Mercedes Schneider reports the great news from Louisiana: Democrat John Bel Edwards was elected over tarnished Republican David Vitter.
Best of all: the Bobby Jindal era is over.
Now Governor Edwards must clean up the mess Jindal left behind.
“It is expected that Edwards’ first order of business as governor will be to call the Louisiana legislature into special session to confront Louisiana’s budget crisis largely created by Bobby Jindal’s presidential aspirations and his own selfish goal of being viewed as Not Raising Taxes No Matter What– including raising taxes that the Louisiana public supports. Moreover, Jindal would not accept federal funding for health care, and it is expected that Edwards will.
“Edwards is conservative (pro-life; pro-gun), but he is also a Democrat.
“I expect Edwards to also turn his attention to the unhealthy corporate tax breaks that Jindal had provided and protected and that are bleeding revenue out of our already poor state. Also, Edwards has already noted the Jindal-induced, critical need to support Louisiana’s higher education institutions.”
One corporate reformer won a seat on the state board, as did one opponent of corporate reform. Superintendent John White can expect some tough times ahead with a Democrat as governor, someone who does NOT want to destroy public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I was thrilled when I saw this. Maybe real public ed will come back to New Orleans.
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lets reject the term pro-life which has enabled so much success for them. use anti-choice or opposes women’s medical privacy.
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This should be about education and not other issues, laurencoodley. Hot button political issues will only split the building coalition to end the destruction of public schools.
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Vitter seemed truly awful. This is about how he tried to cut off health insurance for Congressional employees as part of a political stunt:
“Please PLEASE keep me anonymous!!
I will make $22,800 this year after taxes. That is it. I am a 30 year old married congressional staffer with a 20 month old son who depends on my job for his health insurance. My husband has to pay for his own health care through his salary, and it would cost him over $1000 a month to cover the whole family. I just started in this position 6 months ago, after being out of work for a year and staying at home with my baby. I need my health insurance, and I cannot afford to pay $600 a month for coverage. Without this so called “subsidy” (the same “subsidy” congressional staffers have been receiving for years before the ACA) both myself and my son will be uninsured. With our combined salaries, my husband and I will not qualify for subsidies via the ACA, so we would have to pay for it all out of pocket.”
Just appalling behavior- he should be ashamed for treating employees like that. Of course, now we’ll have to wait and see if he gets a lucrative position as a lobbyist or in the private sector based on his political connections. A lot of times even when they lose they win.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-congressional-staffers-hate-the-vitter-amendment
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It’s nice he ran on supporting public ed.
Maybe some other state-level Democrats should try that. DC is a lost cause on public schools, but there may be some life left in the states.
http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/13808150-123/john-bel-edwards-david-vitter
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Let’s hope he supports public education. You say he’s a conservative?—it’s finally becoming possible to be a Republican and be sane?!!!
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Let’s wait and watch, as usual.
I mean, a Democrat who is actually anti-reform in education and who wants public schools to remain public? Really?
In 2015, it sounds too good to be even half true, but now is the time for Louisianans to step up to the plate even more and hound his office to keep his promises or govern a certain way.
Fired teachers in New Orleans should be given back their jobs, as the city had been bleached and whitened with all sorts of non-qualified personnel in the successful move to charterize all but a handful of schools. It is a disgrace when the teachers are not reflected in the populations at large who attend the schools.
The only “Louisiana miracle” will be when this new governor reverses the pollices and uses his poltiical clout to punish those who oppose him. Of course, that does not sound very democratic at all to me, but neither has been the corporate predatation that has ruled and plundered the school systen in New Orleans.
Bobby Jindal has been a blow-up doll, whose hot air pressure has mounted and has caused a lethal rupture in his career.
Bye-bye, Bobby. See Ya’ll.
Fight dirty rice and beans with dirty rice and beans. The city will have the public support to do so, for the most part . . . .
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The “social-emotional” learning metrics and measures ed reformers are developing are creepy as hell and I think parents are going to hate this when they find out about it:
https://www.panoramaed.com/social-emotional-learning
If I told parents here that I planned to use this program to track and measure social-emotional learning they would find that excessively intrusive and objectionable. I would bet 100 dollars they don’t want schools tracking and measuring what amount to ed reformer’s opinions on what are important or valuable character traits.
Ed reformers should do some serious soul-searching on why they consistently over-reach. I don’t know if it’s arrogance or hubris or what, but they gotta step back from poking, prodding and measuring other peoples’ children. Back off.
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Not celebrating yet. He could be a Neoliberal which is a Conservative dressed as a Democrat. But happy Jindal is out of there. My concerns are with the privatizers in NOLA. Let’s see what happens there.
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Interesting he’s worried about women’s right to choose, but in favor of having a gun. From what I hear, he may be better than Vitter, we can hope for this.
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Why would anyone believe that a “conservative Democrat” has any interest, at all, in undoing anything connected with “education reform” in Louisiana?
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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