Just at a time when the future of charter schools in Louisiana looks brightest, more and more charter school operations are self-destructing. A few months ago, numerous violations of child protection laws and alleged cheating and other improprieties caused the cancellation of the charter for Abramson Science and Technology Charter in New Orleans. A State Department investigation continues of its sister charter, Kennilworth Science and Technology in Baton Rouge.
Now we learn (click for the Advocate story) that all 5 schools managed by the Advance Baton Rouge charter management organization will gradually be taken over or turned over to other managers by the State Recovery District. (There is apparently no consideration of returning these schools to their former parish school boards) The causes as we have reported before on this blog include administrative difficulties and a complete failure to improve academic performance. This is the same company that has proclaimed itself as a trainer of school principals for 21st Century schools. These failures occurred despite many management changes and special funding infusions including a huge federal grant for a Teacher Advancement Program initiative in the ABR schools. Wonder what will happen to the 13.3 million dollar federal grant if ABR loses its charters?
Now we have learned that Sojourner Truth Academy in New Orleans may lose its charter because of unacceptable School Performance Scores and amid allegations that special education regulations have been violated concerning the discipline and suspensions of special needs students. Teachers in this school and others have complained that some suspensions go unrecorded, that the charters "counsel out" undesirable or low performing students and that many students are being promoted improperly by bending or breaking state regulations. As I have pointed out before in this blog, there is an unhealthy and corrupting pressure to produce or even fabricate results in these charter operations. Apparently this school will also be returned to the RSD for reorganization. When this happens, the transition period allows such schools to start over in the calculation of a new School Performance Score (SPS). Several observers claim that this allows the RSD to avoid reporting SPS on some of the lowest performing schools. ( In this case it looks like the school will be closed and the students assigned to other schools)
Added after original post: Karran Harper Royal, an education activist from New Orleans sent us this more complete list of recently failed charters in the New Orleans area.
RSD Charters
New Orleans Free Academy (Charter relinquished, now closed)
Esperanza ( Charter relinquished, now chartered by Choice Foundation)
Harriet Tubman Charter School (non renewed now chartered by Crescent City Schools)
Abramson Science & Technology Academy (Revoked, now run by RSD, and K-8 will be rechartered and 9-12 will be shut down)
Sojourner Truth Academy (Announced that it will relinquish it's charter rather than get revoked)
Langston Hughes board will soon decide whether to relinquish it's charter, although they are supportive of Firstline taking over the school.
OPSP Charters
Priestly Charter School (Relinquished, now OPSB direct run school)
Notice that most of the charters were relinquished rather than revoked. The LDOE usually tries to convince the (charter) board to relinquish to save their good name from the revocation process. I suspect it's so as to keep things low key and avoid a nasty public battle.
Karran Harper Royal
Also, just as Louisiana is ramping up to allow increased enrollment in its virtual charter schools that are managed by for-profit corporations, a study in Colorado of some of the same virtual management organizations that are operating in Louisiana, show mostly dismal results. The study found that many virtual charter students fall behind in their studies compared to students attending traditional schools. Many decide to transfer back to regular schools at mid-year after the charter management organization has locked in state funds for that year. This is placing an unfair burden on the school systems that are forced to accept students without the state funding. Added on 11/30: Wow, this is even more damning! Just a week before the Louisiana Legislature will be indoctrinated by a conservative group to enlarge the Louisiana virtual school enrollment, check out the blog on Virtual Schools this week by Diane Ravitch
Many education "reformers" have made the totally unsupported claim that virtual charter schools should be effective in educating "at risk" students or students that have experienced discipline problems etc. All the evidence shows just the opposite. At risk students compared to students who are self motivated are most in need of direct supervision by strong classroom teachers. Such students usually cannot be relied upon to sit at a computer and do mostly self directed academic exercises required by virtual instructional programs. In addition, the virtual system depends heavily on parent or at home coaches to monitor day to day schedules. The problem is, many at risk students are at risk because they do not have effective parental support and encouragement!
