Bad Law forces good people to the courtroom, again

(Baton Rouge – August 29, 2013) Trying to forestall an expected avalanche of lawsuits against local school boards, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers will ask a state judge to rule that Louisiana’s teacher tenure law violates due process guarantees in both the Louisiana and United States Constitutions.

Federation President Steve Monaghan said that his executive board has voted unanimously to amend an active lawsuit to address fatal flaws in the poorly drafted and hastily enacted Act 1 of 2012.

“A proverbial super storm is forming in school districts across our state,” said Monaghan. “It’s the product of a flawed state teacher evaluation system and revisions in due process rules that are devoid of fairness and reason.”

Monaghan said that real harm is already occurring as dozens of teacher evaluation grievances are being processed by local school systems. Many of these could ultimately result in court cases.

“Unless Act 1 is once again ruled unconstitutional,” Monaghan said, “teachers will increasingly be forced into the courtroom in district-by-district challenges. This scenario will rip communities apart and drain limited resources needed to educate children.”

“It is unfortunate that school boards will be compelled to bear the brunt of these contentious proceedings, because local administrations and local school boards did not cause this train wreck,” he said. “They are in an untenable position. They are compelled to follow the law, even bad law.”

In June of 2012, LFT challenged the constitutionality of Act 1, the so-called tenure law, and Act 2, which set up the state’s controversial school voucher scheme. Last March, 19th Judicial District Judge Michael Caldwell ruled Act 1 unconstitutional because it violated a provision that forbids bundling multiple objects in one piece of legislation.

In the Act 2 case, Judge Tim Kelley ruled that using public education funds to pay for school vouchers is unconstitutional, a decision that was upheld by the State Supreme Court.

Late in the 2013 legislative session, after affirming Judge Kelly’s ruling, the Supreme Court sent the Act 1 case back to Judge Caldwell’s court for further consideration.

The Federation will again urge Judge Caldwell to rule that Act 1 unconstitutionally bundled multiple objects into one bill. The Federation is amending its petition to include the complaint that Act 1 violates the due process rights of teachers under the Louisiana and United States Constitutions.

The lawsuit will be amended to include the following specific complaints:

• Under Act 1 (2012), a tenured teacher accused of being ineffective or facing any other charge is afforded a hearing only after the teacher has been fired. The Act authorizes superintendents to terminate a tenured teacher before any hearing is held, which violates the basic principles of due process.
• Under Act 1 (2012) The post-termination hearing is conducted by a three-person panel consisting of one person appointed by the superintendent, one person appointed by the teacher’s principal and one individual chosen by the teacher. The panel is decidedly weighted against the teacher.
• Under Act 1 (2012), the panel’s role is merely advisory and holds no authority to reverse, amend, or otherwise alter the decision of the superintendent. A toothless panel makes a mockery of an already poisoned process.

“It is well established fact that very important laws were ill conceived, poorly drafted, and hastily enacted with little public input,” Monaghan said. “As a result, there has been chaos and rancor contributing to a dramatic increase in the number of teachers leaving the profession.”

The LFT president said that lawmakers missed an opportunity to find remedies during the 2013 session, when a bill was introduced to postpone the effects of the state’s new evaluation system for one year.

“The delay would have allowed time for the legislature and state board of education to tweak or fix the evaluation system,” Monaghan said, “and allow time for cooler heads to infuse fair process into the revised tenure law.

“However, HB 160, which was unanimously approved by the House Education Committee, and passed by the full House by 102 to zero was killed by four members of the Senate Education Committee,” Monaghan said. “That single failure compels us to file our amended petition.”

Recently, a Monroe district judge ruled in favor of a Louisiana Association of Educators lawsuit claiming that the tenure provisions of Act 1 violate teacher rights.

“Consequentially, we now face potential lawsuits that no one wants in every judicial district in Louisiana,” Monaghan said. “Without a reasonable resolution, public education will get bogged down in court and the unintended consequences will be innumerable.”

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

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

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

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.

Post-holiday catch up edition

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.

Columnist gets it right on tenure

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."

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.

Should the one with the gold make the rules?

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!

Roemer running on anti-tenure platform

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!

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."

