Why is the mayor of New York buying Louisiana elections?

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.

Game on: Gazillionaire PAC opposes teacher tenure

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.

Teacher tenure is under attack

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.

Business bigshot targets teacher tenure

Ultra-right wing businessman Lane Grigsby is pulling out all the stops in an effort to abolish due process rights for Louisiana's public school teachers.

Grigsby, one of the state's highest rollers when it comes to bankrolling conservative causes, says he will make repeal of teacher tenure a litmus test for candidates he backs in next fall's elections for state offices.

The chairman of Cajun Industries is quoted in the Baton Rouge Business Report's Daily Report as saying "During this next election cycle, every candidate that comes before every organization that I sit on is going to have to tell that organization how they feel about teachers’ tenure."