It will be interesting to see if the new students in Louisiana's privately run virtual charters stick with the program and succeed academically or opt to reenter traditional schools at mid year. Will the virtual schools get to keep the generous state funding they have received from BESE if some students transfer at mid year?
This is the danger of Louisiana rushing headlong into privatization of schools without the time to carefully assess results of such programs. For example, the Jindal administration has continued to support the funding of vouchers in the New Orleans area even though statistics show that students getting vouchers to attend parochial schools are performing at an even lower level than the students in the extremely low performing RSD schools.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Jindal Gets His Board
Governor Jindal and his big business supporters won a decisive victory in the remaining 3 BESE runoff elections. All three of the winners had been supported by the Jindal/Grigsby/LABI machine. With at least 10 times the money spent on Jindal aligned candidates, the election results were a foregone conclusion. In addition to his BESE takeover Jindal also may well have enough support in the legislature for most of his remaining education "reforms".
The appointment of John White, a relative amateur in the management of public education, to the State Superintendent position now seems assured. Next year, even more than in the past few years, BESE will be mostly relegated to doing the bidding of the Governor and his Superintendent. I would expect little controversy and minimal debate at future BESE meetings. All the Governor's priorities should be approved expeditiously. Too bad they will be the wrong "reforms".
What changes can educators expect? It is likely the the legislature will be convinced to repeal the tenure law in the next legislative session. School systems will be allowed to dismiss both new and experienced teachers with minimal procedural protections. Chances are a law will be passed removing seniority rights of teachers relative to layoffs and other employment benefits. Expect the value added teacher and administrator evaluation to go into effect on schedule without regard to the results of the pilot program. The State Department of Education will accelerate the takeover of low performing schools as the minimum SPS score goes to 75 at the end of the 2011-12 school year. In many cases, local school systems will be allowed to continue administering a school if they agree to draconian reorganizations such as faculty and administrator replacement or conversion to a charter school. The legislature will probably approve the expansion of the voucher program for parents sending their children to private and parochial schools. Some vouchers may be reserved for students attending so called "failing" schools. Expect the legislature and the State Department of Education to use funding or reduction of funding to local systems as an incentive for school systems to adopt reforms. A possible incentivized reform may be the implementation of merit pay systems based partially on student test scores. Expect pressure by the state to replace a certain percentage of teachers based on those deemed to be "producing" in the bottom quartile of student performance.
Why do I believe these are the wrong reforms? Primarily because I do not believe teachers are responsible for the low performance of students in most cases. The really important factors and effective remedies such as early childhood education and school discipline reform will be ignored. Instead everything from the definition of a failing school to the criteria for teacher evaluation will be based primarily on student test performance. When merit pay is established based primarily upon student performance, there will likely develop a major morale problem among teachers and even administrators. Education research confirms that teachers perform best in a collaborative work environment where there is trust and cooperation among teachers and between teachers and administrators. The punitive reforms championed by the Governor will needlessly damage such collaborative work environments. Administrators will be buried in paperwork mandated by the new complex valued added evaluation if Louisiana follows the lead of other states that have initiated such programs. Newspapers may publish teacher value added scores including the teacher's name as was done recently in Los Angeles. Schools in high poverty districts will be drained of higher performing students and teachers by the very reforms that are intended to improve schools. This will cause an accelerated spiraling to lower performance for such schools. Such a result will only give ammunition to those who would use a voucher system to fund more students to private schools. As local schools deteriorate, school taxes will fail to be renewed causing an underfunding of public schools. Opportunities for low income students to close the gap will actually diminish in this environment.
Even so the relentless push by the state to graduate a larger percentage of students could cause rampant cheating by local systems on credit recovery and even on state LEAP and exit exams. Somewhere down the line it will be found that Louisiana will be increasingly issuing empty diplomas. Already there is a serious disagreement between LEAP scores and NAEP scores for Louisiana students. NAEP scores and ACT scores show no significant improvement despite the huge expenditures on testing and test related remediation.
