A wrong turn down the road to merit pay

Now that the U.S. Department of Education has announced that eight Louisiana school districts will split $36.5 million to experiment with merit pay for teachers, does that mean it's already too late to talk about whether or not merit pay really makes a difference in the classroom?

Hopefully, not. Because the data, while not yet conclusive, tends to show that there is little if any connection between performance-based pay and student achievement.

As Sarah Sparks writes here, the Department of Education is spending money before there is evidence that it is well spent. Says Sparks, "More than ever, the department needs a large, rigorous, comprehensive evaluation to dig into the details of whether and how performance-pay programs work."

Within a week of the Department's announcement of the grants, she notes, two different studies in Chicago and Nashville "have found few benefits for student achievement in merit-pay programs."

Despite a lack of evidence that these incentives accomplish their goal, the U.S. Department, as well as state and local education agencies around the country, are bound and determined to ram them down the throats of classroom teachers.

Why?

Education curmudgeon Diane Ravitch hits on an answer to that question in this article.

The problem is that merit pay has been touted loudly and long, albeit without evidence, by conservative advocates. After some 30 years, it is taken as an article of faith that it must work.

Ravitch says that the almost religious belief in merit pay is based on a business model: "They believe in competition, and they believe that financial rewards can be used to incentivize better performance, so it seems natural for them to conclude that merit pay or performance pay would incentivize teachers to produce better results."

While that may seem a rational conclusion, it is not empirical - the data just don't back it up.

So the conservatives rely on another article of faith, based on their generally low opinion of people in general. As Savitch puts it,

(T)hey assume that most people—in this case, teachers—are lazy and need a
promise of dollars to be incentivized to get higher scores for their students.
It never seems to occur to them that many people are doing their best (think
people who play sports, always striving to do their best without any expectation
of payment) and continue to do so because of intrinsic rewards or because of an
innate desire to serve others. Teachers should certainly be well compensated,
but not many enter the classroom with money as their primary motivation.

Her conclusion? "Ideology trumps evidence. The enduring puzzle is why the Obama administration clings so fiercely to the GOP philosophy of incentives and sanctions as the levers for change, despite lack of evidence for their efficacy."

Help the Demons win the Hawaii Five-O band contest!

Which college band performs the best rendition of the Hawaii Five-O theme? If the answer is Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, the school will win $25,000 and have a video of the band performing the piece on the CBS network this fall.

All that NSU has to do to win is get more votes than the other 17 colleges in the competition. That's where you come in.

Click on this link, and vote for the Spirit of Northwestern band. You're allowed to vote once each day until the CBS Hawaii Five-O Marching Band Mania competition is settled on October 4. Go Demons!

"Merit pay" may not raise student achievement

Giving teachers incentive pay for raising student test scores does not result in student achievement, according to a new study from Vanderbilt University's Peabody School of Education.

The study, authored by the National Center on Performance Initiatives, was conducted in partnership with the prestigious RAND Corporation. It followed 296 Tennessee middle-school math teachers as they prepared students for the state's high-stakes exam.

Half of the teachers were in control groups, and half were eligible for bonuses if their students scored higher than expected on the test.

The study found that students whose teachers were eligible for the bonuses "progressed no faster than those in classes taught by the 146 other teachers."

Here is a story about the study by reporter Christopher Connello in Politics Daily.

Inconvenient facts mar "Superman"

The education community is abuzz about the new documentary from the makers of Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth." Called "Waiting for Superman," the movie has a distinct and disturbing bias against traditional public education and the teachers in our schools.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is painted as the villain in the piece. She was interviewed extensively for the documentary, and has appeared in panel discussions to rebut its conclusions since its release.

As Weingarten says in this article, the film's producers have a deep concern for children, but completely missed the mark by vilifying teachers and promoting charter schools as the answer for public education's woes.

Writes the AFT president, "the film casts two outliers in starring roles - the 'bad' teacher as villain, and charter schools as heroes ready to save the day. The problem, of course, is that these caricatures are more fictional than factual."

By focusing on a few identifiably bad teachers and a few high-achieving boutique charter schools, the film skews reality. That's the problem with an ideological, anecdotal approach to documentary film making.

"It is insulting and counterproductive to suggest, as the film does, that the deplorable behavior of one or two teachers is representative of all public school teachers," writes Weingarten.

The reality, she writes, is that many charter schools "perform worse than or just about as well as regular public schools."

The real answer, says Weingartern is to redouble our efforts to make sure that all schools work for all children.

"This film," she writes, "misses a crucial point: We think about all kids, not only some of them. And reforms that affect small numbers of students, even when they live up to their promise, still leave that promise unfulfilled for others. Every child should have access to a great education - not by chance, not even by choice, but by right."

For another viewpoint about "Waiting for Superman," click here to read a blogger's suspicion that the documentary is a stalking horse for business interests that want to privatize public education.

"Yes, public schools have big problems," writes Susie Madrack. "Selling them off to unregulated private bidders will only make things worse."

In defense of the indefensible

What do you do?

Your client is a convicted felon who's been found guilty of violating Louisiana's labor law, and has been ordered to repay victimized foreign teachers some $1.8 million in illegally charged fees.

The foreign teachers who were ripped off by the client joined a union which brought the case that resulted in the judgment.

That same union unearthed evidence that your client is guilty of violating Racketeering Influenced Organized Crime statutes, and is assisting in a federal suit to claim damages on behalf of the foreign teachers.

You appear in district court to ask a judge to overturn the ruling against your client.

What do you do?

If you are the attorney for the disgraced and disreputable Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro and Universal Placement International, you claim that the union actually hates the foreign teachers on whose behalf these actions were filed. You claim that there is a secret union plot to get rid of the teachers.

And you hope that you've made enough noise to deflect attention from the uncomfortable facts of the case.

Advocate reporter Joe Gyan covered the story for this report; the LFT Web site has more information here and here.

LSU could lose thousands of students, hundreds of employees under Jindal plan

Last Sunday the Baton Rouge Advocate published a report about how school systems can go about firing teachers because the state is facing yet another budget crisis - a $2 billion shortfall is looming for the coming fiscal year.

Today, the state's newspaper of record has this frightening headline: "LSU predicts massive layoff, loss of students if budget cut."

Reporter Jordan Blum writes that the flagship university will lose about 700 employees and close to 8,000 students if LSU is forced to trim its budget by another $62 million.

That number wasn't just drawn from a hat. The Jindal administration is requiring the university to write a budget plan that includes the cut. All told, the state is asking Louisiana's colleges and universities to write budget estimates with cuts amounting to $437 million next year.

And that's on top of the $270 million cut from higher education by the legislature and the Jindal administration over the past two years.

As The Advocate report notes, the cuts are seriously eroding higher education in our state. LSU is planning to shutter the School of Library Information and Science, and eliminate degree programs in German and Latin. These are not steps that should be considered by a major university.

