This day, set aside to honor the egalitarian message and life of Dr. Martin Luther asking Jr., is an appropriate time to consider the efforts by Governor Bobby Jindal to dismantle public education in Louisiana and replace it with a free market of choices, one with for-profit schools and no unions.
This plan will benefit the haves while harming the have-nots. It is an affront to the legacy of Dr. King. It will be implemented by people elected with the support of economic royalists. It is the work of elitists who shamelessly call themselves reformers as they grind the faces of the neediest into the dirt.
The Jindal plan includes vouchers, charters, for-profit online schools, and for-profit vendors, as well as a teacher evaluation that assures that few teachers will get or keep tenure. They will never have the protection of academic freedom, a concept unknown to corporate reformers.
Jindal’s state commissioner John White, who taught for two years as part of Teach for America and has never evaluated a teacher, says that the his standards will make it very difficult for teachers in Louisiana to win tenure.
In response to the new evaluation system, there is massive demoralization; the rate of teacher retirements has spiked by 25%. Superintendents say they are having a tough time replacing veteran teachers who are bailing out of White’s dystopian state.
Surely, teachers with years of experience in Louisiana public schools must think they are living in a madhouse, when the state superintendent has so little experience, and White has put the evaluation system in the hands of a 20-something with two years of teaching experience and an expired teaching license.
Meanwhile, John White has recommended a change in state board policy so that schools no longer will be “required” to have a librarian, a library or counselors. He wants the language to be changed to “recommended,” so that principals have the autonomy to decide if they want to spend their diminishing funds on a librarian or something else. Will this improve education?
Was it as a member of Teach for America or a member of the unaccredited Broad Academy that Commissioner White developed such contempt for public school teachers and American public education?
Here are the proposed changes:
Teachers, parents, and students need to know the proposed changes Superintendent John White is asking the BESE board to approve next Tuesday.
Two large changes will result in the possible removal of all counselors, librarians, and libraries.
Comprehensive Counseling (1125) no longer requires secondary schools to have counselors, only that “It shall be recommended that …” they have them. Libraries and Librarians (1705) have been reworded similarly: “It is recommended that each secondary school have [them]…” (All italics are mine.) This will allow school systems to eliminate these highly valuable and necessary individuals.
“Carnegie Unit and Credit Flexibility” (2314) allows students to earn credit in two ways. The traditional path involves passing a course with a 67 or greater. The new path is for students to demonstrate proficiency in one of three ways. 1) They can pass a nationally-recognized test, though no definition of such a test follows. 2) They can pass a locally developed test of proficiency, with, again, no definition following. 3) Lastly they can submit portfolios that meet a list of requirements to demonstrate proficiency. Students can now attend any amount of time they wish, because should they demonstrate proficiency, they can still earn the Carnegie credit.
This is only a sample of other changes.
- · No school system is required to participate in a School Accreditation program (311) every five years and receive a classification.
- · The school will no longer be sited for having staff not holding a valid Louisiana teaching certificate or for having physical facilities that “do not conform to the current federal, state, and local building fire, safety, and health codes.”
- · One section (1103) states a high school student shall be in attendance a minimum of 167 days out of 182, but later Section 2314 says the minimum number of minutes required is 7,965, whic! h can be achieved in 159.3 days in a 7-period day, and in 133 days in a 6-period day.
- · Section 2313 for Elementary Program of Studies (covering K-8) has been stripped of its suggested outline of content areas. Any school can design any curricula it deems appropriate.
- · The section on Summer Schools (2501 and 2503) have been gutted of most of their requirements, including minimum instructional hours and class size limits.
- · One person without a valid teaching certificate could teach hundreds of students in one class taught for one week if the school superintendent approves it.
- · Section 1703 also allows local educational agencies to use state money to purchase textbooks that BESE has not approved.
Please contact the BESE board and strongly voice your objections to these proposed changes by Superintendent White and Governor Jindal.
No one could seriously believe those changes will improve education in Louisiana.
Vincent P. Barras, educator
Since the LA DOE “redesigned” the website, we have NO idea who is charge of ANYTHING at the state level. Guess Superintendent White got tired of us questioning his TFA hires and our of state consultants.