Jindal be careful what you ask for! Although my concern here is only for the future of public education, Jindal's takeover of education may backfire. There is so much that could be done to truly improve opportunities for our students and to make teaching a profession everyone can be proud of. Instead it looks like Jindal and his supporters are going to take us in the opposite direction. When that happens the Governor may find that his ownership of and mismanagement of education is his downfall.
The appointment of John White, a relative amateur in the management of public education, to the State Superintendent position now seems assured. Next year, even more than in the past few years, BESE will be mostly relegated to doing the bidding of the Governor and his Superintendent. I would expect little controversy and minimal debate at future BESE meetings. All the Governor's priorities should be approved expeditiously. Too bad they will be the wrong "reforms".
What changes can educators expect? It is likely the the legislature will be convinced to repeal the tenure law in the next legislative session. School systems will be allowed to dismiss both new and experienced teachers with minimal procedural protections. Chances are a law will be passed removing seniority rights of teachers relative to layoffs and other employment benefits. Expect the value added teacher and administrator evaluation to go into effect on schedule without regard to the results of the pilot program. The State Department of Education will accelerate the takeover of low performing schools as the minimum SPS score goes to 75 at the end of the 2011-12 school year. In many cases, local school systems will be allowed to continue administering a school if they agree to draconian reorganizations such as faculty and administrator replacement or conversion to a charter school. The legislature will probably approve the expansion of the voucher program for parents sending their children to private and parochial schools. Some vouchers may be reserved for students attending so called "failing" schools. Expect the legislature and the State Department of Education to use funding or reduction of funding to local systems as an incentive for school systems to adopt reforms. A possible incentivized reform may be the implementation of merit pay systems based partially on student test scores. Expect pressure by the state to replace a certain percentage of teachers based on those deemed to be "producing" in the bottom quartile of student performance.
Why do I believe these are the wrong reforms? Primarily because I do not believe teachers are responsible for the low performance of students in most cases. The really important factors and effective remedies such as early childhood education and school discipline reform will be ignored. Instead everything from the definition of a failing school to the criteria for teacher evaluation will be based primarily on student test performance. When merit pay is established based primarily upon student performance, there will likely develop a major morale problem among teachers and even administrators. Education research confirms that teachers perform best in a collaborative work environment where there is trust and cooperation among teachers and between teachers and administrators. The punitive reforms championed by the Governor will needlessly damage such collaborative work environments. Administrators will be buried in paperwork mandated by the new complex valued added evaluation if Louisiana follows the lead of other states that have initiated such programs. Newspapers may publish teacher value added scores including the teacher's name as was done recently in Los Angeles. Schools in high poverty districts will be drained of higher performing students and teachers by the very reforms that are intended to improve schools. This will cause an accelerated spiraling to lower performance for such schools. Such a result will only give ammunition to those who would use a voucher system to fund more students to private schools. As local schools deteriorate, school taxes will fail to be renewed causing an underfunding of public schools. Opportunities for low income students to close the gap will actually diminish in this environment.
Even so the relentless push by the state to graduate a larger percentage of students could cause rampant cheating by local systems on credit recovery and even on state LEAP and exit exams. Somewhere down the line it will be found that Louisiana will be increasingly issuing empty diplomas. Already there is a serious disagreement between LEAP scores and NAEP scores for Louisiana students. NAEP scores and ACT scores show no significant improvement despite the huge expenditures on testing and test related remediation.
Jindal be careful what you ask for! Although my concern here is only for the future of public education, Jindal's takeover of education may backfire. There is so much that could be done to truly improve opportunities for our students and to make teaching a profession everyone can be proud of. Instead it looks like Jindal and his supporters are going to take us in the opposite direction. When that happens the Governor may find that his ownership of and mismanagement of education is his downfall.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Jindal, Public Education Haters May Cause Revolt
Governor Jindal apparently believes he has a mandate to totally revamp education in Louisiana. The problem is his education reform ideas are mostly based on bad assumptions that when implemented will fail and may very well cause a revolt among educators!
