfare?

2011-09-22T08:27:00.001-07:00

(thanks to Bartcop)

March planned to support Avondale shipyards

2011-09-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

For over 70 years the Avondale Shipyard has been an economic engine for New Orleans, the West Bank and the entire Gulf Coast. Avondale was, and still is, central to the area’s economic, cultural, social and political life.

Avondale was once one of many industrial enterprises in the New Orleans region that created well-paid jobs and prosperous and stable communities. Now it stands virtually alone, and even that may soon change. The very existence of Avondale is being debated in corporate boardrooms and Congressional hearings, in newspaper columns and the corridors of the Pentagon.

Avondale Shipyards is owned by Northrop Grumman, which plans to close the shipyard next year.

Nearly 5,000 Avondale workers stand to lose their jobs. That will cause the loss of 7,000 additional jobs in the region, according to Louisiana Secretary of Economic Development Stephen Moret. Avondale pumps literally billions into the local economy. It is Louisiana’s largest private employer. It is a central pillar of the New Orleans regional economy.

According to reports, Avondale is not losing money, but Northrop Grumman figures it can make more money by closing the shipyard, sacrificing thousands of jobs and sending a shock wave through the local economy.

On Saturday, October 1, Avondale Shipyard workers, elected officials, labor, business and faith leaders and members of the New Orleans-West Bank community will sponsor a march and rally to Save Our Shipyard. Participants will assemble at 10:00 A.M at the Superdome on Poydras Street in New Orleans, and start marching at 10:30 A.M. down Poydras Street to the Federal Building, at 500 Poydras.

www.avondalesos.org
www.facebook.com/saveourshipyard

A crucial year for BESE elections

2011-09-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

Races for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education generally bring few thrills to a campaign season. The board that develops education policy is not exactly sexy, and its issues are hard to distill into eight-second sound bites.

Members of BESE get no pay, and membership on the board is not considered a steppingstone to higher office.

But for several reasons, BESE races have made it to the media radar screens this year.

For one, the news media are looking for some excitement, and there is very little of that in most races this year. No major candidates oppose Gov. Bobby Jindal at the top of the election ballot, there’s little controversy emerging in the other statewide races, and dozens of senators and representatives are returning to office without opposition.

But it’s not just the media ginning up expectations for bloody confrontations in BESE races this year. With little competition in other races, campaign contributors are looking to races that usually don’t garner much attention.

Contributors with the big money come with agendas, and they’re not necessarily pro-public education. As we’ve documented in EdLog before, some of the money people want to abolish due process rights for teachers.

Others may have an eye on the state’s education budget. As Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein, “follow the money.” For example, unknown to most citizens, the State Department of Education hands out half a billion dollars in private contracts every year, for everything from professional development workshops to writing and scoring standardized tests.

And there is money to be made in the charter school movement. State law prohibits for-profit agencies from holding school charters. But it’s perfectly legal, and standard operating procedure, for a non-profit to be granted a charter, and then sub-contract school operations to a private provider.

That little subterfuge has created a huge, nationwide industry. Several multi-state corporations operate hundreds of charter schools and collect billions of dollars in public funds. They hire lobbyists and create PACs to elect candidates who will make it easier for them to expand their operations.

All of which leads to news reports like this one from the Times-Picayune’s Andrew Vanacore, who writes, “Once relatively obscure, BESE has drawn close attention as the debate over education reform has shifted into a higher gear and grown ever more polarized on issues such as charter schools, tenure for teachers and the role of local school boards.”

Or this story from Advocate reporter Will Sentell, who observes that “The winners will decide key policies for the next four years, including whether Gov. Bobby Jindal gets his choice for state superintendent of education.”

More than in any previous BESE election, serious issues are at stake this year. Among them are teacher tenure, privatization of public services, funding for public education and the state seizure of local public schools. LFT will provide information about these issues in the coming weeks. Before you vote, be sure to ask candidates where they stand. Support those who want strong, accountable public schools under local control and who believe that teaching is a vital, honorable profession that deserves respect and dignity.

Does privatization save the taxpayers' money?

2011-09-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

The biggest justification for selling the jobs of public employees to private corporations is that it will save money for the taxpayers. From school custodians to health insurance professionals, the story is that corporations can somehow hire employees for important public services and still make money for their shareholders.

The obvious ways to accomplish this feat are by reducing the salaries and benefits of the employees, and by shortcutting the public on the services for which the corporations are being paid.

Then there are the inevitable cost increases when time comes to renew the contract.

Even so, many people are willing to go with privatization because they are convinced that it does save money.

Now comes this report in the New York Times about a new study showing "that the government actually pays more when it farms out work."

That's right. As reporter Ron Nixon puts it, "The study found that in 33 of 35 occupations, the government actually paid billions of dollars more to hire contractors than it would have cost government employees to perform comparable services."

The study, produced by the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight, focuses on contracts issued by the U.S. government. Today, though, an article appeared on POGO's Web site saying that states are overpaying for privatization as well.

In the article, Dana Liebelson wrote, "state governments faced with budget pressure are making mistakes similar to the federal government, privatizing and contracting for services on a large scale without determining whether the decisions make fiscal sense."

Labor's Story Left Out of High School History Textbooks

2011-09-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

The nation has just celebrated Labor Day, yet few Americans have any idea why. A new report on how the history of labor is treated in high school history textbooks offers an explanation—most Americans never got any education about the labor movement's proper place in our country's history and its many contributions to the nation's development.

"American Labor and U.S. History Textbooks: How Labor's Story Is Distorted in High School History Textbooks," sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute, in cooperation with the American Labor Studies Center, surveys four major textbooks that together account for most of the market in U.S. history textbooks. The report notes that these textbooks often present labor history in a biased, negative way; for example, focusing on strikes and strike violence while giving little or no attention to the employer abuse and violence that were usually at the root of such actions. Their persistent focus on conflict overrides any attention to labor's central historical role in bringing generations of Americans into the middle class.

To read the rest of this story, please click here.

Labor Day message: Get out and vote!

2011-09-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here's an appropriate Labor Day message, courtesy of News-Star reporter Barbara Leader: build coalitions and fight for a better future!

Labor champion Victor Bussie dies

2011-09-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

Services will be held on Friday, September 9, for longtime AFL-CIO President Victor Bussie, who passed away in his sleep on Sunday, September 4.

“In his 41 years as president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, ‘Mr. Vic’ championed public education and was an unflinching advocate for children and the men and women who work on their behalf,” said LFT President Steve Monaghan.

Louis Reine, current president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, said that Bussie was a tireless advocate for working people.

To read the rest of this story, please click here.

So-called education "reform" is a failure and scam

2011-08-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

If the proper goals of education reform are the privatization of public schools, the enrichment of education corporations and the de-professionalization of teaching, then Louisiana's effort to remake public education is a screaming success.

But if the goals are to educate children and create a more knowledgeable citizenry, then not so much.

That is the conclusion drawn by Diane Ravitch in this Reuters blog entry. "The reformers," she writes, "believe that the way to 'fix' our schools is to fire more teachers, based on the test scores of their students; to open more privately-managed charter schools; to reduce the qualifications for becoming a teacher; and to remove job protections for senior teachers."

Those are the wrong prescriptions for what ails education in America. The single best way to improve education in our nation is to reduce poverty.

The so-called reformers scoff at that, saying that public education supporters are simply trying to shift the blame onto society at large.

But the facts do not support that viewpoint. In the most recent international comparisons, Ravitch writes, "low-poverty U.S. schools (where fewer than 10% of the students were poor) had scores that were higher than those of the top nations in the world. In schools where as many as 25% of the students were poor, the scores were equal to those of Finland, Japan and Korea. As the poverty rate of the schools rose, the schools’ performance declined."