Exactly. And this is not the only information that has disappeared from the LDOE website. How about all those files that allowed public viewing and comparing of school performance scores without having to look at each individual school report card? Makes one think there is something to hide when something that was public is no longer public.
The one thing I will get the dishonesty chelae Rhee is that she did put a librarian in every school. Of course her successor is cutting them because DCPS didn’t get the “return” they wanted.
Erg, dang autocorrect.
The one thing I will give the dishonest Michelle Rhee credit is that she put a librarian in every school (many who were IDed as Highly Effective). Of, course, her successor is cutting them because DCPS did not get its return on its investment.
As for LA, its great to see that as of right now, they have a requirement for a librarian in every school. That beats Maryland which does not require it. Most counties in MD have full time LMS, but one county had them working 2.5 schools last year.
Today NYCeducator posted in his quoteworthy section of his blog the following:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~Martin Luther King
Speak up everyone! Silence is not golden when children will be affected by these travesties.
Frightening. Stealing from children to benefit corporations.
They don’t want you to know who works at the LDE- TFAs leading everything. All the new stuff mirrors NYC- after all, the places are so similar. You don’t know the half of what is happening.
Who will stop this train wreck? Where are the elected officials? Is everyone bought and sold…this is horrifying.
If Rhee and White are the product and pride of TFA, Wendy should hang her head in shame. Horrifying, disgusting, pathetic people.
According to the Administrative Procedures Act these policy changes which were approved by BESE with very little Change last week, will go into effect if there is no challenge or request for a public input period prior to final approval.. Will that happen? Will the request come from the administrative level of public educators in our state or will a regular citizen like me have to pull that string? Not that the BESE adheres to the APA statute. They have bypassed it in several instances recently including one of the added provisions to Bulletin 741 which was handed to BESE members for approval minutes before the meeting. APA calls for at least ten days notice. BESE member Lottie Beebe attempted to get our Attorney General to rule on the lack of procedure but he said he needed a BESE board resolution before he could review. really? Approval of the body who is at fault? Ms. Beebe moved for that resolution last month but the BAeSE board refused to approve. Of course! It is up to the taxpayers of this state now to intervene on their own behalf. This is Democracy subverted. Open meetings laws are being broken, public information is not being provided upon request and our Superintendent is removing policy designed to protect our children in public schools!
You need a revolution!
Where are the parents? Where are the decent people who were elected to represesnt the citizens? This is a travesty.
Young, privileged, clueless white girls who majored in things like the Classics, Film, etc. If they are the cream of the crop from prestigious universities, why aren’t they working in the fields they graduated in? I guess they never figured they’d have to work for a living- just live off Daddy. Now they are living off our tax dollars and playing grownup. They’ll all be gone and our students and our state will be worse off for many years, our prisons taking in the results of their misguided actions.
So where are the lawsuits? Why is there so much silence?
It’s not law yet so no one can really file a lawsuit.
Unbelievable. Why don’t all of the teachers of Louisiana just organize a strike. They’ll just keep ripping off the public if no one does anything. How redneck-no librarians, no counselors. Who will do those jobs now? Not the CEO and family members sitting in a office making money. No, it will be dumped onto other people who are forced to do several jobs at once while receiving low pay. So pathetic. A+++ for Louisiana. Such high standards!!! Rhee must be so proud.
If it’s like my state, they can’t strike. I’m presuming that it is illegal for public employees to strike. If it’s a right to work state, which I think it is, they wouldn’t have a job to come back to.
Who in the hell do i contact? And why aren’t the teachers fighting this? Or are they and none of us in the general population know about it?
Teachers are fighting and have been fighting it for years. I attended legislative sessions a few years back when this all started. The legislature–the education committee did not allow us to speak. I attended two legislative sessions this year also. I have continuously written to my legislators. I also support my union in their opposition and have set up a community meeting to inform parents. Our legislators are not listening and the media is silent. Lawsuits have been filed. We ARE fighting but our voices are ignored.