Important reminder: If you live in one of the three BESE districts with runoff eclections, please remember to vote Saturday, Novemeber 19 for Givens in District 2, Songy in District 6 and Guillory in District 8. ( Ask your friends and relatives to help also)
Jindal and his pro business "public education hater" friends don't have a clue about the real problems in education. They assume (incorrectly) that most of the problems with low student achievement are caused by lazy, incompetent teachers and administrators and can easily be fixed by just getting tough on educators. "Tighten the screws on educators, fire a certain percentage of low performers and student scores will go up." Too bad it's not that simple. The Governor's so called "reforms" are so radical and so wrong that educators will finally say "Enough is enough, we're just not going to take it anymore." This conflict may even backfire and damage Jindal's plans for higher office!
Educators and many others are beginning to figure out that Jindal's intentions are not sincere, but are based mostly on creating the illusion that he is an education reformer who deserves public support for his greater political ambitions. He proved this recently by turning down critical federal funding for early childhood education which is one of the most vital and proven programs for boosting performance of our students. Then he helped his business friends by sabotaging a wonderful plan to fund high speed Internet access to rural areas, because it may compete with private Internet providers who did not want to develop these unprofitable markets in the first place.
Recently, Jindal sponsored legislation that assigns schools a letter grade rating that greatly distorts the efforts of educators in our most critical high poverty schools. The new system produced an amazing result: All the alternative schools got "F" and all the magnet schools got "A". Hey I've got it: Why not convert all alternative schools into magnet schools so they can get "A" also? This is basically how simple minded and impractical the Jindal programs are.
Next year the Jindal reform forces will impose a new teacher evaluation system that will base 50% of a teacher's evaluation on student test scores. But most teachers teach subjects that are not part of the state testing program. So the state will come up with some hurry-up testing or base all evaluations on math and English scores. Also, no one has figured out how to factor in student poverty. Let me guess at the results: The teachers in the alternative schools and very high poverty schools will all get "F" and the teachers in the magnet schools will all get "A"! What will be the end result of this? Any teacher with any self respect will start pushing immediately for a transfer out of any poverty school to a school serving more privileged students. But the high poverty schools are where we need the strongest teachers! What kind of reform produces the opposite of its stated goal?
School principals in Tennessee and Long Island, New York are already on the verge of revolt because of their value added teacher evaluation system implemented as part of their "winning" Race to the Top funding. The evaluation program is so complicated, so time consuming and so counter productive that principals believe that they can no longer run their schools effectively.
In addition to the crazy evaluation scheme described above, the reform forces want to put in merit pay based on the new flawed evaluation, revise the teacher retirement system and replace it with something cheaper, want to take away some of the powers of elected school boards yet allow non-elected charter school boards to operate without oversight, want to do away with teacher tenure, and want to grant vouchers for parents sending their children to private schools and privatize as many schools as possible. This is a recipe for disaster in public education!
Look, I know teachers. I have been a teacher, and I have represented teachers all my life and I'd like to describe for you the typical teacher. Most teachers are dedicated and hard working, and most care deeply about the success and welfare of their students. Most did not get into teaching for the money. Recent studies have shown that merit pay for teachers does not work. Contrary to recent media opinion, most teachers are smart and work hard to reach all their students. Teachers have been willing to put up with many ridiculous mandates that had little to do with good teaching and have put up with disrespectful, disruptive students who do not care about learning and with many parents who refuse to do their part all because they love teaching and they love their students.
But most teachers have the courage of their convictions and eventually they are willing to take a stand when they have been pushed too far. I have spoken to many teachers recently who say that they are tired of being forced to teach to the test instead of using their creativity as teachers to really reach and motivate students. They have had enough of stupid mandates and lack of respect from politicians and reformers who have no idea what it is like in the classroom. At some point they will stand together and say it's not worth it anymore to implement counterproductive mandates and to put up with more abuse. At that point they are likely to shut down the entire education system until someone is willing to listen to teachers as the true voice of public education. This is where Jindal's reform movement is taking us!
