Superintendent White Reverses Course on Teacher Credentials and Training

Superintendent White's new teacher certification proposals are totally at odds with his previous policies on teacher credentials and experience

State Superintendent John White who himself has minimal credentials as a professional educator has proposed a beefed up program of Louisiana teacher certification that includes a one year internship supervised by experienced master teachers. Many agree that such internships are highly desirable as a way of providing teachers with coaching and guidance in developing their classroom teaching skills. But this proposal is totally at odds with policies that White has promoted from the beginning of his tenure as Louisiana State Superintendent!

When John White came to Louisiana and started his term as Governor Jindal's hand-picked State Superintendent, he was called upon to testify on Jindal's education reform legislation as proposed by Acts 1 and 2 of 2012. These bills proposed major changes in the qualifications and credentials of teachers.

Act 1 of 2012, included provisions removing all teacher seniority rights and limiting teacher pay based on years of experience. Act 2 of 2012 allowed charter schools to be exempted from the previous requirements in Louisiana Law that all teachers must complete a teacher training program as part of their certification process.  Act 2 allowed charter schools to hire as fully certified teachers, anyone with a bachelor's degree of any kind if they passed a background check. Such persons would be given the responsibility to teach a classroom full of students without a single hour of teacher preparation. This exemption for charter schools is still the law in Louisiana. In addition, based on BESE policy, certification was provided to Teach for America corps members who had received only 5 weeks of summer training before fully assuming the duties of classroom teaching. These alternatively certified teachers were eligible, and are still eligible to teach in any public school classroom in the state. John White, himself had received just such preparation before he taught for TFA.

In his testimony before the legislature, (I am paraphrasing) John White suggested that there was no measurable difference in the effectiveness of new teachers compared to experienced teachers. White also suggested to the legislature that there was no significant value in the system of step increases that provided teachers a salary schedule with financial rewards based on years of teaching experience. Act I also required that each public school system implement a merit pay system for teachers based on student test scores. In addition, the new evaluation plan for teachers targeted 10% of teachers for dismissal based on student test scores.

The new laws have basically decimated Louisiana teacher salary schedules based on years of experience.  Since the state provided not one penny of funding for the mandated merit pay scheme, most school systems shifted money from teacher step increases to pay for the merit pay plan. White also supported the changes in Act 1 that stripped all teachers of their seniority rights in determining priority for layoffs in reduction in force actions.

In the ensuing years since the passage of Acts 1 and 2, the combination of loss of step increases and loss of seniority coupled with teacher evaluations and merit pay based on student test scores has been identified by many experienced teachers as the causes of their decision to take early retirement. Hundreds, maybe thousands of teachers in Louisiana have retired earlier than they had originally planned because of disillusionment with the new laws implemented by John White. Now Louisiana is experiencing a teacher shortage.

So now, White apparently has had an epiphany in which he has discovered the value of teaching experience in providing students with the best instruction possible. Just 4 years ago White saw no value in teacher preparation and teaching experience and helped to strip teachers of salary raises based on experience and to deny teachers seniority rights in layoff procedures. He supported hiring teachers for charter schools who had received no training whatsoever to be teachers. Yet now he seems to believe that teacher training and experience are valuable after all. I have a few questions about this whole turnaround:

1. Is White proposing that from now on TFA Corps members entering Louisiana classrooms must receive one year of supervised internship before becoming certified? Or will such persons continue to be allowed to receive preferential treatment in the certification process?
2. Will White propose a repeal of the law that limits the use of experience as a major component of the teacher salary schedule?
3. Will White support the repeal of the prohibition on the use of teacher seniority in reduction in force policies?
4. Will White propose that now teachers hired to teach in charter schools must complete a teacher preparation program, or will charter schools continue to be exempt from teacher certification requirements?
5. Why does Louisiana continue to allow a non-educator to set policies on teacher certification and to use our teachers and students as guinea pigs for his contradictory education reforms.

A Decisive Victory for Citizens Enforcing the Public Records Law

The most recent episode in the battle to require John White and our Louisiana Department of Education to comply with the Louisiana Public Records Law was decided today in the 19th Judicial District Court by Judge Janice Clark. Here is The Advocate article describing the decision. The decision once again declared that data suppression tactics imposed by our LDOE were in violation of the Louisiana Public Records Law. The LDOE agreed to three stipulations settling the lawsuit by John White and the LDOE against Michael Deshotels and Dr James Finney as follows:

• "The suppression of data in the economically disadvantaged and English Learner (ELL) or English proficiency sub-groups of the Louisiana Department of Education Multi-stat reports is not in compliance with the Louisiana Public Records Act.
• The Louisiana Department of Education shall not suppress student enrollment data in responding to requests made under the Louisiana Public Records Act.
• The data regarding the economically disadvantaged and English language learner (ELL) or English proficiency sub-groups of the Louisiana Department of Education Multi-stat reports will be made available to the public back to 2006 pursuant to the Louisiana Public Records Act."

Since the LDOE has signed on to the above stipulations they are waiving any opportunity to appeal this decision. This matter should now be settled permanently for this type of records request. We will also suggest that the documents be made available on the LDOE web site for anyone to access.

