Ethics issues dog Chas Roemer and Kira Orange-Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Value Added's epic FAIL in Tennessee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BESE runoff elections are underway!

Early voting started Saturday!

Click here to find early voting locations in your parish

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

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

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

LFT supports Louella Givens in District 2

Click here to download a flier supporting Louella Givens.

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

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

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

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

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

Donald Songy is the best candidate for BESE District 6

Click here to download a flier supporting Donald Songy.

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

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

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

Donald Songy:

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


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


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


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

Chas Roemer

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


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


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


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


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

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

Federation urges vote for Jimmy Guillory in BESE district 8

Click here to download a flier supporting Jimmy Guillory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advocate editorial: Jindal selling our kids short

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

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

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

Columnist gets it right on tenure

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

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

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

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

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

School discipline's Catch-22

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

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

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

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

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

Why is the mayor of New York buying Louisiana elections?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The foolish inconsistency of Bobby Jindal

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

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

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

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

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

Livingston issue proves union value

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

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

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

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

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

Stretching the numbers and the truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth in advertising: Chas Roemer edition

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

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

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

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

Bloated bureaucracy? Take a peek in the mirror.

School letter grades become BESE issue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

School letter grades are intellectually dishonest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LFT Marches in Solidarity with Shipyard Workers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man bites dog story: Forbes article supports teacher unions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's Banned Books Week!

Happy Banned Books Week!

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

Class warfare?

(thanks to Bartcop)

March planned to support Avondale shipyards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A crucial year for BESE elections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does privatization save the taxpayers' money?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labor's Story Left Out of High School History Textbooks

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

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

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

Labor Day message: Get out and vote!

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

Labor champion Victor Bussie dies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Game on: Gazillionaire PAC opposes teacher tenure

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

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

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

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

Report: OGB sale could cost consumers higher premiums

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should the one with the gold make the rules?

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

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

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

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

LFT wants your opinion!

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

Second National Teacher Town Hall Set for Sept. 25

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

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

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

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

AFT President Randi Weingarten talks reform

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

Articles reveal rich and powerful forces behind "reform"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monaghan defends the teaching profession

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Budget cuts threaten pre-K program

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

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

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

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

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

PBS Teacherline offers CLUs

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

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

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

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

AFT President Randi Weingarten talks reform

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louisiana students improving on key tests

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jindal a no-show at privatization debate

LFT President Steve Monaghan addresses the League of Women Voters.

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

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

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

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

Poll shows strong support for teachers and school funding

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

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

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

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

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

State skimps on erasure analysis

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


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

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

Roemer running on anti-tenure platform

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

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

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

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

Superman explains it all for you

The rest of this 1952 cartoon is here.

Failure to reauthorize NCLB may lead to waivers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teacher tenure is under attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BESE yanks charter from troubled N.O. school

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

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

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

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

LFT leader exposes corporate agenda for education

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of this story - click here.

Exposed: How big business brings bad ideas to the legislature

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teachers March is underway

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

The hurrier we go, the behinder we get

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popped in the kneecap, indeed.

Report: N.O. charters "dumping" students

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

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

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

Here's one of the ways dumping works:

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

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

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