Important reminder: If you live in one of the three BESE districts with runoff eclections, please remember to vote Saturday, Novemeber 19 for Givens in District 2, Songy in District 6 and Guillory in District 8. ( Ask your friends and relatives to help also)
Jindal and his pro business "public education hater" friends don't have a clue about the real problems in education. They assume (incorrectly) that most of the problems with low student achievement are caused by lazy, incompetent teachers and administrators and can easily be fixed by just getting tough on educators. "Tighten the screws on educators, fire a certain percentage of low performers and student scores will go up." Too bad it's not that simple. The Governor's so called "reforms" are so radical and so wrong that educators will finally say "Enough is enough, we're just not going to take it anymore." This conflict may even backfire and damage Jindal's plans for higher office!
Educators and many others are beginning to figure out that Jindal's intentions are not sincere, but are based mostly on creating the illusion that he is an education reformer who deserves public support for his greater political ambitions. He proved this recently by turning down critical federal funding for early childhood education which is one of the most vital and proven programs for boosting performance of our students. Then he helped his business friends by sabotaging a wonderful plan to fund high speed Internet access to rural areas, because it may compete with private Internet providers who did not want to develop these unprofitable markets in the first place.
Recently, Jindal sponsored legislation that assigns schools a letter grade rating that greatly distorts the efforts of educators in our most critical high poverty schools. The new system produced an amazing result: All the alternative schools got "F" and all the magnet schools got "A". Hey I've got it: Why not convert all alternative schools into magnet schools so they can get "A" also? This is basically how simple minded and impractical the Jindal programs are.
Next year the Jindal reform forces will impose a new teacher evaluation system that will base 50% of a teacher's evaluation on student test scores. But most teachers teach subjects that are not part of the state testing program. So the state will come up with some hurry-up testing or base all evaluations on math and English scores. Also, no one has figured out how to factor in student poverty. Let me guess at the results: The teachers in the alternative schools and very high poverty schools will all get "F" and the teachers in the magnet schools will all get "A"! What will be the end result of this? Any teacher with any self respect will start pushing immediately for a transfer out of any poverty school to a school serving more privileged students. But the high poverty schools are where we need the strongest teachers! What kind of reform produces the opposite of its stated goal?
School principals in Tennessee and Long Island, New York are already on the verge of revolt because of their value added teacher evaluation system implemented as part of their "winning" Race to the Top funding. The evaluation program is so complicated, so time consuming and so counter productive that principals believe that they can no longer run their schools effectively.
In addition to the crazy evaluation scheme described above, the reform forces want to put in merit pay based on the new flawed evaluation, revise the teacher retirement system and replace it with something cheaper, want to take away some of the powers of elected school boards yet allow non-elected charter school boards to operate without oversight, want to do away with teacher tenure, and want to grant vouchers for parents sending their children to private schools and privatize as many schools as possible. This is a recipe for disaster in public education!
Look, I know teachers. I have been a teacher, and I have represented teachers all my life and I'd like to describe for you the typical teacher. Most teachers are dedicated and hard working, and most care deeply about the success and welfare of their students. Most did not get into teaching for the money. Recent studies have shown that merit pay for teachers does not work. Contrary to recent media opinion, most teachers are smart and work hard to reach all their students. Teachers have been willing to put up with many ridiculous mandates that had little to do with good teaching and have put up with disrespectful, disruptive students who do not care about learning and with many parents who refuse to do their part all because they love teaching and they love their students.
But most teachers have the courage of their convictions and eventually they are willing to take a stand when they have been pushed too far. I have spoken to many teachers recently who say that they are tired of being forced to teach to the test instead of using their creativity as teachers to really reach and motivate students. They have had enough of stupid mandates and lack of respect from politicians and reformers who have no idea what it is like in the classroom. At some point they will stand together and say it's not worth it anymore to implement counterproductive mandates and to put up with more abuse. At that point they are likely to shut down the entire education system until someone is willing to listen to teachers as the true voice of public education. This is where Jindal's reform movement is taking us!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
BESE Run-off Elections
There are just a few days left for early voting for the BESE run-off elections occuring in Districts 2, 6, and 8. I urge all educators who live in these districts to vote now or on November 19 for one of the candidates recommended to us by the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. Your involvement could prevent a takeover of this vital policy board by those who would privatize our public schools and deprofessionalize the teaching profession in Louisiana. The following is the press release by the Coalition which explains the reasons for their BESE endorsements:
Coalition for Louisiana Public Education
Endorsements Three in BESE Run-offs
Baton Rouge, LA – The Coalition for Louisiana Public Education has officially endorsed candidates for the three remaining seats on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) in the run-off elections for Saturday, Nov. 19th, according to Coalition Chairman Jack Loup.