LFT Weekly Legislative Digest - week 1

They’re off: session opens to grim fiscal news

Despite a looming $1.6 billion deficit, Governor Bobby Jindal opened the 2011 legislative session with a promise to allow no new revenues, saying that he would veto any bills that close any of the state’s 441 tax loopholes or call for new taxes.

Maintaining that curbing tax breaks would amount to a tax increase, the governor said “Tax increases kill jobs. Tax increases kill opportunities. Tax increases hurt economic development. Tax increases hurt our ability to attract new businesses into Louisiana.”

The problem is that it's just not true. If cutting taxes and slashing services was the right strategy for success, we would have high employment, low poverty, a healthy population and a robust, growing, well educated state.

To read more, please click here.

Better Choices coalition slates May 4 rally on capitol steps

In response to the governor’s speech, the Better Choices for a Better Louisiana coalition made a powerful case for raising new revenues for the state and announced a lobby day on the steps of the capitol at noon on Wednesday, May 4.

With Louisiana facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall, coalition spokespersons said that Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan for more cuts without any new revenue cannot solve the state’s problems.

“Doing more with less” is a hollow promise,” Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said. “The state is not doing ‘more with less’; it’s doing less with less. The current budget proposal sacrifices education, health care and the quality of life issues that could provide a better future for the families of Louisiana.”

To read more, please click here.

Education coalition condemns Jindal’s education policies

Members of a public education coalition took issue with the Jindal administration's education policies at a press conference on Monday, April 25.

Following the governor's opening address to the legislature, members of the Coalition for Public Education said that Jindal and State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek are taking public education in the wrong direction, basing decisions on political ideology instead of good educational practices.

"After listening to the governor (in his address opening the legislative session) that the future is so bright, I had to put on my shades," LFT President Steve Monaghan said. "There's a different Louisiana out there. Class sizes are going up and salaries have been frozen."

To read more, please click here.

Jindal budget calls for selling the Office of Group Benefits

Lawmakers appear hesitant to endorse Governor Jindal’s plan to privatize the State Office of Group Benefits, one of the elements of his budget plan.

OGB, as it is known, handles health insurance coverage for about 250,000 current and retired state employees. That includes teachers and school employees in a number of school systems. The office, one of the best run and scandal-free operations in state government, has built up a $500 million surplus over the past few years. If the office is sold to a private company, insiders say the surplus could become available for appropriation into the state general fund.

Opponents say that privatizing OGB would hike insurance premiums for state employees and retirees. The office currently spends about three percent of its income on management costs. The same costs for a private company could be in the 10% to 15% range.

To read more, please click here.

Roemer calls for abolition of tenure

Chas Roemer, who represents the Baton Rouge area on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, sent lawmakers a letter requesting that they support the abolition of teacher tenure.

Roemer said that tenure “protects poorly performing teachers” in public schools.LFT President Steve Monaghan quickly responded, saying that Roemer’s statement shows an alarming ignorance of the facts on teacher tenure.

To read more, please click here.

Listen to Steve Monaghan demolish Chas Roemer's tenure plan

LFT President Steve Monaghan was the guest on Spud McConnell's WWL-AM talk show this afternoon. Listen as Steve demolishes Chas Roemer's arguments against teacher tenure.

Watch this at WWL

Chas Roemer launches attack on teacher tenure

First things first. Tenure is not a guarantee of lifetime employment, nor is it designed to protect what BESE member Chas Roemer likes to call "poorly performing teachers."

Tenure is an acknowledgment that a teacher has met all of the requirements of the profession and is entitled to due process if challenged.

It is not easy to earn tenure. Tenure is not granted automatically.

In order to be tenured, a teacher must first earn a college degree, then pass a rigorous examination, and then spend three years on supervised probation with regular evaluations. During those three years, the teacher can be released for virtually any reason.

A teacher can only earn tenure in an area of expertise, and tenure is not transferable to another school system.

Obviously, if an unqualified person becomes tenured, that means there has been a serious administrative breakdown somewhere along the line.

Even so, there are ways to determine whether tenure was inappropriately issued. A tenured teacher must continue to earn satisfactory evaluations. A tenured teacher can be fired, but has a right to a hearing to determine whether or not the firing is justifiable.