Thank you, Denise. I always think – no matter what – the more voices the better. Could you share with me the individuals/institutions to contact? Where are you in Louisiana? I live in Covington My son goes to middle school in Mandeville. I’ve been considering pulling him out and homeschooling for a few years. I don’t want to abandon public education, but I’m extremely frustrated with the way things are nowadays. I Sometimes I think the best thing is to abandon ship – all of us – teachers and parents – and rebuild on our own terms, grassroots-style. Radical? Crazy? Maybe. But that’s how things always look when change has to come and the system refuses to comply. History is full of this. Meanwhile, though, what can I do to help?
Kafka himself could not have made this up. Loser-iana is on a rocket assisted race right through the bottom of the barrel into the sludge below.
Schools without libraries are like operating rooms without scalpels or garages without lifts. It’s almost like they are determined to destroy education in Louisiana.
Agreed. A library is the heart of a school.
Are they on a race to see who can be more self destructive? Looks like it to me as how does any of these changes make a better world with smart, caring people?
I believe most are afraid and feel powerless against the onslaught, but I might be wrong. I know we at the DOE are (those of us who have not drunk the Koolaid). There have been lawsuits by a teachers’ union. Jindal pushed new laws through the legislature at warp speed. So now we have new laws to follow. Two have been ruled unconstitutional, but are probably under appeal. Jindal and White can’t go away soon enough. You can fight against Jindal in his bid for the presidency- he is crazy. Google him and his exorcism story.
When you have a secretary of education who thought Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans schools (even though he “apologized” after getting caught), there is not much hope for the state.
It’s also right-to-work, so politicians down there get away with murder at teachers’ expense.
UGH. I get education is costly, and I understand the dollar is the bottom line; however, what’s happening is horrific. Where is Obama really? Disappointed.
What’s next? Book burning??? It’s all about destroying the creative process and allowing a future who cannot think for themselves, It’s about creating followers and increasing the world of the Haves and Have Nots. ALEC is driving this agenda. Reformers are making it easy for people with no background in education to take control.
And, Obama is allowing this to happen.
I know parents in New Orleans are finally waking up after their schools were hijacked following Hurricane Katrina. Big promises were made, but what really happened was charter schools took over neighborhood schools and parents lost. By the time they realized what happened it was too late. The RSD charter school district is at the bottom of the state accountability list, mostly rated D or F. Now Jindal is on a mission to do the same to the entire state. Remove teacher certification requirements and remove SACS accreditation requirements. He and White tell parents they should have ” school choice”. What kind of choices are left for our high poverty families? Our schools will become more segregated with higher concentrations of high poverty students and little funding left for public schools. Nothing will be done because those with the power to change this send their children to private and parochial schools. They don’t care about “those” children. Until parents begin to care, public schools in Louisiana don’t have a chance.
Hasn’t Jindal also caused a lot of communities across LA to close their libraries? So kids won’t have access to a library in their school or their community. I guess Jindal is paying attention to the school financing trial in the state to his West and how a business leader in Texas testified that local kids are totally unprepared for jobs.
I also think that a lot of it has to do with self preservation. The teachers are scared. I have a friend who works in Jefferson Parish and the same thing is happening there that is happening in Orleans and she said her school just hired three brand new teachers (actual teachers) and all three of them refuse to join the union and won’t even listen to her when she tries to explain some of these issues that are happening in education today.
You didn’t mention the two appointed, not elected, BESE members resigning.. At least one has been replaced by a known Jindalclone. He is literally setting up the state to have no public schools—-Well except for the kids the charters kick out right before testing time and special education of course.
I disagree with privatization although I appreciate the notion of deliverables in lieu of time sheets– for teachers not students (time spent in school for kids is about socialization as well as academics). That being said, you can’t hold teachers accountable for the native ability of students unless there is an entrance qualification/threshold. Private is not my idea of a public school.
Sent from my iPhone
I have emailed our local federation of teachers, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, as well as the American Federation of Teachers. That was a week ago – still no response. The local federation emailed me back and asked for my phone number so they could ‘explain’ why we aren’t striking or fighting back, but no one ever called. I am so upset over all of these changes. I love my job as a teacher, but I’ve never been more unhappy.
Re-engineering what has long posed as public education in Louisiana would be a blessing for all trapped in that epically failing system. Thank God for Jindal’s reform efforts to give hope for the future of young Louisiana students. Only the poorest are currently in most public schools in Louisiana because those with ANY choice have ALWAYS put their children into private or religious schools to escape the public schools.