Based on these candidates’ strong advocacy for public education and their overall experience with public education, the Coalition is endorsing Louella Givens, BESE District 2; Donald Songy, BESE District 6; and Dr. Jim Guillory, BESE District 8.
These three candidates are aligned with the core beliefs of the Coalition member organizations, and are deemed most likely to help transform all public school systems in the state. In the next few years BESE members will focus on how to raise the multi-year status quo of school performance scores in the Recovery School District (RSD), along with how to accelerate the current progress already being made in traditional public schools across the state.
Further, none of the candidates endorsed by the Coalition for the state’s highest education board have any potential conflicts of interest with serving on BESE.
“Coalition members have raised concerns about out-of-state political and business interests, including sizable national investments in our state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education races,” according to Loup. While the governor has three appointments, the remaining BESE members are elected by the people of Louisiana. Loup says, “We feel Louisianans are perfectly capable of selecting the right people, without outside interference, who will steer our education system and who can choose an excellent state superintendent from the many outstanding education professionals within our state, who best know Louisiana’s needs. We feel that Louisiana doesn’t need candidates who have recently moved here from, and are supported by, other states with problem school systems. Further, Louisiana doesn’t need out of state advice on candidates, or investment and profiteering on our own taxpayers and children.”
Givens, in District 2, already has several years of experience on BESE, and is not backed by major out of state business and political interests. Her opponent, who moved here from New York City, is the head of Teach for America in New Orleans, which removes experienced, certified teachers from the
classrooms, and puts in their places college students, regardless of their major course of studies, for two-year periods. There is further question as to whether it would be appropriate for her opponent to serve on BESE, given that she has financial ties to Teach for America, which BESE members may vote on.
Songy, in District 6, has a solid background in public education experience, having worked for years as a classroom teacher, principal, in personnel and as former superintendent of Ascension Parish. Songy supports public schools and teachers, and opposes the state seizure and privatization of public schools. Like Givens, Songy is also not supported by out of state business and political interests. Further, Songy believes that state resources should flow to the public school classrooms, rather than to out of state business concerns. In addition, Songy believes that the state Minimum Foundation Program should be fully funded in order to benefit all public school systems. To raise the quality of the profession even higher, Songy supports a fair, consistent evaluation of teachers.
Dr. Guillory has served as a school board member in Avoyelles Parish, and from his experience, he understands the needs of districts that include some of the most challenged urban and rural schools in the state. Like Givens and Songy, Guillory is not supported by out of state business and political interests. Because of his first-hand public education background, strong support for Louisiana public schools, and because he has no ties to big businesses from out of state, the Coalition believes “Dr. Jim” is the best candidate for BESE District 8.
Contrary to descriptions that the Coalition is a group of “teacher unions and school board members,” the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is actually comprised of the state leaders of Louisiana’s major public education stakeholders: the Louisiana School Boards Association (LSBA); LA Association of School Superintendents (LASS); LA Association of School Executives (LASE); the LA Association of Special Education Administrators (LASEA); the LA Association of Chief Technology Officers; the LA Association of Child Welfare and Attendance Professionals (LACWAP); the LA Association of School Personnel Administrators (LSASPA); the LA Retired Teachers Association (LRTA); state director of National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS); LA Computer Using Educators (LACUE); LA Association of Educators (LAE): and the LA Federation of Teachers (LFT). In addition, the Coalition includes state representatives of Save Our Schools and Parents Across America; and a bank of independent researchers specializing in education data analysis.
More information about the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is available on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coalition-for-Louisiana-Public-Education/191154510928448
For further information on the Coalition, contact Chairman Jack Loup, current president of the St. Tammany Parish School Board, at jackloup@wildblue.net or 985-796-3771.