Citing research with unquestionable pedigrees, Ravitch demonstrates that the nostrums prescribed by the current crop of reformers don't work. Charter schools do not perform any better than their fully public counterparts. Family life plays a greater role in student achievement than even the best teachers.

"Typically," Ravitch writes, "economists estimate that teachers account for 10-15% of student performance; non-school factors influence about 60%."

Her conclusion, and her sad prediction for the current wave of reform, is here:

If we are serious about improving education, we would work to improve both
schools and society. We would invest in the recruitment and preparation of
career teachers and make sure that every child has a curriculum that includes
the arts, history, civics, foreign languages and other subjects. We would also
invest in prenatal care so that every child is born healthy and invest in
high-quality early childhood education, so that children arrive in school ready
to learn. We would stop the budget cutting that is now increasing class sizes
and reducing needed services to children.

Unfortunately, such research-based strategies are not part of today’s
reform movement, which is why it will most assuredly end up in the dustbin of
history, like so many others.

Game on: Gazillionaire PAC opposes teacher tenure

2011-08-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

A new political action committee, bankrolled by multimillionaire businessman Lane Grigsby, has been formed with the express purpose of changing the face of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

According to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, the Alliance for Better Classrooms PAC is intended to give Gov. Bobby Jindal the votes he needs to completely dominate public education in the state.

Previously, Grigsby announced that he would be active in this year's election campaigns. His overriding issue is eliminating teacher tenure.

With all the problems facing public education in Louisiana, do you believe that abolishing tenure should be the litmus test by which candidates are judged? Click here to complete a short LFT survey about issues that matter in the 2011 BESE races.

Report: OGB sale could cost consumers higher premiums

2011-08-30T12:55:00.001-07:00

Now we know why it took a legislative subpoena to pry a report about privatizing a State Office of Group benefits insurance plan from the Jindal administration.

Selling the OGB's preferred provider organization "may result in higher insurance premiums to state employees under a private insurer because of an increase in marketing costs, premium taxes, necessary profit margin, and reinsurance costs," in the words of a 17-page report prepared for the administration by Chaffe and Associates.

In this article by Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater replies that insurance premiums regularly increase anyway, without explaining how a private company can make a profit and cover other costs that don't apply to OGB.

Legislative Auditor Paul Purpera provides his own caveat to the privatization scheme in this Associated Press article.

Aside from an increase in premiums, Purpera warns, the state legislature would no longer be able to protect employees from reductions in benefits and insurance plan changes.

"These issues," Purpora's report states, "would have to be addressed in the contract."

An interesting aside to the workings of the Jindal administration: any contract that costs $50,000 or more must undergo statutory review. The Chaffe and Associates report had a $49,999,99 ceiling.

Should the one with the gold make the rules?

2011-08-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

Should multimillionaires decide who represents us on the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education?

Should they define the issues and determine the outcome of any election?

One wealthy individual plans to commit over $1 million to electing the BESE members of his choice. His issue is simple: the elimination of teacher tenure.

Do you believe that getting rid of tenure should be the main issue of the upcoming BESE campaign? Do you believe that the power and wealth of a very few people should determine who sits on the state education board? Or do you believe there are other, more important issues?

LFT wants your opinion!

Please click here and take LFT's BESE Survey 2011. Help us make this election about more than abolishing teacher tenure!

Second National Teacher Town Hall Set for Sept. 25

2011-08-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

The AFT is encouraging members to participate in a nationally televised Teacher Town Hall, which will be broadcast live on MSNBC Sept. 25 as part of NBC News' second Education Nation national summit.

In addition to hundreds of teachers—including many AFT members—who will gather in person for the town hall at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, members can participate in a live chat during the event and add their comments to an online "teachers lounge" forum that will open in early September. Register online to participate.

For teachers who are a bit more ambitious, this year's event also includes an essay contest in which teachers write about the biggest challenges they face in their jobs. Three winners will have their essays published on the Education Nation website, and NBC will bring them to New York City to participate in the town hall meeting. The contest closes Sept. 2.

Education Nation will broadcast education reports and programming across NBC shows and platforms during the week of Sept. 25. AFT president Randi Weingarten and other of the union's leaders and members will be participating in various ways.

AFT President Randi Weingarten talks reform

2011-08-26T09:35:00.001-07:00

Even though she's wedged between a conservative moderator from the Fordham Institute and an even more conservative spokesman for the American Enterprise Institute, AFT President Randi Weingarten more than holds her own in this You Tube discussion.

Articles reveal rich and powerful forces behind "reform"

2011-08-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

When the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education revoked the charter of the Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in New Orleans, it started a nationwide chain reaction of news coverage, mostly focused on the shadowy Gulen movement that inspires charter schools across the country.

The Washington Independent, for one, published this story about the Pelican Foundation, which operated Abramson and still holds charter for Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge. The foundation has, the story notes, "been hit hard with allegations of inappropriate use of school space for religious processions, concealing student-on-student sexual harassment and intimidating teachers."

On the heels of that story came this one by USA Today education reporter Greg Toppo, who connected the Pelican Institute schools to more than 100 other charter schools "established over the past decade by a loosely affiliated group of Turkish-American educators," all said to have ties to Turkish nationalist Fethullah Gulen.

Toppo says that Gulen, who fled Turkey and gained political asylum in the United States, is "Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and 'contemporary Islam's Billy Graham.' Fethullah Gülen has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society."

On this Web site, Parents Across America charge that "Gulen schools constitute the nation’s largest network of charter schools."

A founding member of PAA says, "Our primary concern is not the national origin or religion of the group running the schools but the facts that they operate in secrecy, are not accountable to the public, and are not open about the nature or extent of the movement behind the charter schools in which unsuspecting parents are enrolling their children.”

All of which tends to call into question the process by which the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approves charters.

And it's not just the Gulen movement that we should be concerned about. In this article from the Louisiana School Boards Association journal, Don Whittinghill documented the intrusion of free-market profiteers into the charter school movement.

As Whittinghill wrote, "Free-market zealots (with riches) realized that over $600 billion is spent in the U.S. on public schools. A whole new frontier leading to stable profits was recognized. Everyone knows 'it takes money to make money,' and the faces behind the voucher/charter 'reform' movement are not bashful in stepping up to the bar."

The LSBA journal names some of the mega-rich corporate types who fund anti-public education "reforms" and back the political candidates who implement them.

Monaghan defends the teaching profession

2011-08-24T08:46:00.001-07:00

When Advocate reporter Will Sentell wrote this story about teachers who enter the profession through alternate certification, it was followed almost immediately by a letter from the right-wing Heartland Institute think tank.

That letter, from Heartland's Joy Pullman, created a context that did not exist in the original article, equating teaching to 19th century factory-style jobs. We now live in an age where young workers "switch jobs five times in their first 10 years in the workforce, " she wrote.

But as LFT President Steve Monaghan pointed out in this rebuttal, there is a difference between professions and jobs.

"Teaching, like law, medicine and engineering, is a profession," Monaghan wrote. "We can’t believe that Pullman would make the same assertion about physicians — that the idea of switching professions 'five times in their first 10 years' is a good one. "

For too many so-called reformers, it has become an article of faith that teaching need not be a true profession or calling - that teaching is something anyone can do for a couple of years before going on to a "real" job. All teachers really have to do, they reason, is prepare children to fill in the right bubbles on standardized tests.