National History Day contest open to students in grades 6-12

Students in grades 6-12 are encouraged to enter the National History Day contest sponsored by the WWII Museum in New Orleans. Louisiana regional competitions will be held on March 12-26, 2011.

History Day in Louisiana is part of National History Day, a research program for students in grades 6-12 that promotes research, literacy, and inquiry. Students who participate have the opportunity to display their research projects at a series of contests at the regional and state level that lead to a national contest held in June at the University of Maryland.

All types of students participate in History Day—public, private, parochial, and home school students; urban and rural students; academically gifted and average students; and students with special needs.

Students select and research a topic, which relates to the Annual Theme. The theme for 2011 is Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences. After analyzing and interpreting their findings, students present them in one of five ways: documentary, exhibit, performance, paper, or web site. Students may enter as individuals or in groups of two to five students. The paper category is for individual students only.

To download a flier with more information about National History day, please click here.

The National History Day contest Web site is here.

Louisiana wins $147 million to save educator jobs

Louisiana has been awarded a significant share of the $10 billion EduJobs plan adopted by Congress in an effort to save the jobs of teachers and school employees. In this press release from the Department of Education, it was announced that our share will be $147 million.

The press release says that funds will be divided among school districts according to the Minimum Foundation Program funding formula. At today's meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Superintendent Paul Pastorek said a chart will be prepared by Friday or Monday outlining how much each district will receive.

More information is available in this report on the LFT Web site.

In defense of public sector salaries and benefits

In some political circles, it's popular to attack teachers and other public employees. We saw it in the last legislative session, when lawmakers sought ways to reduce retirement benefits that seem overly generous in comparison to the desultory performance of private sector workers' 401(k) plans.

It's part of a larger, nationwide assault on public service. To some politicians, the current recession is seen as permission to denigrate the decent salaries and benefits earned by those who made the career decision to serve the public.

As writer Daniel Morris puts it in this New York Daily News article, "Now pundits and politicians across the country are getting in on the action by claiming that public-sector employees must sacrifice more and act like private sector employees who supposedly feel blessed and thankful to get a paycheck, any paycheck."

In what he calls a "new race to the bottom," Morris says that the woes of private sector employees are being used to "stir up rage" at public sector employees and, more specifically, at the unions that have worked to win those salaries and benefits.

The better solution is to ensure private sector employees' rights to the same decent salaries and benefits as those in the public sector. That didn't seem like such a strange concept a generation or two ago. But in an age that offers golden parachutes to top executives and the shaft to everyone else, the idea of basic fairness is sloughed off as quaint or, even worse, socialist.

Why are we asking about the best way to fire teachers?

Advocate reporter Charles Lussiere is telling the wrong story in this Sunday article, with the subhead, "Budget woes tighten focus on how to lay off teachers."

We should be asking how many teachers we need to give our children an adequate education. We should be asking what we need to do to attract and keep the best educators in our classrooms. We should be asking how much it costs to educate our children, and then do everything possible to make sure that much money goes into our schools.

But instead, the front page is asking about the best way to fire teachers. And there are elected officials willing to plug into that frame. Shameful.

LFT cheers state's application for education jobs fund

The Louisiana Federation of Teachers cheered Thursday’s announcement that Louisiana has applied for part of the new $10 billion federal Education Jobs Fund. The state is eligible to receive approximately $147 million through the federal allocation.

"This funding is a critical lifeline for school systems already faced with difficult budget choices," LFT President Steve Monaghan said. "We are grateful for the president's initiative and Congress' intent to make sure that Louisiana children do not suffer the unnecessary loss of vital educational resources while we work together for more permanent solutions to the financial crisis plaguing our state and nation." Please click here to read the rest of this story.

First Lady visits Louisiana on anti-obesity campaign

First Lady Michelle Obama was in Slidell this week to commend Louisiana schools for their effort in fighting childhood obesity. Visiting Brock Elementary School, one of 59 schools in the state to earn the Department of Agriculture's Gold Award of Distinction, Mrs. Obama announced an ambitious goal: to "solve the problem of childhood obesity so that kids born today reach adulthood at a healthy weight."

"We're beginning to better understand the magnitude of this crisis," said Mrs. Obama. "We're seeing it all over. Everyone is talking about it now. And we know the threat that it poses to the health of our children. So it's simply not enough to solve this problem halfway or to do it incrementally. This is a national problem and it's affecting every single child in every single community in this country."

The First Lady spoke about her signature program, "Let's Move," which she launched in conjunction with the National Football League, in an effort to get youngsters more physically active.Special guests at the Slidell appearance included the principals and food service managers from schools that earned the Department of Agriculture award.

Following the Slidell appearance, Mrs. Obama went to New Orleans, where she and football stars were joined by singer Taylor Swift to promote a healthier lifestyle for children.

Louisiana AFL-CIO President Louis Reine, left, and St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees President Elsie Burkhalter, who is also a Vice President of the American Federation of Teachers, were guests at the First Lady's appearance in Slidell.

Do UNO students protest budget cuts in vain?

For a moment there, it looked like the 1960s all over again - protesting students disrupted a campus and fought with police. But it wasn't over a war or civil rights that University of New Orleans students took to the barricades last week. It was over budget cuts that threaten to decimate the university and devalue their educations.

As Times-Picayune reporter John Pope writes here, the students protested the fact that the school's budget has been cut by $14.5 million since 2009, and that more budget cuts are on the way - Governor Jindal's commissioner of administration has asked state agencies to prepare budgets with another 35% worth of cuts.

The students' concern about their educational future may be in vain, as Associated Press reporter Melinda Deslatte writes in this column.

"But those students probably need to brace for the reality that appears to be slowly sinking in with the higher education community," writes Deslatte. "Protests or not, the cuts are coming, and Jindal and Louisiana's legislators don't seem to have any plans to stop them."

Louisiana gets share of assesssment instrument grant

Louisiana is one of 26 states that will share a federal grant aimed at creating common assessment instruments for the recently adopted Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. Ours is one of 35 states and the District of Columbia to adopt the new Common Core standards.

According to this press release from the State Department of Education, the new assessments will eventually replace the iLEAP and LEAP tests, which will be phased out after the 2013-14 school year.

An important goal of the new assessment will be to have scores that can be compared among states that subscribe to the common standards.

The State Department says the new assessments will be administered by computer at key times during the year.

In a related Education Week story, reporter Erik W. Robelen writes that there are actually two sets of grants aimed at designing new assessment systems. Both are part of the Race to the Top program.

California teachers outraged over release of evaluations

Teachers in Los Angeles are outraged that a newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, has published evaluation scores, based on standardized tests, of some 6,000 teachers.

That issue arose in Louisiana during debate on legislation that created a "value added model" of teacher evaluation, in which half of a teacher's evaluation will, in the future, be based on student growth.