Now that you know that, check out this story by Advocate reporter Will Sentell, in which BESE District 6 member Chas Roemer urges legislators to abolish the state's tenure law.

Roemer's plan, allowing school principals sole discretion to fire teachers for any reason, is a perfect recipe for favoritism and scandal.

And his logic is seriously flawed. Roemer says that we could theoretically get rid of 2,500 "poorly performing" teachers and use their salaries to give big raises to the top 25% of teachers.

But firing those 2,500 teachers would leave 40,000 students without classroom leadership. Where does Roemer think those kids would go?

Tenure is essential in order for teachers to do their jobs without fear of favoritism or reprisal. Talk of abolishing it is foolish and dangerous for teachers and the profession of education.

States look to abolish teacher tenure

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

Efforts are underway in several states to eliminate teacher tenure. According to this article in the Christian Science Monitor, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is leading a pack of governors who want to abolish due process rights for teachers.

Other states mentioned in the article are Florida, Idaho, Illinois and Wyoming.

Opponents of teacher tenure say that it it too difficult to get rid of "bad teachers," and can find some extreme examples that they say prove their point.

But tenure serves two vital purposes in our schools, and those who want to abolish it just don't understand how crucial those purposes are.

To begin with, tenure guarantees a teacher's academic freedom. Without it, teachers can too easily fall victim to the political correctness of the day. There are just too many folks out there who would gladly yank a teacher's credentials for recommending the "wrong" reading material. It is a protection that serves without bias - those with small minds on the left, right or anywhere in between would love to restrict what teachers are allowed to say.

But even more importantly, tenure guarantees that teachers can't lose their livelihoods without just cause. Sometimes teachers are victims of administrative favoritism or unfair accusations, and they deserve a fair hearing. Our entire legal system is based on the concept of innocent until proven guilty. Does a teacher deserve less than that?

Opponents of tenure falsely claim that teachers in Louisiana "automatically" earn tenure after just three years. That discounts the facts that teachers must first obtain a degree, pass a difficult examination, earn certification and undergo three years of supervision. During that time, they may be dismissed for virtually any reason. The process is rigorous enough that about half of all teachers leave the profession in their first five years.

If, after all that, an unqualified person becomes tenured, it is the fault of administrators who did not perform their duties. And that is a mistake that can be corrected through a tenure hearing.

Teacher tenure attack collapses

A state representative's effort to curb teacher tenure in Louisiana came to a screeching halt on Wednesday when the lawmaker realized that no one had his back.

Well, almost no one. But we'll get to that.

Rep. Steve Carter (R-Baton Rouge) said that he introduced HB 1250 at the request of school principals. The administrators had told him horror stories about tenured teachers, Carter said, and he wanted to streamline the process of termination.

Among the canards foisted onto Carter was the false assertion that it takes three years to terminate an unsatisfactory teacher.

Carter's bill would have given principals the authority to recommend that school boards terminate teachers. Currently, only the superintendent can make that call, upon a principal's recommendation.

It also would have stripped a teacher's right to be paid for time lost if termination is reversed by a court of law.

The big surprise came when Carter took the witness table in front of the House Education Committee to introduce his bill. He simply asked the panel to shelve it.

Carter said that none of the principals who told him they really, really needed his bill showed up to support him before the committee.

“I told them that I would bring the bill if they would stand behind me,” Carter said. "When I called them they said they were busy and couldn't do it.”

As it turned out, the only support Carter had for his bill came from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and the Council for a Better Louisiana.

So the score in support of Carter's bill came out: educators, zero; shills for big business, two.

Advocate reporter Will Sentell covered the meeting for this story.

Learn moe about the LFT's position onteacher tenure - please click here.

LFT President defends teacher tenure

LFT President Steve Monaghan discusses the Federation's support for teacher tenure, and talks about ensuring tenure's role as a professional distinction and mark of excellence.

To read more about the issue, please click here.

The truth about teacher tenure

There is obviously a broad misunderstanding, shared by some in the business community and even in the Department of Education, that teachers are "automatically" granted tenure after working in a school for three years.