That idea has been taken to cynical lengths by some politicians who see it as a way to create education systems on the cheap. No need for salary schedules, expensive health insurance coverage or pension plans as long as schools are revolving doors for idealistic young folks operating on a peace corps model.

Which should not be the point of alternative certification. As Monaghan wrote, "Of course, we appreciate the opportunities and advantages associated with making it possible for people trained in other disciplines to come into our classrooms. They can bring fresh perspectives and specialized information that can serve our students well."

Whether teachers enter our profession through traditional routes, or make a commitment to education through alternative certification later in life, they deserve the respect due to professionals.

"(W)e reject Pullman’s apparent belief that better education for children will be the outcome of a transitional teacher corps' Monaghan concluded. "Pullman’s letter is frankly insulting and does a disservice to honorable members of a most honorable and critical profession."

Budget cuts threaten pre-K program

2011-08-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

A very successful pre-kindgergarten program in one of the state's top school districts is being reduced because of state budget cuts, according to this article by St. Tammany News reporter Suzanne LeBreton.

Data show that early education programs are very important in helping students succeed in school. That is increasingly important because the state keeps raising the standards for schools that are considered academically acceptable.

Members of the St. Tammany Parish school Board are plainly upset that the state is cutting funding at the same time that standards are being raised.

Said board member Mike Dirmann, "This is one of the best program the state has come up with, and for them to start cutting our funding I think is just ludicrous.”

Board member John Lamarque added, "This program was started by a school superintendent that cared about educating the children. Since (Former Superintendent of Schools) Cecil (Picard) passed away, we don’t have anybody up there that is putting forth the effort for the La4 program and all of the other programs that are important to educating the children of this state.”

PBS Teacherline offers CLUs

2011-08-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Enrollment is now open for the Fall 2011 PBS TeacherLine online professional development courses!

Start the new school year by checking out two new courses on STEM—Global Climate Change Education for Middle School and Inspire Elementary Students with Engineering for PreK-6th grade.

Receive CLUs and graduate credit for courses to go towards recertification or your 30+. Fall courses begin October 26th and end December 6th.

To browse the Course Catalog and to register for a course go to http://pbsteacherline.org/. For more information contact Nancy Thompson at nthompson@lpb.org.

AFT President Randi Weingarten talks reform

2011-08-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

In this interview with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Truthout blogger Amy Dean gets the union leader to talk about a back-to-school season in which teachers "are preparing to meet a new wave of attacks on public education and on themselves personally."

Dean begins the interview with the observation that across the country, teachers and their unions are under assault by politicians whose number one goal is the privatization of public education.

"Little would you know, from this assault," Dean writes, "that some of the states with the best public schools in the country are those with the strongest teachers' unions. "

Weingarten's passionate defense of teachers and the teaching profession is bracing.

"Teachers and kids are totally and completely interconnected," says Weingarten. "Teachers advocate for things that they need that are in the interest of kids and vice versa. Trying to divide teachers from kids is only a way of hurting what parents and students need to create
opportunity in this country."

When the subject of teacher accountability comes up, Weingarten notes that AFT "has worked to introduce a system of evaluation and professional development that goes beyond superficial 'snapshot' evaluations of teachers and that also allows them to engage curriculum more substantive than mere rote teaching for a standardized test."

The union, she says, developed "a framework for a comprehensive and meaningful evaluation system that...measured teachers' performance in multiple ways that included teacher practice as well as student learning."

Around the nation, Weingarten says, over 150 school districts are using all or part of the AFT model for evaluating teachers.

The full interview is worth a read. Check it out here.

Louisiana students improving on key tests

2011-08-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

High school students in Louisiana are showing improvements in key tests, according to reports issued by the State Department of Education this week.

The state's average composite score on the ACT test rose by one-tenth of a point in the past year, matching the national gain.

Even better news for the state came when the scores are disaggregated: minority populations in Louisiana out performed their peers in four out of five categories on the ACT test, according to the State Department.

"The steady growth Louisiana has achieved in our composite ACT score confirms that we’re indeed doing a better job of preparing our students to succeed in their college and career pursuits," Acting State Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler said.

A day earlier, the State Department released a summary report on high school end-of-course tests, announcing dramatic gains in achievement.

"Comparing student scores on the English II test from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011, the percentage of students performing at the levels of Excellent, Good, or Fair increased from 80 to 89 percent. Additionally, the statewide percentage of students scoring Excellent, Good, or Fair on the Algebra I exam rose from 71 to 79 percent between 2010 and 2011. In fact, the percentage of students receiving a score of Excellent, Good, or Fair has risen 15 percentage points (23 percent) since 2007-2008, the first year EOC exams were administered for Algebra I. Geometry results have likewise risen, from 66 percent scoring at the passing level in 2010 to 75 percent in 2011," the report says.

Jindal a no-show at privatization debate

2011-08-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

LFT President Steve Monaghan addresses the League of Women Voters.

Even though thousands of public employees are wondering how they will be affected by the proposed privatization of a state health insurance plan, Gov. Bobby Jindal and his advisers skipped a League of Women Voters forum on the subject Tuesday.

That left only opponents of the privatization scheme, including Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan, to talk about the issue.

Privatizing the PPO plan offered through the State Office of Group Benefits is one of the main goals of the Jindal administration. That office provides health insurance for teachers and school employees in 44 school districts, as well as for state retirees. In all, some 62,000 employees and their dependents are members of the PPO plan.

Read the rest of this story here. Gannet reporter Mike Hasten covered the debate for this story, and Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon had this report.

Poll shows strong support for teachers and school funding

2011-08-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

The public gives high marks to public school teachers, respects the teaching profession, supports investments in education, and rejects tax-funded vouchers for private school tuition, according to the 2011 PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.

"At a time of breakneck change in what students need to be successful in this economy, sandwiched between years of school budget cuts and economic turmoil, Americans' respect for public schools and teachers is strong and growing stronger," AFT president Randi Weingarten says.

"The public thinks more highly of teachers than they do of principals and school board members. Further, when asked about the attacks by some governors on teachers' collective bargaining rights, the public sides with the teachers.

"Americans' strong support for teachers and public schools is all the more heartening given that more than two-thirds of respondents say they hear more bad news about education than good news. This suggests media coverage of education, at odds with the experiences and impressions of parents and the public, needs to change.

"No doubt a question last asked in 1976 and repeated in the latest survey will get some attention. It asks about general opinions on teacher unions, framed in a way that implies union work is limited to narrow issues of compensation and working conditions. The wording doesn't reflect the current work of the AFT and our quality education agenda, which focuses on what students need to succeed and what their teachers need to facilitate success. We look forward to every opportunity to educate the public about the work we do to help teachers teach and children learn—something that has been hard when the media's coverage is so negative. But, at our core, we hope the enduring goodwill the public has for teachers will grow as we continue our work to improve public schools."

State skimps on erasure analysis

2011-08-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Louisiana's Department of Education is willing to spend $44 million to the company that "prints, issues, writes, grades and analyzes Louisiana’s No Child Left Behind-compliant state tests."

But when it comes to paying for the erasure analyses that can keep the system honest, the state balks at paying a bit more than $58,000.

Reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn writes about it here, in The Washington Independent.

Roemer running on anti-tenure platform

2011-08-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

An incumbent candidate for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has announced that the biggest plank in his campaign platform is the abolition of teacher tenure.

Chas Roemer was elected to his first term without opposition in BESE District 6. He quickly established himself as the member who is most disdainful of public schools, public school teachers and the unions they choose to represent them.

Roemer is now the second BESE candidate to take direct aim at one of the most basic rights that educators have. The first was Holly Boffy, a director of the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana, who will challenge incumbent Dale Bayard for the District 7 seat.