The Louisiana Federation of Teachers was adamant that state law protecting the confidentiality of teacher evaluations must be preserved. As a result, the law does not allow the release of data on individual teacher evaluations.

For the think tank Public Agenda, the Los Angeles controversy raised numerous questions about
the teaching profession and teacher accountability. Here is the article that appeared in the Public Agenda Alert for September 2:


When databases and disenchantment collide, the results can be explosive - as the debate over "value-added" grading of teachers showed this week.

The Los Angeles Times provoked a furious reaction from teachers this week when it launched a database of 6,000 elementary school teachers analyzing how they've done measured by standardized tests. The stories prompted debate around the nation on the methods used and at least one piece wondering "When Does Holding Teachers Accountable Go Too Far?"

We'd argue that you can't understand the debate over the database without understanding the disenchantment so many teachers feel over their jobs.

Public Agenda's research, conducted with Learning Point Associates, shows a stunning number of K-12 teachers, some 40 percent, appear to be disheartened and disappointed in their jobs. Only 14 percent of these "Disenchanted" teachers rate their principals as "excellent" at supporting them. Nearly three-quarters cite "discipline and behavior issues" in the classroom as a drawback to teaching, and 7 in 10 say that testing is a major drawbacks as well. More than half of the Disenchanted teachers (54 percent) work in low-income schools.

By contrast, the 23 percent of teachers who shaped up as "Idealists" and the 37 percent we termed "Contented" were more likely to say their principal was supportive, more likely to say their school was orderly, and more likely to say good teachers can make a difference in student learning. Only 34 percent of the Contented and 45 percent of the Idealists work in low-income schools.

The Teaching for a Living survey can't tell us whether the Disenchanted are bad teachers, or good teachers trapped in bad schools, or whether the Idealists are effective in the classroom or just more optimistic. But the survey does tell us something about what teachers believe their problems are. Regardless of how we try to measure success in the classroom, a better understanding of how teachers feel about their jobs can help explain why some things work and others don't.

Most can't name federal reform models

Quiz: Can you name the four school reform models touted by the federal government?

Don't feel bad. Neither can most school systems, according to this Education Week article by reporter Dakarai Aarons :

More than a third of school districts reported they had no familiarity with the
models that are part of the federal School Improvement Grants heading to
school districts this fall in a bid by the Obama administration to change
the fortunes of the bottom five percent of America's schools, according to
the report from the Washington-based Center on Education
Policy. And fewer than 12 percent had implemented any of
the models in their schools.

The answers to the quiz: Transformation, Turnaround, Restart and Closure. See the article for definitions.

First Lady to visit Slidell school

First Lady Michelle Obama will visit Brock Elementary School in Slidell on September 8 as part of her campaign against childhood obesity. The Associated Press has the story here.

U.S. Education Secretary greets Federation members

LFT President Steve Monaghan, Monroe Federation of Teachers and School Employees President Sandie Lollie and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Travelling through Louisiana on an eight-state tour to celebrate America's public school teachers, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited with members of the Monroe Federation of Teachers and School Employees at their back-to-school membership meeting.

Duncan, who was in Monroe to check out a program at the city's J.S. Clark Elementary School, accepted an invitation from MFT/SE President Sandie Lollie to meet educators at the union meeting.

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek, LFT President Steve Monaghan, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, East Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers President Carnell Washington and Jefferson Federation of Teachers President Meladie Munch.

As you can see from the YouTube video released by the Education Department, the secretary was impressed by the energy and dedication of teachers and school employees.

“I want to say a huge thank you for what you’re doing for the state’s children,” Duncan told the Federation members. “We’re fighting a daily battle for our children’s lives. Some form of higher education has to be the goal for all of our children.”

“Teachers are the unsung heroes in our society,” Duncan continued. “We can’t do enough to celebrate them. We need to take the focus off athletes and movie stars and put the focus on education.”

Top Republican talks about tax expenditures

"Spending programs disguised as tax breaks." That's how columnist Ruth Marcus defines tax expenditures. It lines up nicely with LFT's contention, based on research by the Louisiana Budget Project, that the $7 billion worth of deductions and credits that Louisiana spends every year ought to be reconsidered in light of our budgetary mess.

It's to be expected that a writer for the Washington Post would take a progressive position on tax expenditures. What's surprising is that the source of her column is Congressman John Boehner of Ohio, Minority Leader of the House and one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress.

While tax expenditures cost Louisiana $7 billion per year, they cost the federal government $1.2 trillion per year.

And like in Louisiana, once these expenditures become enshrined in law, they are seldom reconsidered. Even if their original purpose has been satisfied, and even if they have become a net drain on the economy.

In this excerpt from Marcus' column, the voice of reason is loud and clear, and could have come straight from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers' position on tax expenditures:

“We need to take a long and hard look at the undergrowth of deductions,
credits, and special carve-outs that our tax code has become,” Boehner said in his speech
to the City Club of Cleveland. “And, yes, we need to acknowledge that what
Washington sometimes calls ‘tax cuts’ are really just poorly disguised spending
programs that expand the role of government in the lives of individuals and
employers.”

Boehner cited the “tax extenders” bill now
making its way through Congress. “There’s everything in this bill: the research
and development tax credit, special expensing rules for the film industry, an
extension and modification of a tax credit for steel industry fuel, the mine
rescue team training tax credit, and tax incentives for investment in the
District of Columbia,” he said. “Are they worth it? Many are. But we just go
ahead and extend all of them temporarily -- and usually right at the last minute
-- so Washington can continue pandering to the loudest voices instead of
implementing the best ideas.”

Louisiana frozen out of Race to the Top funds

Doing a passable impression of the Soup Nazi on the old Seinfeld show, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today said "No money for you" to Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek.

For the second time, our state was frozen out of the education fund known as Race to the Top. In the first round, only Tennessee and Delaware won money; this time, nine states and the District of Columbia will get a share of $3.4 billion from the competition.

Asked for a comment, Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan said the loss changes nothing about the Federation's commitment to student achievement.

“The Louisiana Federation of Teachers remains committed to including educator voice and involvement in any initiatives that affect our profession,” said Monaghan. “Despite this development, we will continue to partner with the state and local school districts in achieving our goal of a quality education for all children."

It did not go unnoticed that Louisiana lost its bid for funding even though Pastorek made the competition a top priority of his department, ramming through numerous controversial policies in an effort to demonstrate his passion for reform.

Associated Press writer Dorie Turner put it this way in her report: "But some education groups said 'Race to the Top' rewarded states that have weak reform efforts while leaving out those like Colorado and Louisiana that have made strides to overhaul their schools."

Could loss of the federal funds have anything to do with a governor who's spent the last few months on a beach loudly criticizing the federal government? Or who bemoaned federal spending even as he handed out oversized cardboard checks written on accounts funded by that same government?