I want to personally thank my attorney Mr J. Arthur Smith III, and Dr Finney's attorney, Mr Chris Shows for their excellent work in presenting our case in this important matter.

I also want to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to the Baton Rouge civic group, Leaders With Vision headed by president Jean Armstrong for providing generous financial support for me and Dr. Finney in defending our rights and the rights of other citizens in this important case.

This case was in my opinion an attack on citizens' rights by John White and his department because he sued me and Dr. Finney just for having the nerve to request public records. The original lawsuit against us proposed that if we challenged the LDOE's suppression of data and information, we would be assessed all legal and court costs in prosecuting the case. This initial demand was retracted as I understand based upon objections to such tactics by unanimous consent of all BESE members. We thank the BESE members for also standing up for citizens's rights.

The pretense for this lawsuit was a claim by White and the Department that some parts of the data requested may compromise the privacy rights of students as required by FERPA through some obscure data manipulations. The LDOE also claimed that they had been warned by the U.S. Department of Education that Louisiana may be in danger of losing federal funding if such data was not suppressed. This claim is now conclusively proved to be bogus because the U.S. Department of Education makes exactly this type of data available on its own web site. I have in my possession a copy of the data sample downloaded from the U.S. Dept. web site only this morning, if ever anyone questions this point. The only problem is that much of the data is outdated because of the time delay in publishing the information.

Dr Finney and I as defendants in the case could still be left owing significant legal fees unless the judge orders the LDOE to reimburse us for all legal fees. That motion is being made by our attorneys and remains to be ruled upon by the judge.

I want also to express the following personal opinion regarding this unnecessary expense of public and private funds in the courts. I believe the entire motivation for this action against me and Dr. Finney was never about clarifying the legal issues relative to certain public records with proper consideration of student privacy matters as was claimed by John White.  I believe it was purely an attempt to discourage citizens from seeking to independently research the claims and conclusions made by White and his staff. If citizens are forced to face legal challenges and high legal fees for seeking public records, the Department can continue to manipulate and spin what should be factual information about the operation of our schools.

Now because of this landmark ruling it is my sincere hope that the letter and spirit of the Public Records Law will be complied with and no further lawsuits will be necessary.

The Public Seems to be at Odds with the Real Decision Makers on Implementation of ESSA

I attended a forum last night in Baton Rouge on the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Educators. The stated purpose of the forum was to receive input from educators, parents and other citizens on the revisions of the ESSA law.

Specifically the participants in the forum were asked to give their ideas and suggestions on how the new Federal law should be implemented so that the learning experience for all children could be improved.

For the last 14 years our public education systems have operated under mandates of the No Child Left Behind law which almost everyone agrees has failed in its mandate of producing proficiency in all children in all schools in math and English language arts. In fact there are essentially no schools in the U. S. that have achieved the proficiency mandated by the old law. So now the law has supposedly been made more flexible and more practical in its design. The general public and educators are supposed to have more "say so" in the implementation of the new plan for ESSA.

Participants in the forum were broken up into 6 groups that were each expected to come up with recommendations for improvement of our public schools and the education of all children. Near the end of the forum each group reported their recommendations.

The recommendations included ideas for improving parent participation and support for the education process, the need to boost education options for students not planning to attend colleges, incentives to attract more qualified persons into the teaching profession, and many other excellent ideas.

But there was one initiative that amazingly was not suggested by any of the 6 groups. Not a single group suggested that Louisiana should continue rating public schools using student test scores! I was amazed that no one seemed to recognize the importance of statewide testing as a basis and avenue for improving our schools and the education of children since this has been the main focus of the federal and state mandates for our schools for the last 14 years. If testing students and rating schools using test scores was so important, you would think that someone attending the LAE forum would have suggested that Louisiana continue and make full use of this process. The only discussion we heard in our forum on this subject was that Louisiana should spend less time on testing and test-prep so that teachers would have more time to spend on actual teaching.

I was also able to review some of the video tapes of the forums held by State Superintendent John White on ESSA in all parts of the state. I specifically looked for confirmation by citizens and teachers that the emphasis on state testing of students and the rating of schools and teachers using such testing was a good idea. The only comment I saw that seemed to approve of the testing was a comment by Dr. Phillip Rozeman of Shreveport who was quoted as saying that Louisiana should "stay the course on accountability", but I just did not see a groundswell of public support for continued emphasis on testing as a way of improving our schools and for implementing the Every Student Succeeds law.

Was I the only person in the state interested in education that noticed that neither the general public nor the practicing educators recommend state mandated testing as the primary way to improve our schools? Was I the only person who sees this continuing mandate as a top down commandment that comes primarily from the self appointed education reformer elites in our country and our state?

I just had a chance to scan the draft framework just recently added to the LDOE website for the implementation  of the new Every Child Succeeds Act that was developed after receiving all this input from the various stakeholders in our educational system. Amazingly, the whole new plan just seems to double down on rating schools using state and national testing. So this is how our public input on implementation of the new law is being put into action? Or is this what we may may call a disconnect between the public and the policy makers? Am I the only citizen of Louisiana who feels this way?