Tenure is essential to guarantee academic freedom and to protect teachers from favoritism, abuse and political meddling. Before you vote this fall, be sure to ask candidates about their position on teacher tenure!

Superman explains it all for you

2011-08-12T06:43:00.001-07:00

The rest of this 1952 cartoon is here.

Failure to reauthorize NCLB may lead to waivers

2011-08-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

One result (or lack thereof) of the deadlock in Congress is a failure to reauthorize the federal No Child Left behind act. Because of the legislature's inaction, President Obama has announced that states may apply for waivers of the act so long as they "agree to adopt a prescribed set of education reforms," according to this Education Week blog post by Michele McNeil.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last June that the administration would proceed with a waiver plan if Congress fails to reauthorize NCLB by the start of school.

Duncan said waivers would be offered as long as states meet other requirements, which will not be spelled out fully until next month. Areas likely to be considered in waiving the 2014 proficiency deadline are: raising standards for achievement, new strategies to help low-performing schools, and implementing educator evaluation systems that are tied to test scores.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten had a cautious response to Duncan's announcement.

"We understand and feel the frustration with No Child Left Behind, and we support changing it in a comprehensive way to better assist teachers and students," Weingarten said. "Time will tell whether moving to a waiver plan that bypasses the full legislative (and public comment) process is the right approach."

"Waivers, if issued, should be informed by what works to improve teaching and learning," she continued. "We will continue to encourage Congress to get the education law right to ensure that students in this country have a fair, equitable, high-quality public education system."

Teacher tenure is under attack

2011-08-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

No doubt about it, an orchestrated attack on teacher tenure is underway in Louisiana.

As previously reported in EdLog, a staff member of the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana (A+PEL) is running for the state board of education on a platform of abolishing tenure. "We need to get rid of it as soon as we possibly can," says Holly Boffy, a former teacher of the year and A+PEL's director of professional development and university programs.

Then there's business bigshot Lane Grigsby, who promised financial support to candidates who will oppose teacher tenure.

Now comes this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, who lays out the basic argument that tenure opponents will use: Not enough teachers have been fired to suit them; therefore, tenure must be abolished.

Not surprisingly, the abolition of tenure is also being pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a corporate-dominated lobbying group that opposes worker rights and supports privatizing public services.

Sentell's article focuses on the fact that "only 52 tenured teachers were fired statewide in connection with their evaluations over a 10-year period starting in 2000."

LFT President Steve Monaghan sarcastically asked the reporter, “What would be the number I need in terminations that would make people think that the system is working?”

In all seriousness, we should hope that there would be few terminations of tenured teachers. Tenure ought to be considered a guarantee of teacher quality. Here's why.

In order to earn tenure, a teacher must have college degree and pass a rigorous national examination called Praxis. For the next three years, the teacher undergoes constant supervision and professional development. In those three years, a teacher can easily be terminated for any legitimate reason. It is the responsibility of administrators to ensure that teachers who make it through the process deserve tenure.

During that time, about half of all prospective teachers leave the profession. This weeding-out process is the real reason that so few tenured teachers are found to be incompetent.

Once it is earned, tenure is not a guarantee of lifetime employment. Teachers must still undergo regular professional development and periodic evaluations. Tenure merely guarantees that a teacher cannot be fired unless a fair process is followed.

In Sentell's article, one principal whines that tenure hearings are "tedious" and that "I felt like I was the person on trial."

Well, yes. The purpose of a tenure hearing is to determine the facts. If a principal alleges that a teacher is incompetent, the teacher has a right to question the accuser. Otherwise, we would return to the bad old, good-old-boy days when who a teacher knew was much more important that what a teacher knew and could bring to a classroom.

BESE yanks charter from troubled N.O. school

2011-08-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

Faced with allegations of rape, sex between kindergarten students, cheating on science fair projects, a lack of resources for special education students and a host of other infractions, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education revoked the Pelican Educational Foundation's charter to operate Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in New Orleans.

According to this article by Times-Picayune reporter Andrew Vanacore, Acting Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler said that her investigation revealed "a threat to the safety, health and welfare of students at Abramson."

The school is expected to open under the management of the state Recovery School District, and the Pelican Educational Foundation may file suit to regain the charter. The revocation of the charter does not affect another school operated by Pelican, Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge.

That school has its own problems with investigations, reported here by Joe Gyan of The Advocate.

LFT leader exposes corporate agenda for education

2011-08-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

A corporate funded organization that writes model legislation for state lawmakers was exposed for its anti-public education, anti worker and anti-democratic agenda at a press conference in New Orleans Wednesday. LFT Vice President Jim Randels, who is a member of the United Teachers of New Orleans, was one of the speakers at the press conference.

Randels was joined by Orleans Parish School Board member Brett Bonin and several others, each of whom brought to light a part of the agenda espoused by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is holding its national convention in New Orleans this week. Bonin, along with LFT and others, is a member of the Coalition for Louisiana Public education.

One of ALEC's stated legislative priorities is to privatize public education, making education a profit center rather than a public good. That, Randels noted, "is dangerous to the American way and to the education of our children."

“The ALEC way turns parents into consumers shopping for schools rather than citizens building high quality public schools,” Randels said. “ALEC’s privatization, profit model wants parents to be consumers. But America needs parents to be citizens.”

“Education policy must be based on best practices and what is in the best interests of children not a profit driven corporation and a legislator meeting in secret,” Randels said.

The profit motive behind ALEC’s agenda for public education thwarts the ideals of public education and democracy, Randels said.

“In ALEC world, schools would become private entities funded by public money. As a taxpayer, I would have no voice in the way public schools are run. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to return to an era of taxation without representation.

“We should be working together to do away with separate and unequal schools, to ensure that taxation without representation does not return, to nurture citizens rather than create consumers, to work for the public good rather than for private profit,” Randels concluded.

Read the rest of this story - click here.

Exposed: How big business brings bad ideas to the legislature

2011-08-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

When protesters greet members of the American Legislative Exchange Council at their annual convention in New Orleans on Wednesday, it will probably be the first time that most Louisianians have heard of the organization.

ALEC probably likes it that way. Despite the non-threatening sound of its name, the group is behind some of the worst public policy initiatives ever introduced in state legislatures.

Vouchers for private and religious schools, attacks on teacher tenure, watering down special education rules and stripping local school boards of authority to charter schools are all ideas promulgated by ALEC.

But its not just education. From privatizing prisons to stripping worker rights, ALEC has a bag full of model legislation that it pushes in state legislatures across the nation.

As it turns out, ALEC is funded by huge corporations that have a vested interest in changing state laws to siphon public money into corporate pockets. To read more about ALEC's nefarious schemes, click here to access the Center for Media and Democracy's "ALEC Exposed" Web site.

The current president of ALEC is Louisiana State Representative Noble Ellington. He, along with a handful of other Louisiana lawmakers, are being treated to the convention by Louisiana taxpayers.

That's right. Our tax dollars are paying for state lawmakers to attend a convention where they will learn how to send more of our tax dollars straight to the corporations that sponsor the convention.

As the Lafayette Advertiser pointed out in this editorial, we are paying for our legislators to be lobbied on behalf of big business: "ALEC represents the expenditure of private money to influence the political and legislative process, and that makes it lobbying. And the state government has no business picking up the tab for it, whether it's lobbying from the left, the right, corporations, unions, up, down, backwards or forwards."

Commenting on the corporate greed that can warp a capitalist system, former Soviet Union Premier Nikita Kruschev once said, “You will sell us the rope that we will hang you with.”