Louisiana's Third World higher education system

This year, higher education suffered a $270 million budget cut at the hands of the Jindal administration and the legislature. Next year, we'll lose some $290 million in federal funding for colleges and universities.

On top of that, the state budget is expected to fall by more than a billion dollars next year. Heads of state departments have already been ordered to prepare budgets with 35% cuts.

No wonder the state's college leaders told the League of Women Voters that our Louisiana is well on the way to becoming more like a Third World country than a state in the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth.

Advocate reporter Jordan Blum covered the meeting for this story.

Rock, meet hard place

Just a few days ago, Gov. Jindal's new interim commissioner of administration announced that he's asked all state agency heads to prepare budgets with 35% cuts. That would probably effectively shut down state government.

Today, Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon writes that lawmakers are loathe to introduce any tax increases in the next session. The governor doesn't want tax hikes, they say, and besides, it's an election year.

Rock, meet hard place. Crushed in between are the people of Louisiana.

Higher education troubles: more than money

It's not just the money problems that plague higher education in Louisiana, although the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars can't be a good thing.

Lately, the higher education community has been riven with administrative conflicts, showdowns and SNAFUs.

Take the flap over the leadership of the new LSU teaching hospital scheduled to replace New Orleans' Charity Hospital. As reported here by Bill Barrow of The Times Picayune, LSU System President John Lombardi appointed Lafayette attorney Elaine Abell to chair the new hospital's board.

But under pressure from Gov. Bobby Jindal, the LSU board overturned Lombardi and named LSU board member Robert Yarbrough, a Baton Rouge businessman, to the post. Yarbrough had been appointed to the board by Jindal in June.

There is a long history of powerful Louisiana governors manipulating both higher education and medical services in the state. Earl Long famously reappointed an entire medical board to ensure that he would be judged sane. His brother, Huey, may have died because of inept medical care from a political appointee after he was shot in the hall of the Louisiana capitol.

But it's not just governors who meddle in the affairs of higher education. Advocate reporter Will Sentell has this report from the Press Club of Baton Rouge, in which the legislature is rapped for its micromanagement of the higher education commission.

Council for a Better Louisiana President Barry Erwin took lawmakers to task for overturning the appointment of Tom Layzell as interim commissioner, noting that they have set up a Byzantine process guaranteed to impede the search for Sally Clausen's replacement.

"Who in their right mind is going to look at Louisiana after what we've done?" asked Erwin. "We've really shot ourselves in the foot."

What legislators have done is set up a system that requires the legislature's joint budget committee to approve the pay package for potential commissioners, followed by a confirmation vote by the full Senate.

At least six other states are also seeking higher education commissioners right now, said Erwin, but Louisiana is the only state with such a convoluted hiring process. That puts us at a competitive disadvantage, making it "extremely difficult" to find a new commissioner.

Teaching literacy in all content areas

Engaging in and practicing literacy skills -- listening, speaking, writing and reading -- should be a part of lessons across all subjects, Edutopia consulting online editor Rebecca Alber writes in this blog post. Informal conversations about new material allows students to learn to communicate at a higher academic level, while informal, daily writing exercises can help students relate to the subjects they are learning, Alber writes. Classroom libraries may also encourage a love of reading, she states.

Carpetbaggers and charlatans

Knowing that our State Department of Education spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year on contracts to various individuals and other vendors, this New York Times article by reporter Sam Dillon seems pertinent.

Despite the recession, there is a gold rush on in the field of education. It is fueled in part by the billions that state and federal governments are pouring into education reform, and in part by a cabal of business-oriented think tanks and lobbyists trying to cash in.

It resembles the early days of the Iraq occupation, when billions of dollars were scooped up by novice entrepreneurs who knew nothing about policy, but were expert in bilking the government.

Or, as former New York city schools chancellor Rudy Crew put it in the article, “This is like the aftermath of the Civil War, with all the carpetbaggers and charlatans.”

The Times article names a few of the egregious offenders in the school reform scam, but there are countless others, and they are robbing taxpayers and children of the resources that our schools desperately need.

As Jack Jennings, president of the non-partisan Center for Education Policy told the reporter, “Many of these companies clearly just smell the money.”

Devastating budget news

Governor Jindal's new commissioner of administration, Paul Rainwater, dropped a bombshell today when he told AP reporter Melinda Deslatte that he's ordering all state departments to plan for a 35% budget cut next year.

Rainwater said he's anticipating a $2 billion drop in revenues. While it may not actually come to that, he said, he wants to be ready if that worst-case scenario plays out.

Not surprisingly, Rainwater is holding fast to Governor Jindal's reckless "no taxes" pledge. Apparently, this administration would rather turn out the lights and lock the doors of state government than jeopardize Jindal's credentials with the conservative budget hawks he's courting on the national political stage.

That the administration would even consider a 35% budget cut is disturbing. But doing so in the full knowledge that there are over 440 tax loopholes out there, and that trimming just some of them could avert disaster, is truly mind boggling.

Note that we're not talking about new taxes here - we're talking about collecting taxes that are on the books but have been exempted by lawmakers.

The only other alternative the governor seems willing to consider is raiding the state's statutorily protected funds. That would require the same two-thirds vote of the legislature as repealing some of the tax exemptions.

Next year's legislative session is shaping up to be perhaps the most painful on record, for the governor, for legislators and, most importantly, for the people of Louisiana.

With friends like these...

With just over 40 months in office under his belt and an annual review right around the corner, there are questions about State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek's standing in the education community, and Advocate reporter Will Sentell is asking them

You may recall that Sentell's original interview with the superintendent didn't go all that well - instead of bragging about his accomplishments, the prickly Pastorek chose to attack education leaders instead.

So this time, Sentell asked best Pastorek's allies what they think about him. Generally, they say Pastorek's doing a good job, but...

BESE Member Chas Roemer says ,“He does step on toes sometimes, and probably at times unnecessarily.”

And Louisiana Association of Business and Industry Vice President Brigitte Nieland says, “As someone once told me, you can cut deeper and more strategically with a scalpel than a sledge hammer. Sometimes Paul uses a sledge hammer rather than a scalpel.”

Another shoe drops in Filipino scandal

Another shoe has dropped in the ongoing Filipino teacher scandal. In April, an administrative law judge found that the company which recruited Filipino teachers for Louisiana schools was guilty of breaking state labor law, and fined Universal Placement International $1.8 million.

Today the Louisiana Federation of Teachers announced a federal RICO lawsuit against UPI, its sister company, PARS, and the principals of those companies.

But it goes deeper than that. Also named in the suit, filed by the American Federation of Teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Covington and Burling LLP, are the East Baton Rouge School District and some of its administrators. It is charged that they actively participated in a scheme in which foreign teachers "were cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars and forced into exploitative contracts by an international trafficking ring run by labor contractors."

