A Guide to BESE Elections, Part I

Why BESE is the most critical, yet least understood body affecting public education in Louisiana 
The average Louisiana voter does not know what the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education does and most do not even know who represents them on BESE. BESE members historically have been low profile persons who were dedicated to public education. The BESE elections used to attract very low political contributions and were not seen as a stepping stone to higher office. BESE members get no pay for their service and very little news coverage. Thats why in the past, most voters were not very well informed about the huge impact BESE can have on our schools.

But now, almost everyone complains about the very bad decisions being made affecting our children's schools. Almost everyone who has a child in public schools complains about the excessive time spent on standardized testing and test-prep each year. Many parents of school children are alarmed when their children, who once looked forward to attending school, come home crying about the frustrating and incomprehensible material their teachers are forced to teach and test. And recently we learned that our school system has fallen to its lowest level ever in the various rankings of the states on education. We are now tied for last place on the national comparative NAEP test. The Quality Counts rating system which was released last week, covering a wide range of measures rated Louisiana 4th from the bottom of the states, below even Mississippi. These frustrating and damaging changes have happened because our BESE elections have been taken over by a coalition of out-of-state billionaires and the dominant business organization in Louisiana.  

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) and super wealthy education reformers from out-of-state decided about 14 years ago that with a concerted effort and a huge infusion of contributions to hand picked candidates, the so called "reformers" could literally take over public education in Louisiana. At the same time a group of mega-wealthy individuals and foundations were looking for laboratory states to experiment with implementing a complete overhaul of public education. Massive contributions came from New York tycoon Michael Bloomberg, the Eli Borad family, the Walton family, and even Bill and Melinda Gates. They then spent millions, on political contributions and a new curriculum to guarantee implementation of all the latest fads in education reform. Bill Gates decided to fund the implementation of the Common Core standards nationwide, sight unseen. Louisiana's BESE adopted the Common Core standards before they were even written. None of these had been field tested. Louisiana and Florida became huge laboratories for education reform.

With the help of Governor Jindal, who also was determined to overhaul education, LABI and their billionaires literally took over 7 out of 8 of the elected positions on BESE. They were then able to bring in an out-of-state non-educator (John White) as the new reformer minded State Superintendent. Republicans and some reformer oriented Democrats in the legislature helped Jindal pass major legislation stripping teachers of tenure, seniority, and every bit of decision making about teaching and implementation of educational standards. They gave the new LABI controlled BESE full authority to take over low performing schools and turn them over to minimally regulated charter school operators. The legislation also allowed vouchers using our school taxes to go to private schools, and to implement the new Common Core State Standards with the accompanying standardized testing and the grading of schools based on this testing.

The education reformers won total control of our schools. Have they succeeded in boosting our children's educational achievement?
The reformers got absolutely everything they wanted with this massive overhaul of our Louisiana schools. The promise of these reforms was to produce much improved performance of our students in reading and math, closing of the achievement gap between underprivileged and middle class children, and a major improvement of Louisiana's ranking of education compared to other states. 

Now after 10 years of operating our schools based on this reform agenda, multiple measures of our education system reveal serious declines, not improvement. We are now awarding diplomas to students who are functional illiterates, and our educational ranking among the states is the lowest ever!

Now that the reform is sputtering, can we take back our schools?
It's sad to say, but it would be almost impossible to take back BESE in the coming 2019 elections, because the reformers still have the ability to control most of the money being spent on the BESE elections. And they are not about to admit that they were wrong about any part of their so called "reforms". The best we can do in this election cycle is to begin the process of educating our parents and taxpayers about the damaging results of the current reforms and at least begin the process of taking back the control of our schools and the use of our school tax dollars.

All of the five incumbents running for reelection to BESE are invested in retaining the reforms no matter what. 
These incumbents are James Garvey, District 1; Kira Orange Jones, District 2; Sandy Holloway, District 3; Tony Davis, District 4; and Holly Boffy, District 7. Tony Davis has no opposition and the other incumbents are seen as front runners. If they get only a fraction of the contributions spent on previous elections by the reformer PACs they have a tremendous advantage. In part II on the BESE elections I will attempt to give some guidance on candidates that are willing to challenge the status quo of the present reform movement in Louisiana.