In Louisiana, it appears that citizens are paying for the scissors that will be used to shred the fabric of our society.

Teachers March is underway

2011-07-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

The four-day Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is underway in Washington, D.C. Education Week has an article about the march here.

The hurrier we go, the behinder we get

2011-07-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

The State Department of Education has announced that the number of "Academically Unacceptable Schools" in Louisiana has risen dramatically, but assures the public that it does not mean our schools are getting worse.

In fact, according to a press release from the department, "more students than ever are grade-level proficient."

How to resolve that seeming paradox? The culprit is statistics. This year, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education raised the minimum School Performance Score from 60 to 65. And next year, it will rise 10 more points.

The Associated Press is reporting that the number of AUS schools skyrocketed from 48 last year to 135 this year.

Under a new state letter grade policy, any school rated AUS will be slapped with an "F" in October. The threat of a state takeover will loom over schools that just a couple of years earlier would have been academically acceptable.

To some observers, it may seem that there is a deliberate effort to create the appearance that public schools are failures.

Acting Superintendent Ollie Taylor is sanguine about the increase in AUS schools, saying "I have no doubt that we will see schools quickly overcome this status, given the history of our districts and schools in responding to tougher standards."

BESE President Penny Dastugue also oozes confidence, saying, "Our commitment and challenge now at the state level is to work with schools and districts to get every school in the state over the bar."

"Raising the bar" is a popular metaphor with education reformers. They like the sports analogy, with its implication that every challenge can be met with just a little more effort.

But an athlete who is popped in the kneecap with a stick can't very well jump over a higher bar, and that is what's happening to public education in Louisiana.

The legislature, Gov. Jindal and BESE just agreed to freeze public education’s Minimum Foundation Program for the third straight year, even as the costs of providing education keep rising.

On top of that, some $83 million was cut from the education budget. That included money for nationally certified teachers, classroom technology, student remediation, and reading and math initiatives. Those are the very programs that are crucial to meeting the higher standards.

Increases in student achievement are a testimony to the hard work by teachers in the classroom. But they cannot be expected to keep improving with fewer resources. And it certainly doesn't help to have a system that seems set up to ensure the perception of failure.

Popped in the kneecap, indeed.

Report: N.O. charters "dumping" students

2011-07-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

A new report from Dr. Barbara Ferguson's Research on Reforms organization documents ways in which charter schools practice selective admissions in spite of legal requirements for open admissions.

It's called "dumping." According to Dr. Ferguson, some charter schools in New Orleans find creative ways to legally remove students that they consider undesirable. Traditional public schools, on the other hand, must follow strict state laws regarding the expulsion of students.

That can have a very negative, two-fold effect on public education: it makes charter schools look more successful with the same student population than they really are, and at the same time, place more of the most disruptive students back into traditional public schools. That, in turn, creates the impression that traditional public schools are less successful than charters.

Here's one of the ways dumping works:

Lafayette Academy charter school, for example, can expel students for sleeping
in class, failing to report to the office as directed, disobeying a teacher,
cheating, lying, or for any other conduct that is disruptive, disrespectful
or disobedient, as determined by the principal. Lafayette was taken-over
because its 2005 performance score was 44.4, and now Lafayette has
a score of 77.3. At the time of its takeover, Lafayette could only expel students for
the offenses listed in Louisiana law, now it can expel students for just
about anything.

Dr. Ferguson's article offers several other examples of dumping and its negative effects on public education. Here is her conclusion about the practice:

Dumping kids out is a misuse of the charter school concept. Louisiana law
requires charter schools to address the “best interests of at-risk” students.
Yet, many New Orleans charter schools are allowed to dump out the at-risk.
This practice causes many ills. First, it becomes impossible to determine the
effectiveness of charter schools by comparing them with traditional schools,
because traditional schools cannot employ the dumping out policy.
Next, dumping kids out shifts the burden of educating the at-risk; it does
not address the issue for which charter schools are intended; thus,
diminishing the charter school movement. Also, dumping kids out of a public
charter school violates public law. Most importantly, dumping kids out of
public charter schools burdens the community. For the community to thrive
and prosper, the public schools must provide for the education of all
children and youth. Charter schools are public schools, but, when they dump
kids out they become more like private schools. Private schools are privately
funded; whereas, charter schools are publicly funded. And, all publicly
funded schools should be for the public purpose of educating all students.

Post-vacation catch-up edition

2011-07-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

The world kept turning while EdLog was on brief hiatus. Here are some of the nuggets we missed:

Jindal's response to the Red Tape Act being declared unconstitutional: While educators celebrated Judge Mike Caldwell's decision ruling the "Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Act" unconstitutional, Gov. Jindal's PR team went into spin mode.

A spokesman told AP reporter Melinda Deslatte for this article that it is "ironic that the unions would obstruct the very reforms that will help teachers."

The reforms he is talking about would allow school boards to ignore laws concerning tenure, class size, curriculum, discipline, certification, special education and a host of others.

What is really ironic is that the governor's office needs a lesson in civics from the union.

BESE candidate wants to abolish teacher tenure: It is a shame that any serious candidate for the state education board would campaign on a platform of abolishing teacher tenure. When that candidate used to be a teacher herself, it verges on the bizarre.

Yet that is what former Teacher of the Year Holly Boffy told the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge, reported here by Will Sentell of The Advocate.

Boffy is running the District 7 BESE seat currently held by Dale Bayard of Sulphur. She is currently working as a functionary for the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana , also known as A+PEL.

Higher education faculty layoffs: If education is the engine that will drive our economy out of the dumpster, why are we firing so many higher education faculty? Is this what politicians mean when they say we can do more with less? Advocate reporter Jordan Blum spoke with some very upset professors.

Charter school scandals erupt (part 1): Teachers at Baton Rouge's Capitol High Academy charter school were nonplussed when they found out that they won't be paid on schedule, as reported here by Charles Lussiere of The Advocate.

The charter is held by a non-profit organization, 100 Black Men. However, the organization outsourced the operation of the school to a for-profit education corporation called EdisonLearning. Last February, 100 Black Men severed their connection with EdisonLearning, citing the company's failure to provide an appropriate audit.

Charter school scandals erupt (part 2): This one is complicated, and includes hints of charter school connections to an Islamic movement, rape, bribery and the firing of two education department officials, one of whom tried to warn about the problems a year ago.

Start your journey into this twisted tale here, with Times-Picayune reporter Andrew Vanacore's story about the firing of Folwell Dunbar, who reported to his superiors a year ago that there were problems at Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in New Orleans.

According to Vanacore, "Dunbar concluded last year that Abramson, which has connections to Turkish-run businesses and charter schools in other states, was at the very least 'terribly mismanaged' and recommended that the state board of education take away its charter."

Vanacore reported that Dunbar was offered a bribe to ignore problems at the school. According to this Associated Press report, those problems included inappropriate sexual contact between kindergarten students, a potential rape, unstaffed classrooms and "potential cheating in science fair competitions."

Abramson has been closed while the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education conducts a thorough investigation, and Dunbar's boss, Jacob Landry, has also been fired.

But the story doesn't end yet. The Pelican Education Foundation, which operates Abramson, also runs the Kenilworth Science and Technology charter school in Baton Rouge. That school is now also being investigated, according to Advocate reporter Will Sentell.

And what of the Islamic angle? Vanacore followed his Abramson story with this report about the Pelican Education Foundation's connection to the Gulen movement, a Turkish group that takes its inspiration from Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen.

While spokesmen for Pelican deny any connection with Gulen, Vanacore's article is loaded with subtle hints connecting the school to the Turkish movement. Hints like one school board member saying, "I'm on the advisory board of the schools -- the Gulen schools in Louisiana."