“For more than two years, we have been working toward this moment,” said Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan. “The practices described in this lawsuit are disgusting, unacceptable and, frankly, un-American."

It is amazing that the recruiting agency was able to do business at all in Louisiana. Its president, Lourdes "Lulu" Navarro, had served jail time in California for defrauding the state medical system, and was found guilty of fraud in New Jersey as well.

Watch for some disturbing and shocking revelations when testimony is heard in this case.

A state crisis of unprecedented severity

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has issued a sobering report entitled "Recession Continues to Batter State Budgets; State Responses Could Slow Recovery." The gist of the story is that the recession "has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record...a state fiscal crisis of unprecedented severity"

There are charts and graphs that display what we in Louisiana already know: there's not enough money in state coffers to provide the services our people need.

The solution, according to the report is a mix of spending cuts and revenue measures: "At the state level, a balanced approach to closing deficits — raising taxes along with enacting budget cuts — is needed to close state budget gaps in order to maintain important services while minimizing harmful effects on the economy."

Thus far in Louisiana, all the emphasis has been on spending cuts. Governor (and wannabe President) Bobby Jindal is focused on cuts and phobic on revenues to the point of obsession.

Which brings us to today's editorial in The Advocate. In this case, the Gray Lady of Baton Rouge seems to be a lone voice of reason, with most newspapers in the state parroting the governor's anti-tax blather.

The editorial points once again to the Louisiana Budget Project's contention that many of the Louisiana's 440-some odd tax exemptions are not just unnecessary, but are harmful to development in the state.

"Repealing or suspending some of the worst offenders is the easiest way to raise revenue, and utterly defensible even to anti-tax Republicans," says the editorial. "After all, it's not 'new taxes'."

It's a good argument, but will it wash in the coming legislative fiscal session, which just happens to precede state elections? Lawmakers will be in a tough spot, faced on one hand by the decimation of services our people need, and on the other by opponents champing at the bit to paint them as "tax and spenders."

Which will prevail? Doing what's right for the people of Louisiana, or doing what seems necessary to be reelected?

New Orleans schools aren't serving special education students well

It seemed like the wholesale takeover of New Orleans schools by the state following Hurricane Katrina was going so well, what with the Recovery School District spending twice the per-pupil amount as the state's other public schools, and all.


Then the Southern Poverty Law Center has to go and spoil it all by revealing that the city's Recovery District and charter schools are doing a lousy job of caring for special needs students.


As Times-Picayune reporter Cindy Chang puts it in this story, "Thirteen students with disabilities have filed a complaint against the Louisiana Department of Education alleging that the agency has looked the other way while New Orleans public schools commit a range of federal violations, from refusing to enroll them to failing to provide a blind third-grader with a full-time aide."


And since there are only a small handful of schools left under the jurisdiction of the much-maligned Orleans Parish School Board, there's no place left to place special needs children except the schools that were taken over by the state.


For his part, Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek is simply SHOCKED to learn that children aren't getting the services they deserve, and if only the Southern Poverty Law Center had called him instead of filing a lawsuit, this all could have been handled without any public outcry.

Louisiana is R2T finalist in second round

Louisiana is one of 18 states chosen as finalists in the second round of federal Race to the Top funding, reported in this press release from the Department of Education.

The press release says the state could get as much as $175 million from the competitive grant. But as this Christian Science Monitor article points out, the total amount requested by finalists is about $6.2 billion, while the total amount available in R2T funds is $3.4 billion.

Advocate editorial hits Stelly repeal

The Advocate gets it exactly right in this editorial. When the legislature overturned the tax reforms in the Stelly plan, the stage was set for the fiscal crisis facing Louisiana today.

Problem is, that's pretty much water under the bridge. The Stelly reforms have been so thoroughly poisoned by political opportunists that bringing up the subject is close to pointless.

But there is a gold mine of information in the Budget Project report that can move the debate beyond Stelly. More than 440 tax expenditures - those are tax revenues that are spent on various rebates and tax incentives - cost the state some $7 billion a year.

No doubt, many of those breaks are valuable and necessary. But repealing just a fraction of them would solve our budget woes.

When shills for big business claim that Louisiana has the highest business taxes in the nation, they are right. But thanks to the myriad exemptions, most businesses don't pay those taxes.

Next year's legislative session will be fiscal. Now is the time to open the discussion on Louisiana's hidden budget, and to question the list of tax breaks offered up by the state.

The man can't help himself

Given an opportunity to tout his legislative successes and point to a decline in "unacceptable" schools, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek chose instead to attack teacher organizations and local school boards in this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell.

It could have been a "puff piece," a calm reflection on his first 40 months in office. But it seems that the superintendent just can't help kicking over ant piles.

LFT files suit to halt "Red Tape" act

As promised, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers has filed suit to halt implementation of Gov. Bobby Jindal's signature education bill, the so-called "Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Program."

The Federation's case is simple: the governor and legislature do not have the right to hand off the legislature's lawmaking authority to policy boards. We believe the constitution is quite clear on the issue.

For their part, Gov. Jindal's henchmen and the Bossier City Representative who's carrying his water are reduced to name-calling, as this article by Gannett reporter Mike Hasten reveals.

Their attempts to paint the lawsuit as "a sad attempt...to block reform" just don't wash. LFT has consistently supported reforms that are research-based and proven to be effective. We have a problem with bogus reforms that mask attacks on public education and the teaching profession.

We just don't see the Jindal plans to charterize, privatize and voucherize our schools as legitimate reforms.

But that's not even the point in this case. It's the legal issue. As LFT President Steve Monaghan put is, "This is a slippery slope that strongly threatens everyone's appreciation of what law is. Because we support the legislative process and the value of law, we have no choice but to challenge the constitutionality of this act."

Here is a link to the LFT Web site's report on the lawsuit, which has links to the lawsuit itself.

Pastorek: "I did it"

Was State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek falling on his sword to protect Governor Bobby Jindal, or was he really the one behind the veto of funds to pay stipends promised to nationally certified educators?

Does it matter? We know that neither of them apparently believe in the value of national certification, or in keeping the word of the state or, for that matter, in the value of the people who dedicate their lives to our our schools and our children.

Anyway, here is the Associated Press story in which Pastorek says he is the culprit, and not the governor, who wanted to axe the stipends.

EdLog taking a vacation

EdLog will be on hiatus until late July. Have a wonderful summer!

New study: "No clear edge for charter schools"

Courtesy of Education Week, a new study by Mathematica Policy Research of Princetion, NJ, reveals that "Students who won lotteries to attend charter middle schools performed, on average, no better in mathematics and reading than their peers who lost out in the random admissions process and enrolled in nearby regular public schools..."

Monaghan: Session was "very painful"

Advocate reporter Will Sentell wraps up the legislative session's effects on education in this article.

