In an interview, John White made it clear that he wants to keep his $275,000 job as state superintendent in Louisiana. Bobby Jindal pushed the state board to hire him after his brief stint as superintendent of the Néw Orleans Recovery School Diistrict. White loyally implemented Jindal’s agenda of vouchers, charters, for-profit schools, and attacks on teachers’ due process, as well as test-based evaluation. But then Jindal and White locked horns over Common Core. Jindal wanted out, White didn’t. (White’s only school experience is TFA. Also he attended the unaccredited Broad Superintendents’ Academy.)
Now one of the leading candidates for governor has said White has to go. Open the statement for links.
John Bel Edwards issued the following statement;
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@johnbelforlouisiana.com; 225-435-9808
Edwards: John White Will Never Be Superintendent On My Watch
BATON ROUGE, La. – State Representative and candidate for governor John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) responded to news that State Superintendent John White wishes to remain in his current position under the next governor’s administration.
“I have no intention of allowing John White, who isn’t qualified to be a middle school principal, to remain as Superintendent when I am governor,” Edwards said. “We have so many highly qualified candidates right here in Louisiana that we don’t need to go looking in New York City for our next head of K-12 education.”
White’s tenure as State Superintendent has been frought with controversy and accusations of wrongdoing. In 2012, White was embroiled in scandal after emails revealed political motives behind his fight to ensure that expanded school vouchers were approved by the Louisiana Legislature. Thanks to testimony by Rep. John Bel Edwards, the Louisiana Supreme Court later found the voucher scheme to be unconstitutional, because it did, as White denied, illegally divert funding designated for local city and parish public schools. Later, voucher schools approved under White’s watch were shown to lack a requisite number of teachers, lunch rooms, and other resources common to any proper school. In 2013, he was accused of having purposefully inflated letter grades for certain schools. For at least three years, White knew about inequities in special education funding which violated directives in the La. Constitution, but declined to take action to correct the problem even after the Legislature urged and requested that he do so in 2014. Under White’s watch per pupil funding for public k-12 schools was frozen despite many new unfunded mandates. During the same time period the per pupil amount paid to private schools through the state voucher program increased each year.
Citing these controversies Edwards said,”We need genuine leadership at the helm of the Louisiana Department of Education. We will have that when we elect a genuine leader as governor.”
White’s only formal training in educational administration was earned during six weekend trainings at the Eli Broad Superintendent’s Academy, meant to be an introduction to issues facing Superintendents at the local level.
Jindal claims to have had a change of heart about Common Core, but he has not fired White. That is more telling than Jindal’s words. Let’s hope that White finds his way into a new profession. He is an epic failure in education.
Jindal can’t fire White. Only the state board of education can.
Jindal has most of the State Ed Board in his pocket. He paid to put all but one in place. So if he really wanted White out, he’d be gone. It’s all a game of politics so Jindal can join the race for president. He has to pretend he doesn’t want CCSS because that would be federal standards. I hope John Edwards wins, but it will be a long shot since Louisiana typically votes Republican. The teachers haven’t caught on that their vote can matter if they would do their homework and start voting for the candidate that supports them, rather than continuing to vote Republican. Wake up teachers! There is power in numbers.
Elections for positions on our state board of education are coming up in October. Most board members who have supported this unqualified privatizer, Mr. White, have drawn opponents , and parents are leading the way to oust Mr. White’s sorry supporters. As a teacher in Louisiana, now retired, I can state that Mr. White has brought nothing but chaos and instability to public education in our state. That he now wants to stay means only that other more lucrative opportunities for this mega privatizer must be drying up. Time to go, Mr. White.
I am running for the State Board of Education AGAIN against the encumbent, a lawyer who represents the reformee business “coalition” in Jefferson Parish. He has had four years to rubber stamp White’s policies and needs to go. I will be formally asking for support/endorsement very soon. A coalition of parents and teachers has developed a statewide movement to return BESE to public schools. It is called FlipBESE and can be found on Facebook. The object is to support candidates who run against the current board who are supporters of public education.
Louisiana is a major reform player with Supt. White now the head of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs For Change to recruit new members. It would be a coup for us to return our state to sanity and to begin to end the privatization efforts. I hope it will get national attention.
You can find me and my campaign at FB: Lee P. Barrios, FB: Elect Lee Barrios, BLOG: http://www.geauxteacher.net, http://www.ElectLeeBarrios.blogspot.com.
Good luck, Lee Barrios. Be sure to seek the endorsement of the Network for Public Education. No money, but it might help in establishing who the real pro-education candidate is.
White might want to consider submitting an application in Chicago. He sounds like Rahm’s kind of guy.
Bite your tongue!
Well, unfortunately Democrats have completely ceded public education to Republicans with their bold, principled “we’re agnostics!” stance so I don’t see this guy winning.
Passion for privatization beats apologetic mush every day of the week.
I hope the citizens of Louisiana have clear heads and make educational issues a priority during this next election.
It’s nice to know that not all politicians are in the pocket of the wealthy Ed de-formers.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.