Four Senators Block Evaluation Changes

The vote for HB 160 in the House Education Committee was unanimous and the vote on the House floor was 102 to 0. But yesterday the vote in the Senate Education Committee was 4 to 3 to kill the bill. It was obvious that LABI  and the Jindal forces had done a simple math calculation and found that they needed only four votes to kill HB 160 and to move forward with full implementation of the new Act 54 teacher evaluation system despite all of the flaws and potential for destruction of good teachers' careers. The following Senators voted with LABI and Jindal to kill HB 160: Conrad Appel of Jefferson,  Jack Donahue of St Tammany, Elbert Guillory of St Landry and North Lafayette, and Dan Claitor of Baton Rouge.

Senators voting for HB 160 were Eric LaFleur representing Avoyelles, Allen and Evangeline, Mack "Bodi" White representing Livingston and part of EBR and Mike Walsworth representing Morehouse, W. Carroll, Claiborne, Union and North Ouachita. My readers may want to send thank you emails to the "yes" voters.

I want to emphasise that the great majority of the legislature knew that HB 160 was very much needed to restore some of the morale of the teaching profession that was so damaged by the ill conceived and poorly executed Act 54 plan,  probably the most punitive and error prone teacher evaluation system in U.S. Even the original author of Act 54, Rep. Hoffman , pleaded with the Senate Committee to adopt the carefully crafted compromise in HB 160 that would simply have delayed the most harmful parts of the new evaluation system. Rep Hoffman had made a commitment upon adoption of Act 54 that he would demand that the evaluation be halted if it was found to be unfair to teachers. Well he and 102 members of the House of Representatives were defeated in this effort by LABI and just 4 members of the Senate Education Committee. Unfortunately, this is just one example of how the legislative process can be manipulated by the haters of public education.

Representative Reynolds, the author of HB 160, did succeed Thursday in amending the contents of HB 160 on to HB 129 by Vincent Pierre which was just approved also Thursday by the full House. So there is a slim possibility that the legislation may have a chance of being reconsidered before the legislature adjourns on June 6. My opinion is that even if this passes, it is just a stopgap measure that does not cure the serious flaws in the new evaluation system. We have already seen with the "Seabaugh Solution" how the new system can be manipulated to favor just a few teachers while ignoring many other valid problems with the evaluation system, not the least of which is the 74% error factor in VAM in identifying so called "ineffective" teachers.

LABI and Jindal also succeeded in killing HB 466 by Havard that would have prevented a change to White's new school grading system for public schools that introduces the ACT for all students as a factor in the grade calculation of our high schools and adds a complicated system of bonus points for low performing students who exceed a new arbitrary VAM target.

I will say this over and over again until educators listen: It is time that educators get organized to fight these and many other attacks on our public education system. Educators have the power succeed because of their numbers and because of their collective intelligence to get organized to stop the ALEC inspired Jindal attacks on public schools. Just as one example, I checked with LAE and found that there are over 700 LAE members who live in Elbert Guillory's district. I wonder how many of those members bothered to send Senator Guillory an email or make a phone call asking him to vote for HB 160? The same is true of the three other Senators who voted to kill HB 160. What about the thousands of teachers who are not members of LAE or LFT who also did nothing while their profession was under attack? What about the members of A+PEL who lobbied for the defeat of HB 160? Wake up teachers! You need to first know your enemies. Then don't get mad, just get smart and get involved in the democratic process! It is not too late. Bad laws have been changed before, and organized educators can do it again. All educators, (teachers and administrators) should resolve now that they will become active in the legislative process. You don't have to follow my advice on specific legislation. Just use your head and start defending your profession.

Let me tell you what is happening right now as educators are trying to decompress from this very stressful school year. The true growth of the MFP will probably not be funded at anywhere near the required 2.75%  growth factor, probably because the voucher schools need 45 million dollars to be expanded as John White has proposed for the coming year. Meanwhile your school boards are required to make huge contributions to the unfunded liability of the retirement system which was caused by bad legislative policies of the past. At the same time charter schools are allowed to be exempted from the retirement system causing a drain on contributors. Many Parishes are being forced to lay off teachers and increase class size to balance their budgets, while spending more on computers to give the new PARCC tests. These are tests that will further drag down the phony letter grades being assigned to our public schools while voucher schools are exempted. I could go on and on . . . but you get the picture.