Depending on how you look at it, this was either a wonderful session for public education, or a most painful one.

Coming down on the "wonderful" side is the Jindal administration, which pushed hard for pieces of legislation that teachers and school employees really hate. Those include an unnecessary teacher evaluation bill, and a really awful scheme that allows school boards to seek waivers for virtually any law or policy governing education.

Says Jindal's chief legal counsel, "It was an enormously successful session when it comes to education."

LFT President Steve Monaghan calls the session "very painful." He reflects the mood of the state's teachers and school employees, saying, "I don't think anybody would consider the 2010 session any renaissance of the legislative process."

Pastorek takes blame for loss of stipends

State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek is taking credit for the loss of $16.3 million for stipends paid to nationally certified educators, according to this Associated Press article in the Shreveport Times.

Pastorek says the stipend payments would have deeply cut his education department budget, so he asked Governor Jindal to veto the line item.

Says LFT President Steve Monaghan, "This is very disappointing, demonstrating a breathtaking lack of understanding for the effort educators have made to enhance their skills and improve our schools."

Outrage as Jindal vetoes teacher stipends

In a move guaranteed to outrage educators, Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed $16.3 million to pay stipends for nationally certified teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers and school speech language pathologists and audiologists.

The governor announced his vetoes late Friday. While local school systems must by law pick up the stipends for teachers, some of the others will lose their stipends if school boards choose not to fund them.

The governor also "unraveled efforts to shield Southern University and Southeastern Louisiana University from significant budget cuts," according to this article by Advocate reporters Michelle Millhollon and Mark Ballard.

Pastorek slips legislative snares

Is state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek very lucky, or as wily as a Borgia pope?

That's the question roiling Baton Rouge today. Two separate Advocate articles reveal that Pastorek slipped through snares set by his legislative foes just as easily as that BP oil evades efforts to capture it.

Lawmakers thought they had Pastorek on the ropes with passage of Senate Bill 302. Originally intended to assign letter grades to schools and school districts (the public apparently finding numbers too baffling to understand), the bill was amended to require the state school board to evaluate Pastorek every year and give lawmakers a written copy of the report.

Thinking they had staged a coup, legislators crowed Monday night and on into Tuesday morning that they had finally humbled Pastorek.

But as Will Sentell reports in this Advocate story, the House of Representatives didn't actually pass the bill, "even though the Legislature's Web site said Monday evening that it had won final approval."

"Even state Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie and sponsor of the bill, was surprised to learn on Tuesday afternoon that his bill failed to win final House approval," according to Sentell.

Score one for Pastorek.

The second incident came with the apparent failure of a top Pastorek aide to win Senate approval for a plum $160,000 position.

The superintendent wanted Karen Burke, the former head of the state's Recovery School District, to become assistant superintendent of the Office of Educator Support, a position that required senate confirmation.

Any senator can blackball a nomination, as Advocate reporter Marsha Shuler tells the story here. And more than one senator was apparently willing to drop one on the superintendent.

Denied the confirmation, Pastorek simply slipped Burk into an unfilled position that had been approved last August. The job pays $160,000 per year.

The maneuver won't win the superintendent any friends in a department which recently laid off 31 employees, but Pastorek doesn't see himself in any sort of popularity contest, anyway.

In this game, the score stands at Pastorek 2, legislature zero.

LFT member taking a stand for children

Congratulations to St. Landry Federation of Teachers member Madeline Taylor, who is tossing her hat in the ring for election to the parish school board.

Says Taylor, who will retire from teaching if she wins the election, "All the work I have done and continue to do has children as my primary focus. I am an advocate for what is best for the children as well as their parents who seek the finest educational resources that the St. Landry Parish School System has to offer. After all, our children are our greatest and most precious assets."

The Opelousas Daily World has the full story here.

Is the Jindal budget more harmful than the BP spill?

Gambit publisher and WWL-TV analyst Clancy DuBos poses a disturbing question: What's more harmful to Louisiana's culture, the BP oil spill or the just-adopted state budget pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal?

DuBos makes a really good case for Jindal. The state's bare-bones budget, he writes, "does more long-term damage to 'culture' across Louisiana than the BP disaster."

From higher education cuts to local arts programs, Dubos says, the governor's stance makes way for culture and the arts to "become collateral damage in his budget wars."

Dubos concludes, "...the next time you see Jindal railing against the feds and BP about the destruction of our culture, remember that he's one of the biggest destroyers of all.

LFT to file lawsuit challenging “Red Tape” act

(Baton Rouge – June 18, 2010) The Louisiana Federation of Teachers will file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of HB 1368, the so-called “Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Program,” Federation President Steve Monaghan announced today.

“As we argued before every committee that heard the bill, we believe that this act is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority,” Monaghan said. “The legislature simply does not have the right to hand off its responsibility to another branch of government.

“We are filing this lawsuit out of respect for the value of law,” Monaghan said.

As passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives, the bill would allow local school superintendents, with school board approval, to ask the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for a waiver of virtually any law or policy governing public education.

BESE is a policy-making body comprising 11 members. Eight are elected, and three are appointed by the governor.

“If allowed to stand, this law will permit BESE to act as a legislative body,” Monaghan said. “That board will be allowed to decide which of the laws passed by the legislature will be enforced, and in which communities.

“By outsourcing its legislative authority to BESE and allowing the selective enforcement of duly enacted laws,” Monaghan continued, “we believe the State Legislature has unconstitutionally ceded its authority to another entity.”

Monaghan said that HB 1368 is very different from the state’s charter school law, which allows waivers of laws and policies that affect other public schools.

“In establishing charter schools, the legislature itself spelled out the laws and policies which could be set aside for a charter experiment,” Monaghan said. “But in the “Red Tape” act, the legislature is giving BESE the discretion to cherry-pick which laws can be flouted, and in which school districts. That is a crucial distinction.”

Federation General Counsel Larry Samuel said the lawsuit will be filed in the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge after it is signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal. The suit will ask for an injunction prohibiting BESE from taking any action based on authority granted by the “Red Tape” act.

“We do not believe that we are breaking new ground with this suit,” Samuel said. “We believe there is adequate, settled case law proving that the legislature does not have the constitutional authority to delegate its responsibilities to an administrative body.”

Schools may need BP money to offset losses

Education Week reporter Alyson Klein has a story online saying that states affected by the BP oil disaster may need the oil company's compensation funds to offset revenue losses due to the massive oil leak.

Senate joins House, capitulates to Jindal

Times-Picayune reporter Bill Barrow was on the scene last night when the Senate joined the House of Representatives in surrendering its lawmaking authority to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Since the "Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Program" was greatly desired by Gov. Bobby Jindal, it always had a strong chance of passing - another example of the power wielded by the Louisiana governor's office.