By coincidence, this article, originally posted in the Church of England newspaper, provides some background into the Gulen movement, whose founder has variously been described as the "world’s top public intellectual" and as the "world’s most dangerous Islamist."

All things considered, it's fair to say that July has not been an auspicious month for Louisiana's charter schools.

Jindal touting education in reelection bid: In this column, Advocate bureau chief Mark Ballard explored Gov. Bobby Jindal's claim that he is "strengthening schools" in the state.

The governor's volunteers are handing out door hangers touting the governor's accomplishments, but ignoring the cuts to education that have left the Minimum Foundation Program frozen for three years, decimated higher education and required local school boards to pick up some $83 million worth of programs formerly funded by the state.

As LFT President Steve Monaghan told Ballard, the governor's "reality hasn't kept pace with the rhetoric."

Jindal protects his secrecy and punishes his enemies: Veteran Lake Charles journalist Jim Beam watched as Gov. Jindal "used his veto pen to protect the secrecy of his administration’s operations and to punish his enemies."

In this column, Beam took the governor to task for vetoing a bill by Sen. Butch Gautreaux that would have helped put the state teacher retirement system on a sounder financial footing, calling it "a perfect example of how the governor punishes his enemies even when others get hurt in the process."

The governor also vetoed a good bill by Sen. Robert Adley, a lawmaker who has tried to push for more transparency in Jindal's official records, according to Beam.

"Jindal should be above this kind of petty politics, but it has become a characteristic of his administration," wrote Beam. "You would think a public official with the popular support the governor enjoys would be more open in his operations and more magnanimous toward his critics. "

LFT wins: "Red Tape Act" declared unconstitutional

2011-07-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Score one for the rule of law! Today Baton Rouge Judge R. Michael Caldwell declared Gov. Bobby Jindal's so-called "Red Tape Reduction Act" unconstitutional.

The law was the governor's signature education legislation in 2010, and it would have allowed the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to waive virtually any state law upon request by a local school board.

LFT opposed the law when it was in the legislature, on the grounds that the legislature does not have authority to cede its lawmaking authority to any other body.

"Insofar as the act grants this right, it is unconstitutional in my opinion,” the judge said. “Allowing BESE to waive or suspend law is a violation of Article 3, Section 12(b) of the constitution.”

There really is something about Mary...

2011-07-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

Is Sen. Mary Landrieu hearing Bobby Jindal's footsteps sneaking up on her upcoming 2014 election, or does she really believe the nonsense she spouted at the center for American Progress recently?

As quoted in this American Independent article, Landrieu sounds as reflexively opposed to public schools as any of the governor's pro-charter minions.

The senator has long supported charter schools, but her rhetoric has never risen to the obnoxiously anti-public level revealed in this statement: "If traditional teachers and principals can rally themselves and admit that they failed … they can be part of turnaround. If not, they can leave.”

Not that there is really all that much to brag about in the charter schools that Landrieu champions. In fact, according to an April 2011 report from Research on Reforms.org, improvement "for the vast majority of the (Recovery School District) schools is at best pathetic."

If we really want to go there and talk about pathetic performance, the U.S. Senate might be a place to start. Imagine the senator's consternation if a potential rival would say, "If senators and congressmen can rally themselves and admit that they failed … they can be part of turnaround. If not, they can leave.”

One of the least educated, unhealthiest, and poorest states in the nation

2011-07-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

The legislature did its work and went home. Louisiana has a budget - that was the main goal of this year's fiscal legislative session - but it ain't pretty.

The political posturing and crowing aside, Louisiana's $25 billion state budget leaves us "as one of the unhealthiest, least educated, and poorest states in the nation," according to this new report from the Louisiana Budget Project.

Chief among the victims of this year's budget are those least able to fend for themselves. The LA Budget Project reports that "funding for families and children that suffer from incapacitating poverty, abuse, and homelessness " was cut by some $53 million for the coming fiscal year. That means Governor Jindal has sliced the Department of Children and Family Services by 40 percent since coming into office.

Higher education has borne the brunt of Louisiana's budget problems for the pat few years, having been cut by $491 million during Jindal's term. This year, in order to claim that funding for higher education has been protected, lawmakers and the governor raised tuition and fees for students. This, they claim, does not amount to a tax increase.

Then there's K-12 education. The governor and his allies like to claim that they did not cut funding for public schools, but that is a prevarication at best.

Public education's Minimum Foundation Program base per-pupil amount has been frozen for three years, while costs have risen dramatically. That amounts to a cut all by itself.

But cuts outside the MFP have strained some local school board budgets close to the breaking point. The governor cut $5.5 million for nationally certified teacher stipends, and $7.2 million more for the transportation of private and religious school students. The governor also cut nearly $70 million in state funding for classroom technology, student remediation, and reading and math initiatives - programs that local school systems will either have to eliminate or fund themselves.

LBP's report further slams state leaders for reductions in health care and youth services.

But the worst news in the report is that lawmakers and Jindal once again cobbled together a budget that depends on one-time money and millions "swept" from existing funds. So without facing the real issue and identifying revenues that can fill the recurring budget gap, we will all be in the same leaky boat when the legislature convenes again next spring.

It's important: Urge Gov. Jindal to sign Senate Bill 6!

2011-06-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

Please click here and ask Gov. Jindal to sign SB 6 into law!

SB 6 by Sen. Butch Gautreaux (D-Morgan City) deserves to be signed into law on its own merits. But its passage became even more urgent when three bills allowing retirees to return to work without losing their whole retirement benefit were tied to SB 6 in the waning days of the legislative session.

Those three were amended by House/Senate conference committees, and cannot go into effect unless the governor signs SB 6, which would require employers which withdraw from the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana to pay their proportionate share of TRSL’s unfunded accrued liability.

These are the bills that depend on adoption of SB 6 before they can go into effect:

HB 417 by Rep. Page Cortez (R-Lafayette) is the most comprehensive of the bills. It would allow retired teachers to substitute without penalty as long as they do not earn more than 25% of their retirement benefit. The reason for the 25% limit? Rep. Cortez told reporters “We didn’t want to give an incentive for a teacher to retire so they could go back and double dip.”

HB 369 by Rep. Gary Smith (D-Norco) says that teachers who were enrolled in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan on June 30, 2010, may work in an adult education or literacy program administered through a K-12 school as long as they do not earn more than 25% of their retirement benefit.

HB 150 by Rep. Hollis Downs (R-Ruston) says that retired higher education professors may return to work as adjunct professors, as long as they do not earn more than 25% of their retirement benefit.

Please click here and ask Gov. Jindal to sign SB 6 into law!

Teabaggers march on St. Tammany

2011-06-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Conservative activists proudly allied with wingnut Glenn Beck are attacking the St. Tammany Parish collective bargaining agreement, as reported here by Jim Derry of The Times Picayune.

Since 1993, teachers and school employee in St. Tammany Parish have had a harmonious and productive partnership with their school board. It's the only school district in the state in which every non-administrative teacher and school employee has a binding contractual agreement with the school board (several other systems negotiate with some categories of employees; St. Tammany has the only "wall-to-wall" contract in the state).

St. Tammany is also one of the highest-achieving school systems in Louisiana, so you'd think that people would be loathe to interfere with a process that is working to the benefit of all involved.

But this is a strange political season, and ultraconservative teabaggers are on the march.

Using the same arguments that State Rep. Anthony Ligi recently made in an unsuccessful bid to change state collective bargaining law, the activists are demanding to be included when the board and the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees negotiate their contract.