Coalition for Louisiana Public Education
Endorsements Three in BESE Run-offs
Baton Rouge, LA – The Coalition for Louisiana Public Education has officially endorsed candidates for the three remaining seats on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) in the run-off elections for Saturday, Nov. 19th, according to Coalition Chairman Jack Loup.
Based on these candidates’ strong advocacy for public education and their overall experience with public education, the Coalition is endorsing Louella Givens, BESE District 2; Donald Songy, BESE District 6; and Dr. Jim Guillory, BESE District 8.
These three candidates are aligned with the core beliefs of the Coalition member organizations, and are deemed most likely to help transform all public school systems in the state. In the next few years BESE members will focus on how to raise the multi-year status quo of school performance scores in the Recovery School District (RSD), along with how to accelerate the current progress already being made in traditional public schools across the state.
Further, none of the candidates endorsed by the Coalition for the state’s highest education board have any potential conflicts of interest with serving on BESE.
“Coalition members have raised concerns about out-of-state political and business interests, including sizable national investments in our state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education races,” according to Loup. While the governor has three appointments, the remaining BESE members are elected by the people of Louisiana. Loup says, “We feel Louisianans are perfectly capable of selecting the right people, without outside interference, who will steer our education system and who can choose an excellent state superintendent from the many outstanding education professionals within our state, who best know Louisiana’s needs. We feel that Louisiana doesn’t need candidates who have recently moved here from, and are supported by, other states with problem school systems. Further, Louisiana doesn’t need out of state advice on candidates, or investment and profiteering on our own taxpayers and children.”
Givens, in District 2, already has several years of experience on BESE, and is not backed by major out of state business and political interests. Her opponent, who moved here from New York City, is the head of Teach for America in New Orleans, which removes experienced, certified teachers from the
classrooms, and puts in their places college students, regardless of their major course of studies, for two-year periods. There is further question as to whether it would be appropriate for her opponent to serve on BESE, given that she has financial ties to Teach for America, which BESE members may vote on.
Songy, in District 6, has a solid background in public education experience, having worked for years as a classroom teacher, principal, in personnel and as former superintendent of Ascension Parish. Songy supports public schools and teachers, and opposes the state seizure and privatization of public schools. Like Givens, Songy is also not supported by out of state business and political interests. Further, Songy believes that state resources should flow to the public school classrooms, rather than to out of state business concerns. In addition, Songy believes that the state Minimum Foundation Program should be fully funded in order to benefit all public school systems. To raise the quality of the profession even higher, Songy supports a fair, consistent evaluation of teachers.
Dr. Guillory has served as a school board member in Avoyelles Parish, and from his experience, he understands the needs of districts that include some of the most challenged urban and rural schools in the state. Like Givens and Songy, Guillory is not supported by out of state business and political interests. Because of his first-hand public education background, strong support for Louisiana public schools, and because he has no ties to big businesses from out of state, the Coalition believes “Dr. Jim” is the best candidate for BESE District 8.
Contrary to descriptions that the Coalition is a group of “teacher unions and school board members,” the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is actually comprised of the state leaders of Louisiana’s major public education stakeholders: the Louisiana School Boards Association (LSBA); LA Association of School Superintendents (LASS); LA Association of School Executives (LASE); the LA Association of Special Education Administrators (LASEA); the LA Association of Chief Technology Officers; the LA Association of Child Welfare and Attendance Professionals (LACWAP); the LA Association of School Personnel Administrators (LSASPA); the LA Retired Teachers Association (LRTA); state director of National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS); LA Computer Using Educators (LACUE); LA Association of Educators (LAE): and the LA Federation of Teachers (LFT). In addition, the Coalition includes state representatives of Save Our Schools and Parents Across America; and a bank of independent researchers specializing in education data analysis.
More information about the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education is available on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coalition-for-Louisiana-Public-Education/191154510928448
For further information on the Coalition, contact Chairman Jack Loup, current president of the St. Tammany Parish School Board, at jackloup@wildblue.net or 985-796-3771.
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