But just because the governor want it, does not mean it is good law. And HB 1368 by Rep. Jane Smith (R-Bossier City) is very bad law.

This is the first instance in which the Louisiana Legislature actually punted its lawmaking authority to a policy-making board, in this case the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

And because three of the 11 BESE members are appointed by the governor, the executive branch will gain even more leverage over public education in the state.

LFT strongly opposed the bill, with members of the Federation's Action Center sending some 30,000 messages of opposition to lawmakers. For more of the Federation's reaction to the vote, please click here.

No more "Omnia gallia in tres partes divisa est?"

Word is out that LSU is planning to drop some of the degree programs that entitle it to be called the state's flagship university.

On the block are degrees in Latin, German and Classics. If you think that suximus maximus, send an e-mail to the LSU Board of Supervisors here.

"Red Tape" waiting for the 11th hour

The decision on Gov. Bobby Jindal's so-called "Red Tape reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Program" (HB 1368 by Rep. Jane Smith, R-Bossier City), is being delayed, along with a number of important bills.

As Advocate reporter Will Sentell writes here, "...dozens of other proposals are also awaiting debate in the often chaotic final days before any adjournment, which in this case is June 21."

The "Red Tape" act is particularly vexing to teachers and school employees because it fits so poorly into the mix of school reforms that have been adopted already.

The governor's plan would allow school systems to ask for waivers from virtually any law or policy that governs public education. That includes class size, instructional time, funding and personnel issues like teacher tenure.

But at the same time, another newly-passed law seeks to standardize teacher evaluations across the state. There's an obvious collision course: teachers working under widely varying classroom conditions cant be expected to conform to a single evaluation standard.

Just as troubling is the thought of a legislature volunteering to surrender its lawmaking authority. If the bill passes, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will be the body that grants waivers to local school boards. BESE is a policy board, not a lawmaking body.

Note that in Sentell's article, Gov. Jindal's lawyer avoids talking about the bill's possible constitutional SNAFU, but instead says just that they probably have the muscle to get it passed in the Senate.

Passage of the bill would set the concept of separation of powers on its ear. There's still a chance to send senators a message of opposition to HB 1368; please click here for redirection to the LFT Action Center.

"Tax expenditures" are draining the state

This is an important concept: tax breaks are tax expenditures. Every tax exemption and every tax credit costs the state money. As this Advocate column by Lanny Keller points out, Louisiana spends some $7 billion a year on tax expenditures, while tax revenue - the amount actually collected by the state - is about $8 billion.

We give back in tax breaks almost as much as we collect in taxes. That has been well-documented by the Louisiana Budget Project.

Imagine the shape our state would be in if lawmakers would rein in those expenditures by just a few percentage points. One-seventh of the giveaway would pretty much solve our problems.

As Keller notes, some, perhaps even many, of the tax breaks are necessary to protect vulnerable citizens. Those would certainly include sales tax breaks on food, prescription drugs, home utilities, etc.

Others may be important incentives to bring jobs to the state.

Problem is, as the column says, none of these billions of dollars in tax expenditures is ever reconsidered. Some have long outlived their usefulness, and yet they continue to cost the state money.

That ought to be considered as we slash funding for education, health care, recreation and other quality-of-life issues that are also very important in attracting businesses and jobs to the state.

State budget in turmoil; revenues lower than expected

The state budget, HB 1 by Rep. Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro), is bogged down in the Senate Finance Committee, and there is no clear picture of what the budget will actually look like after the session ends on June 21.

As proposed, the $25.4 billion budget includes deep cuts for higher education, health care and a number of other state responsibilities. But as reported in the May 21 edition of the Weekly Legislative Digest, the Senate and House of Representatives are at loggerheads over resolving a shortfall facing the state in the current budget year.

The stumbling block is over use of the state’s “rainy day fund” to shore up the budget. While both sides want to use the fund to avoid a constitutionally prohibited deficit, they disagree over how and when the funds should be repaid.

The situation grew murkier on Friday, when the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference met to announce yet another shortfall in state revenues. With just two weeks left in the fiscal year, state economists said that revenues have fallen by another $261.4 million this year.

The state already cut this fiscal year’s budget by $200 million last December, and by another $319 million in April.

Leading the most recent decline in estimated revenues is a $250 million shortfall in collection of personal income taxes.

As Greg Albrecht, chief economist for the legislative fiscal office, said, “Obviously, we have been dramatically wrong this year.”

That set up yet another confrontation between the House and Senate. Speaker of the House Jim Tucker (R-Terrytown) said the Revenue Estimating Conference should not accept the economist’s report until the end of the year, and use some constitutional sleight-of-hand to pay back the deficit in the coming year.

Senate President Joel Chaisson (D-Destrehan), on the other hand, said the constitution does not allow a deficit, and recommended that the conference recognize the shortfall, which would require more cuts over the next couple of weeks.

Because decisions by the Revenue Estimating Conference must be unanimous, the issue was left hanging at that point.

The Senate Finance Committee will continue its discussion of HB1 next week.

MFP: Pain in classrooms and communities

The House Education Committee met in a rare evening session Thursday to approve a zero-growth Minimum Foundation Program formula that LFT President Steve Monaghan said is likely to cause “pain in the classroom and pain in the communities.”

Without a dissenting vote, the committee sent HCR 243 by Rep. Austin Badon (D-New Orleans), public education’s $3.4 billion budget, to the full House. Missing from the formula for the second year in a row is the traditional 2.75% “growth factor” that local school systems rely on to meet rising costs. The MFP will increase by about $44 million, but that is only to meet the per-pupil cost of about 6,000 new students in public schools.

Earlier in the week, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education agreed to scale back its budget request because of the state’s yawning gap between expenses and anticipated revenues. The state constitution forbids adoption of a budget with a deficit.

Monaghan was the only representative of an education organization to address the committee. He told members that failure to include the $65 million growth factor will be felt throughout the state. K-12 schools have already lost about $85 million in state funding this year, he said.

“If one appreciates the ‘bounce’ that school expenditures bring to local communities,” Monaghan said, “then one understands how the loss of revenues will impact the economy of whole communities.”

Monaghan cautioned that next year’s budget will pose an even greater threat of cuts.
While the recent recession is responsible for some of Louisiana’s budget woes, Monaghan said, the state would be in much better shape had governors and lawmakers not pushed for so many tax breaks during years when the economy was bright.

A report from the Louisiana Budget Project notes that Louisiana grants more than 400 tax expenditures in the form of deductions, exemptions and credits, Monaghan said. That amounts to more than $7 billion and is nearly as much as the state takes in as revenues.

LFT president:”There will be pain” because of MFP

(Baton Rouge – June 10, 2010) When LFT President Steve Monaghan testifies before the House Education Committee on BESE's resubmitted Zero Growth MFP formula, he will do so with a full appreciation of the action most likely to be taken by the committee.