As Advocate reporter Will Sentell writes here, they believe that tenure is "passive and routinely granted" after "just the lapse of three years."

That, of course, is simply not true. As LFT President Steve Monaghan points out in this letter to the editor, "in order to become tenured, a teacher must first have an academic degree, pass the relevant sections of the PRAXIS examination, and meet all other requirements to be certified. In addition, the teacher must then undergo a three-year probationary period. During that time, the teacher must be mentored, observed and evaluated by school administrators."

Administrators, Monaghan notes, have an obligation to ensure that teachers are effective before tenure is granted.

The LFT president says that tenure "should be a mark of excellence, and connote to the general public that the teacher who has earned tenure is a highly qualified, professional educator."

The Federation's goal, says Monaghan is to ensure that tenure is "an active and meaningful process, one that honors the teaching profession, enhances the teacher's professional credentials, and provides the general public with an assurance of quality."

Simply put, the Federation will support initiatives that aim for that goal, and oppose any that seek to diminish teachers or to devalue teacher tenure.

Bobby Jindal's big school flip-fop

Just a year ago, Gov. Bobby Jindal and his minions seemed to believe that school boards were the root of all evil. So incompetent and intrusive were school boards that the governor and Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek prevailed upon freshman legislator Steve Carter to introduce a package of bills that would have stripped local school boards of most of their authority. Joining Jindal and Pastorek in their crusade against local school boards were the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and the Council for a Better Louisiana.

This year, Jindal and his cohorts are flipping like flapjacks. At a press conference attended by Pastorek, Carter LABI and CABL, the governor announced that there are too many restrictions on local school boards. His new legislative package seeks to empower school boards by allowing them to opt out of state laws and policies deemed "burdensome regulations ... that may hinder academic growth."

Judging from the governor's press release, it looks like one big target of the legislation is teacher tenure. That is another big flip-flop. The state's Jindal-approved application for federal Race to the Top funds aims to ensure that tenure “is a meaningful and active process” with “respect and value.”

The administration is no stranger to hypocritical flip-flops, though. This is the same bunch that touts education as the key to economic development while simultaneously stripping higher education budgets, eliminating programs and whole departments.

Bogus think tank at it again

The Associated Press is all over a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality claiming that the states "are holding tight to policies that protect incompetent teachers and poor training programs..."

Despite its fancy name, the NCTQ is little more than a right-wing think tank aimed at discrediting public education. EdLog has called out the council for its inaccurate screeds in the past.

In this case, the council again harps on one of its favorite bugbears, teacher tenure, claiming that tenure is awarded "automatically." Teachers know better, but this kind of tripe often works on an easily swayed public.

In an article released last March, LFT President Steve Monaghan blasted the NCTQ for misrepresenting teacher tenure in Louisiana:

In the words of the (NCTQ) report, "Louisiana's probationary period
for new teachers is just three years and the state does not require any
meaningful process to evaluate cumulative effectiveness in the classroom before
teachers are awarded tenure."

“That is just as false as saying a student automatically earns a
college degree after four years,” Monaghan said. “The tenure process is a
rigorous one. Teachers must first pass a national exam, earn certification, and
undergo years of mentoring and evaluation by local administrators.”

Before a teacher earns tenure, Monaghan said, it is easy for
administrators dismiss those who fail to meet expectations.

Superintendent ready for school board reform fight

State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek pretty much stuck to his guns when he spoke to the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday. Despite the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education's refusal to endorse his plan to rein in school boards, Pastorek is ready for the legislative battle ahead.

As Times-Picayune reporter Ed Anderson writes here, Pastorek is adamant about the need he sees to limit school board authority. Boards should make education policy, and leave personnel decisions to local superintendents, Pastorek believes.

(It is in this area that LFT has a problem with the agenda. Part of the change would eviscerate the state's teacher tenure laws.)

Pastorek gave his general approval to a package of bills that Rep. Steve Cater (R-Baton Rouge) plans to introduce in the coming session. Carter's bills are very similar to the package that BESE rejected last week.

There is one area in which Pastorek signals a willingness to compromise with school board members. He told the press club that a Carter bill which would reduce the salaries that school board members can collect, "has not been my issue."