I plan to work with the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education which includes school boards, administrators and teacher unions to beef up our systems for contacting and lobbying the legislature for the proper support of public education in the coming year. Please do your part when called upon for your profession and for public education.

Public School Opponents May be Sabotaging Efforts to Reform the Reforms

Several bills have been slowly moving through the legislature with the intent of restoring sanity to public education reform. But the critics and opponents of public education are still intent on protecting their ill advised "reforms" without corrections no matter what.

The leaders of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) with the support of A+PEL, have had their hearts set on seeing a significant number of teachers fired based on student test scores. They want that process to start this year even if it is defective. Apparently LABI leaders do not care that the new VAM has a 74% error rate in identifying ineffective teachers and that teachers getting just one such bad evaluation resulting from VAM would immediately be stigmatized. They know that the VAM was never intended to rate teachers as "ineffective" based on only one year of data. LABI leaders are well aware of the "Seabaugh solution" that will exempt certain politically connected teachers from the stigma of an ineffective VAM score. They are well aware that the law protecting teachers from having their VAM scores revealed to outsiders has apparently already been violated by persons close to Superintendent John White. LABI leaders are also aware of the fact that many other groups of teachers have good cause to challenge the new evaluation system as being inaccurate for their specialty. They know that the training for implementation of COMPASS has been ineffective and produces wildly different results by different evaluators observing the same teacher. Yet LABI leaders are determined to use the new flawed evaluation system to start the process of firing teachers this year. This may be the reason why the Senate Education Committee is dragging its feet in hearing HB 160 by Reynolds. But the bill is scheduled to be heard this Thursday, May 30! Educators need to be there to have their concerns heard.

Another critical bill also being delayed is HB 466 by Representative Havard. This bill would prevent Superintendent White from implementing his new school grading system this year which includes such controversial components as the ACT, and which would drop student attendance as a factor while adding bonus points based on a VAM system, different from the one used to evaluate teachers. I want to remind my readers that I and many other educators believe that even the old letter grading system is very unfair because it is mostly influenced by poverty. However, most educators are also suggesting that it is time the LDOE stop changing the rules and targets schools are supposed to attain in order to improve their ratings by the state. But again Jindal, LABI and the astro turf groups created recently to attack public education apparently see an artificial  lowering of school letter grades as another opportunity to push for more privatization.

With major unfunded mandates to public school systems growing each year, the Governor and Superintendent White continue to freeze funding to public schools while funding the growth of questionable voucher schools and course choice programs without legislative approval. Their obvious objective is to create a growing constituency for these non-accountable privatization efforts as a way of ensuring their survival and growth in the coming years. LEAP results from this year's vouchers are pitiful, yet legislators are still behaving as though they have no authority to rein in White's continued expansion of vouchers. Why is there no limit being put on the expansion of voucher schools until there is some evidence that they actually educate students?

 The blog Louisiana Voice has printed several posts exposing the massive fraud that is called course choice. Tom Aswell sent an email recently to all members of the House and Senate Education Committees and requested to know what action did these legislators plan to take to investigate the apparently fraudulent course choice enrollment practices. According to Aswell, only one responded with a non-committal reply. White has just announced that he will fund a limited number of course choice programs using DOE and BESE funds apparently without legislative approval. My question is will the questionable course choice recruitment by out of state providers take precedence over the legitimate courses being offered by our state colleges and school systems for this limited funding?

So with less than two weeks left in the legislative session, it seems quite possible that the flawed Act 54 evaluation system may still go into full effect starting the damage to teachers' careers, that the new school letter grading system may still be implemented, and that the expansion of vouchers and course choice rip offs will be continued.

If you agree with me that these results of the 2013 legislative session would be outrageous and amount to a continued attack on professional educators and public schools, please contact both of your legislators now and request the following:

1. Ask Senators to vote "yes" for HB 160 delaying the punitive application of the Act 54 evaluation system.

2. Ask Senators to vote "yes" for HB 466, retaining the 2011-12 system of school grades and requiring legislative approval of any future changes.