“I am under no illusion regarding the likely outcome tonight,” Monaghan said. The committee no doubt finds itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place, but this Federation sees this as just another chapter in a long struggle to raise legislative and community consciousness regarding school funding.”

It appears very likely that the MFP will advance, for the second year in a row, without the 2.75% “growth factor” that school districts have relied upon to meet the growing cost of educating children and keeping teacher compensation competitive. On Tuesday, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education stripped the $65 million growth factor from its funding request.

Some lawmakers and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office had sent strong signals to BESE that an enhanced MFP would be rejected, triggering a brief impasse between the legislature and the state’s school board.

On Tuesday, BESE acquiesced.

Later today, Monaghan will repeat in part his testimony before BESE by sharing three observations.

• There will be additional pain in our classrooms and our communities because of the MFP. In sampling of districts, $85 million has already been cut from school budgets across the state.

“If one appreciates the ‘bounce’ that school expenditures bring to local communities,” he will say, “then one understands how the loss of revenues will impact the economy of whole communities.”

• Five years ago, an ad-hoc committee called the MFP Task Force discussed creating an “adequacy study.” Its goal would have been to determine how much it would cost to provide a truly appropriate education for all Louisiana children.

That idea was tabled on February 23, 2006, and the task force has failed to reconvene since then.

• A report from the Louisiana Budget Project has reported that Louisiana grants more than 400 tax expenditures in the form of deductions, exemptions and credits, which amounts to more than $7 billion and is nearly as much as the state takes in as revenues.”

An urgent need for the state to investigate these tax expenditures now grows critical. Any that do not serve to create jobs, add to the quality of life of our citizens, and grow the state economy should be challenged so the state can fulfill its obligation to provide services for the people of Louisiana.

BESE revamps MFP without "growth factor"

Bowing to pressure from the legislature and Governor Bobby Jindal, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on Tuesday agreed to a standstill K-12 education budget for the second year in a row.

“This will cause pain in the cities and in the hinterlands,” said Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan. “And it will only get worse next year, when another budget shortfall is predicted.”

Although BESE had, at first, proposed a traditional 2.76% increase in aid to public schools, lawmakers made it clear that any increase in funding would be rejected this year.

The funding formula for public schools, called the Minimum Foundation Program, is created by BESE, but has to be approved and funded by the legislature. Lawmakers can either accept or reject the formula, but cannot change it.

In the recent, BESE has approved at least 2.75% more for the MFP as a growth factor. But as the full effects of the recent recession kicked in, lawmakers and the governor balked at increasing funding.

This year, BESE asked for an increase of $109 million in the MFP. Of that, about $44 million is needed to pay for an increase of about 6,000 students in public schools. The rest, some $65 million, constituted the growth factor.

The legislature has not rejected this year’s funding request, but has sent strong signals that the $65 million growth factor is a stumbling block that would result in rejection.

BESE therefore decided to convene and restructure the MFP request before lawmakers could take action.

What is missing in the discussion of school funding, Monaghan said, is any mention of the actual cost of educating children.

Five years ago, Monaghan said, a Minimum Foundation Program task force was considered in order to conduct an adequacy study. Its goal would have been to determine how much it would cost to provide a truly appropriate education for all Louisiana children.

That idea was tabled on February 23, 2006, and the task force has failed to reconvene since then.

Advocate reporter Will Sentell covered the BESE meeting for this story.

With heavy amendments. "Red Tape" act advances

With an overflow crowd of educators as witnesses, the Senate Education Committee on Friday approved a heavily-amended version of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s pet legislation, the so-called “Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment Program,” HB 1368 by Rep. Jane Smith (R-Bossier City).

The bill, described by LFT President Steve Monaghan as the “most dangerous” item on the session’s agenda, would allow local school superintendents, with the permission of the school board, to ask for a waiver of virtually any law or policy regarding public education. In its original form, only health and safety issues could not be waived.

Under heavy pressure from the governor's office, wary lawmakers have moved the bill through the process while trying to chip away at its worst aspects.In the House of Representatives, for example, it was amended to ensure that school food service rules could not be waived.

As HB 1368 made its debut in the Senate Education committee, Chairman Ben Nevers (D-Bogalusa) admitted that his preference would be to scrap the bill and start over. Since legislative rules don’t allow that, Sen. Nevers introduced a pile of amendments aimed at making the bill “palatable” to teachers and school employees.

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

Will value-added evaluations help Race to the Top?

Louisiana's education leaders are hopeful that passage of Act 54, the state's new value-added model of teacher evaluation, will help the state's application for federal Race to the Top funds.

As Advocate reporter Will Sentell writes here, enactment of the new model is the only big change in the state's application. Whether it will be enough to earn the state $175 million remains to be seen.

Pay-for-performance: Not so fast!

A new study is showing that basing teacher pay on student academic achievement does not guarantee better results, according to this Education Week story by reporter Stephen Sawchuk.

The study indicates that the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program, a local variety of the TAP program underway in some Louisiana schools, hasn't enhanced student performance in math and reading, nor has it improved teacher retention.

That could come as a blow to TAP fans in Louisiana who hope that it will become the model for a new teacher compensation model under consideration by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Educational Excellence.

TAP has a few things going for it that are undeniably good education practice: smaller class sizes, embedded professional development, master teachers, and a collegial atmosphere.

TAP becomes controversial in its method of rewarding teachers for student achievement. TAP is the proprietary product of the Milken Family Foundation, meaning that no one is allowed to see all of its inner workings. Teachers cannot tell other teachers how much they receive as bonuses, for example.

And like all educational programs, TAP is only as good as its management. In Calcasieu Parish, the TAP experiment was so dogged with poor management that it was eventually banished from the school district. There are other places where it seems to be working well and has won the support of educators.

Ultimately, pay-for-performance will not prove to be the answer to better student achievement. Teachers aren't like salesmen, whose motivation is simply moving more product.

Teachers are professionals. Pay them well - and pay them more for taking on additional responsibilities and enhancing their credentials. Give them the resources they need, in an atmosphere conducive to teaching and learning. That's when we'll see real improvement.

Anti-teacher column unfair, unwarranted and untrue

When the Houma Courier published a guest column from the far-right Lexington Institute that accused teacher unions of engaging in "pitched battles" to "keep public schools safe for mediocrity," LFT President Steve Monaghan had to respond.

In his own letter to the newspaper, Monaghan asserted that, "More than anyone else, teachers want their students to succdeed."

The attack by the Lexington Institute was "unfair, unwarranted and, most of all, untrue," Monaghan wrote.

The Lexington Institute is just one of many well-funded think tanks from which issue an endless stream of diatribes against the notion of the public good. Privatization of public services is their goal, and public schools are squarely in their sights.

The original column is here; Monaghan's response is here.