For the record, the contract between the school board and the union cannot be adopted until it has been ratified by the employees and adopted in a public session by the school board.

But the negotiations that lead to the contract are never done in public. And that is for the very same reason that presidents, governors and mayors negotiate all their administrative contracts privately before bringing them to the full body for a public vote.

A lot of ideas are discussed in negotiations. Many of them never get into the contract. Some very good ideas are discarded because the sides cannot come to agreement on them. The same is true of some very bad ideas. And sometimes the discussions get pretty heated before everybody comes together with a contract that they can all agree upon.

As Gov. Jindal likes to say about negotiations to bring new industries into the state, the discussions are just too sensitive to be public until an agreement is ready for unveiling.

But that logic won't cut any ice with the group in St. Tammany. They are not really interested in the collective bargaining agreement anyway. As their leader told the Times-Picayune, the union should be "abolished.

Frustrated educators to march on Washington

2011-06-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

The upcoming "Save our Schools March and National Call to Action" has caught the attention of Education Week. The newspaper sent reporter Erik Robelen to write this article about the growing frustration teachers feel because of the mandates of the federal No Child Left behind Act.

At the heart of the protest is discontent over the test-driven accountability standards imposed by NCLB. As one teacher quoted by Robelen puts it, "Teachers lose the opportunity to teach anything beyond how to fill in the bubbles.”

The Washington protest is slated for July 28-31, and the American Federation of Teachers is one of the march's sponsors.

Organizers of the march state their mission thusly:

We stand united by one belief – it’s time for teachers and parents to
organize and reclaim control of our schools.

As concerned citizens, we demand an end to the destructive policies and
rhetoric that have eroded confidence in our public schools, demoralized
teachers, and reduced the education of too many of our children to nothing more
than test preparation.

A well-educated society is essential to the future of the United States
of America. Our students must have access to a fully funded, world-class public
education system, and it is our responsibility to hold our government
accountable for providing the means to achieve it.

The actual rally will be held at noon on July 30, starting at the capitol park ellipse. Other events are listed here.

For those unable to attend the Washington event, a list of local actions are posted here.

Advocate calls flip-flop "a new low in subservience."

2011-06-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

This editorial in The Advocate calls out the 11 lawmakers who would rather switch than fight, correctly saying that they "utterly caved to pressure."

Speaker of the House Jim Tucker deserves kudos for standing up to the governor. His passionate speech in favor of overriding the veto was what John F. Kennedy called a profile in courage - especially since Tucker owes his position to Gov. Jindal.

As for the obsequious eleven, The Advocate gets it right:

Members who switched set a new low in subservience. They abased themselves
before Jindal despite the manifest unreasonableness of his position on the merits of the issue. They showed themselves to be more concerned with the governor’s power than with the state’s interest.

Flip-floppers in House doom tobacco tax veto override

2011-06-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36, King James Version).

Eleven members of the House of Representatives who once voted to extend a four-cent tax on cigarettes flipped under heavy pressure from Gov. Bobby Jindal, and voted Thursday to sustain his veto of HB 591.

The tax, which brings in $12 million a year for health care needs, is matched by federal health care funds, bringing the total benefit of the tax up to $48 million.

Members who changed their votes after hearing from the governor were Robert Billiot, D-Westwego; Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge; Bubba Chaney, R-Rayville; Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro; Hunter Greene, R-Baton Rouge; Frank Hoffman, R-West Monroe; Kay Katz, R-Monroe; Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette; Tom McVea, R-Jackson; Joel Robideaux, Independent-Lafayette; and Tom Wilmott, R-Kenner.

Times-Picayune reporter Bill Barrow's coverage of the vote is here.

Shameful vote in House of Representatives!

2011-06-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

(Baton Rouge – June 16, 2011) In refusing to override Gov. Bobby Jindal’s veto of a cigarette tax extension, the House of Representatives did a disservice to the people of Louisiana, according to the Better Choices for a Better Louisiana coalition.

The governor’s decision to veto HB 591 elevated political ideology above the health of the people and the fiscal stability of the state, spokesmen said. By sustaining that veto, representatives shirked their responsibility.

The House of Representatives voted 58 to 44 to override the veto, short of the two-thirds vote required.

The four-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes had been on the books since 2000. The $12 million in proceeds, dedicated to health care, is matched by even more federal funds.

“This simply begs the question: WHY, “said LFT President Steve Monaghan, a founding Coalition member. “On this issue, it should have been easy to do the right thing and override the governor’s veto.”

“The bill originally passed the House by 70 votes,” Monaghan said. “Obviously, some members changed their mind about the value of the cigarette tax between May 24 and today. Those who changed their votes should be asked, ‘Why?’”

“Did they change their minds about the addictive nature of cigarettes, the cost to all taxpayers associated with the usage of the product, or the danger that cancer poses because of this product? Why is it all right to surrender over $40 million in federal matching funds just to give the governor a victory on this issue? This is a strange, dubious victory for the governor, and a sad defeat for Louisiana."

To read the rest of this story, please click here.

JFT says school board broke the law with furloughs

2011-06-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

In a lawsuit filed on June 13, the Jefferson Federation of Teachers charges that the parish school board violated state law with plans to furlough school employees for one day next school year.

JFT President Meladie Munch said that the board's decision to furlough paraprofessionals, secretaries and clerical employees, custodial and maintenance employees, and crossing guards is an example of "top down decisions that create an adversarial atmosphere (and) will ultimately hurt our students and the citizens of Jefferson Parish."

Munch said that the union is urging the school board to work with teachers and school employees on a resolution to the district's financial problems.

“The JFT recognizes that the district faces budget challenges, but the necessary sacrifices must be shared," she said. "It is unfair to balance budgets solely on the backs of the hard working dedicated employees that serve our children and their families.”

Defending the important role that school support staff play in education, Munch said “Research shows that to be successful, children need clean, safe and orderly schools that are properly and adequately staffed. Paraprofessionals and other support staff play such a vital role in the lives of children and parents. Reducing their salaries and eliminating the services parents expect their children to receive in Jefferson Parish’s public schools is not in the best interest of children—or the community."

The state law governing salaries for teachers and school employees states, “the amount of the hourly wage or annual salary paid to any school employee shall not be reduced for any school year below the amount paid to the school employee in hourly wage or annual salary during the previous school year, nor shall the amount of the hourly wage or annual salary paid to any school employee be reduced at any time during an academic year.”

JFT's lawsuit was filed in the 24th Judicial District Court. A hearing has been scheduled for Monday, June 27.

Gov. Jindal's irresponsible, indefensible cigarette tax veto

2011-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Tell your senator and representative to override Gov. Jindal's veto of the tobacco tax - please click here.

(Baton Rouge – June 13, 2011) Calling Governor Bobby Jindal’s veto of a tobacco tax renewal irresponsible and indefensible, the Better Choices for a Better Louisiana Coalition today urged lawmakers to stand up to the governor and override the veto.

Saying that the governor’s decision places political ideology above the health of the people and the fiscal stability of the state, the coalition stressed reasons why House Bill 591 by Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Bogalusa) should stand.

The four-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes has been on the books since 2000, and generates about $12 million a year, dedicated to providing health care services. The revenue is used to trigger even more money as matches for federal funds.

At just 36 cents per pack, Louisiana already has one of the lowest tobacco taxes in the nation; reducing it by four cents has economists and health care experts scratching their heads about the wisdom of Gov. Jindal’s veto.

To read more of this article, please click here.

Coalition aims to be a voice for public education

2011-06-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

A sustained attack on public education in Louisiana has brought together a new coalition of organizations that have not always seen eye-to-eye, but are united in their commitment to our schools.