3. Ask Senators to vote "yes" for HB 115, the reverse parent trigger that would allow schools to be taken back from the RSD.

4. Ask all legislators to allow no expansion of funding of vouchers or Course Choice without specific approval of the legislature and only after evidence that such programs are educationally sound.

The legislature has the responsibility of cleaning up the mess they created last year when they approved the Jindal reforms over the objection public school educators.

The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to meet at approximately 10:00 am, Thursday, May 30. I am encouraging educators to attend this committee hearing and put in green cards (support cards) for both HB 160, HB 466 and HB 115. I believe that HB 650 allowing a major reorganization of the DOE is also scheduled. Many educators are filling out red cards on this one because we do not trust any reorganization White may be planning. Autism parent advocates are opposing the bill because of the removal of a major position supporting autism education.

The Unlimited Threat of Vouchers and Course Choice

Update on MFP 5/23/13:

At this point, the new MFP is still bottled up in the Senate Education Committee by a motion passed earlier this week to defer action on the new resolution. This is very good news for supporters of public education, because the rejection of the new MFP means that the state would revert to the 2011-12 MFP formula. This formula is actually better for public schools than the 2012-13 formula which was struck down by the Louisiana Supreme Court. My only advice at this point is be prepared for a sneak attack on the MFP by the Jindal Administration. This is just too good to be true!

MFP Resolution is a Trap for Louisiana Taxpayers

The MFP resolution now before the Louisiana Senate contains an escape clause to account for the recent Louisiana Supreme Court decision outlawing the funding of vouchers through the MFP. But that escape clause is a trap for the taxpayers of Louisiana. By approving the MFP as it is presently worded the legislature will be putting a permanent stamp of approval on an unlimited voucher/course choice system to be paid for by our taxpayers without a vote of those taxpayers. See Part F, page 25 and 26 of SCR 23. With the approval of this Resolution, Jindal will accomplish 2 major attacks on public education in one fell swoop. The new MFP eliminates the growth factor and establishes both the Course Choice program and the Scholarship program to voucher schools as a semi-permanent priority for the state.

Once both of these issues are approved as part of the MFP, the Jindal controlled BESE can ignore the growth factor in future years as well as this year and at the same time conclude that vouchers/course choice is a priority of the legislature and include them in future MFPs. If the legislature fails to approve such future MFPs , the formula will revert to this year's formula, and the unlimited vouchers and course choices will remain as funding priorities! What a slick legislative "tour de force"! Where are the tea party protesters to this incredible new entitlement being visited upon us by the Jindal administration?

Legislators should pose the following question: "If it is not constitutional to fund the vouchers through the MFP, then why does the MFP still include the wording mandating the funding of both the vouchers and the course choice program?" I believe the answer is obvious if we consider the scenario described above.

There has been no legitimate public approval of this new drain on our state taxes, yet with the approval of this resolution, Jindal and White will continue to recruit unlimited numbers of unwary parents to allow children to be used to enrich more unscrupulous small time preachers, and out of state "providers" who have already shown their hand by the methods used to recruit as many students as possible for questionable courses.

But the most outrageous development of the Jindal reforms is the almost non-existent level of accountability for these raids on our tax dollars. There is not even a mention by the Jindal administration of applying the VAM or the school grading system to the voucher school teachers and the voucher schools. The LEAP scores and EOC scores for course choice students will be assigned to these student's home public schools not to the course choice providers! The course choice providers have no mandatory attendance and in most cases no oversight at all by the state DOE on the quality of the courses being "taught". These providers have every incentive to award credit to students where no credit is due, yet the Louisiana taxpayers will foot the bill for these modern day carpetbaggers!

Jindal and White in all probability will no longer be in leadership positions when the full cost of this program balloons to unmanageable proportions in the next few years without accountability. Make no mistake about it. This is part of the plan to dismantle public education in Louisiana, all without taxpayer approval.

Please ask your senator to reject the Jindal/White MFP!