It may seem like a jumble of initials, but when LFT, LAE, LSBA, LRTA, LASS and others are combined, it spells out a united front on crucial issues. The coalition means that unions, school boards, school administrators, retired teachers and assorted allies are working together at a critical time in our state’s history.

The coalition had a media coming-out party when WWL-TV in New Orleans dedicated air time to the issues that the coalition sees as starving all public schools while showering largesse on a select few private, religious and state-run Recovery District schools.

LFT President Steve Monaghan questioned the wisdom of dedicating millions of dollars to vouchers that benefit a relative few children in private and religious schools at the same time that the state is reducing funds for important pre-kindergarten programs around the state.

The coalition chairman, St. Tammany Parish School Board member Jack Loup, said that fairness is the issue. “We just want to make sure public education is on equal footing with the other programs that the state is pushing through,” he said.

Members of the coalition include the LFT, the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, the Louisiana Association of Educators, the Louisiana School Boards Association, the Louisiana Association of School Executives, the Louisiana Association of Principals, the Louisiana Association of Chief Technology Officers, the Louisiana Retired Teachers Association, the National Board Certified Teachers of Louisiana, the Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators, the Louisiana Association of Child Welfare and Attendance Personnel and the National School Board Association.

Click here to see the WWL-TV news report on the coalition effort.

Are "vulture philanthropists" taking charge?

2011-06-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

The new superintendent of the State Recovery school District, and Gov. Jindal's pick to be the next state superintendent, is 35-year old John White.

We know a bit about White's background, detailed in this EdLog post, including the fact that he is certified by the Broad Superintendents Academy (it's pronounced "Brode").

But most people know very little about the academy, which has churned out superintendents with business backgrounds for 21 of the nation's 75 largest school systems, according to this Education Week article by reporter Christina A. Samuels.

The scrutiny provided by Education Week and in The Broad Report by blogger Sharon Higgins is disturbing. The blog includes this motto: "Make no mistake, What is happening in large urban districts today has been carefully orchestrated by vulture philanthropists."

The EdWeek article has a comment from one expert who says that the Broad Academy is designed to provide "superintendents who are trained how to use their power to hand over their systems to the Business Roundtable."

The academy is part of a worrisome movement that education policy professor James Horn calls "venture philanthropy," and includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Milken Family Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and others

Worrisome, Horn says, because "What venture philanthropy is doing seems to me to be wielding influence not to help public institutions, but to destroy public institutions, or take control of them. This is a dangerous place, where corporations and government get mixed up.”

The academy certifies superintendents after a 10-month fellowship season, during which they spend six extended weekends at seminars, with expenses paid by the academy.

Education writer Diane Ravitch has issues with the academy, saying that graduates "have a preference towards privatization."

Our biggest companies, awash in profits, paid negative taxes

2011-06-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Forbes magazine (which can't be accused of having anything close to a liberal bias) comes this report by Rick Ungar.

Short version: During the recent, worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, our largest corporations made $170 billion in profits, but paid no taxes.

Twelve of the Fortune 500 companies, he writes, actually paid negative 1.5% in taxes.

Please don't say the country is broke. Don't say we can't afford Social Security, Medicare or public education. It's just not true.

Join the Save Our Schools March on July 30

2011-06-06T13:56:00.000-07:00

Please join people from all across America as they gather to participate in the Save Our Schools March on Saturday, July 30 in Washington, D.C.

The Save Our Schools March is being held in response to recent destructive “reform” efforts which have undermined our public educational system, demoralized teachers, and reduced the education of too many of our children to nothing more than test preparation.

Something must be done – and it must be done now!

The Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is calling on Americans everywhere to demand:

Equitable funding for all public school communities

An end to high stakes testing for student, teacher, and school evaluation

Curriculum developed for and by local school communities

Teacher and community leadership in forming public education policies

Click here to visit the Save Our Schools March home page!

Jindal called on fake "efficiencies"

2011-06-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

When Gov. Bobby Jindal announced his budget plans last March, lawmakers immediately noticed what one senator called the "imaginary dollars" that plugged holes in the spending plan.

They were less skeptical at the time about the proposed savings, or "funding efficiencies" that Jindal's advisers said would reduce the anticipated shortfall by some $225 million. After all, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater and his assistant, Ray Stockstill, told the joint legislative budget committee that the savings were indeed available, and that they would provide a list.

But as Advocate Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Ballard reports here, after all these weeks, and after numerous requests, the list has yet to appear. Writes Ballard:

It’s gone on so long that Jindal’s inability to deliver The List has become a
punch line among legislators, roughly synonymous with “when pigs fly.” It’s
always good for a chuckle, when delivered while waiting in line for lunch or
talking about Baton Rouge traffic.

Lawmakers might joke about the missing list, but it's a nervous laugh. It will take real money, and a real willingness to face the state's fiscal crisis, to write a budget that will provide state services as well as meet the constitutional standard of balance. In the waning weeks of this fiscal session, both are in very short supply.

If "reform" seems so good to be true, it probably is!

2011-06-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Thank God for Diane Ravitch! In this op-ed for the New York Times, the prickly professor punctures the bubble of so-called "reform," convincingly demonstrating that many success stories "are the result of statistical legerdemain. "

Ravitch takes aim at the No Child Left behind mandate that all children must be proficient in either reading or math by 2014. Teachers understand that to be an impossible goal, she writes, because of the "enormous variation among students and the impact of family income on academic performance."

Even so, she writes, many politicians and the snake-oil salesmen who've hijacked the education agenda claim "that the right combination of incentives and punishments will produce dramatic improvement. Anyone who objects to this utopian mandate, they maintain, is just making an excuse for low expectations and bad teachers."

With assistance from former LSU professor and Baton Rouge School Board member Noel Hammatt, Ravitch proceeds to demolish extravagant claims for success in some reconstituted schools.

Taking particular aim at two schools mentioned by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address, Ravitch says "the only miracle at these schools was a triumph of public relations."

One of those claimed a high graduation rate, but its published ACT scores were far below the state average. Another, which Obama said had "skyrocketed" since firing the principal and half the faculty, actually ranks 430th out of 469 high schools in math.

In conclusion, Ravitch urges the public to meet inflated claims of educational improvement with skepticism - a lesson yet to be learned in Louisiana, where credulous news media uncritically report bogus gains in the State Recovery School District.

The answer simply is not as easy as firing teachers or reconstituting schools because, as Ravitch puts it,

If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to
learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our
educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.

New study explains international achievement gap

2011-06-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

A major study that will be published by Harvard University Press in September asks the question: What are the countries which outpace the United States in educational achievement doing differently?

Results of the study, from the National Center on Education and the Economy, are previewed in this paper by Marc S. Tucker. The study is focused on educational systems in Ontario, Canada, Shanghai China, Finland, Japan and Singapore.

Tucker writes, "We conclude that the strategies driving the best performing systems are rarely found in the United States, and, conversely, that the education strategies now most popular in the United States are conspicuous by their absence in the countries with the most successful education systems."

Among those differences:

The most successful countries don't rely on standardized tests the way that we do in the U.S.

Successful countries have funding formulas that put emphasis on the students most in need, instead of local distribution of resources.

Others put greater priority on the profession of teaching, emphasizing training, professional development and compensation.

In the United States, teacher unions have been cast as villains, but Tucker points out that the other countries that outperform us are heavily unionized, but along models that have progressed from an industrial to a more professional standing.

The nuggets revealed in this paper create make waiting for publication of the whole book an exercise in anticipation and patience.