LABI and out-of-state donors still dominate BESE

It is so painful to me personally to review or recount the results of the BESE election this past weekend that I am grateful to Mercedes Schneider for having done an excellent job of telling the continuing sad story of the LABI victory over education. I urge all of my readers to take the time to read Schnieder's post.

I want to express my sincere appreciation to the excellent and independent candidates who did their very best to present themselves to the public as good alternatives to the insanity that has controlled and will continue to control education in Louisiana. Unfortunately they could not compete with the effect of big money on an election that most voters know little about. Most of the voters in our state continue to assume credibility for those candidates who spend enough to get their signs and ads out in the media. Most people do not take the time to read facebook posts from candidates who do not enjoy funding by the real decision makers in this state.

For my part, I will continue to monitor and report the actions of BESE as well as the legislature for as long is I am able to do so. I am very hopeful that at some time in the not-too-distant future we can restore the creativity of teachers and make effective attempts to better prepare our students for life using our K-12 public education system.

Just 3 Days Left to Break the Grip of Out-of-State Reformers on Our Louisiana Schools

The reformers and privatizers of public education are using hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions to get the voters in Louisiana to vote against their own interests in order to continue their control of our education system.
If you are reading this blog, I am asking you to help counteract the impact of big out-of-state money on the election of our Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). For the last 8 years the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) and their out-of-state billionaire donors (The Waltons, the Gates, the Broads, and a bunch of Democratic hedge fund managers) have literally taken over and totally revamped our K-12 public education system. They have pushed school privatization and a system of constant testing and test prep for our students in the place of a real practical curriculum that would prepare our children for life. So now our students are performing in almost last place compared to other states in math and English and our ACT scores are dropping. It is time to break the grip of these education deformers on our public school tax dollars.
The only way we educators and citizens have of stopping the "deformers" of public education in Louisiana, is to spread the word about the good and independent BESE candidates to all our friends and relatives using social media and the good old fashioned telephone and face-to-face contact. A good strategy is to copy the link for this blog with your comments to Facebook and Twitter. We have approximately 3 days left to get the job done before election day October 12.

Please help elect the following independent voices for public education to BESE:
Dist. 1- Lee Barrios; Dist. 2- Ashonta Wyatt; Dist. 3- Janice Perea; Dist. 5- Dr. Stephen Chapman;  Dist. 6- Gregory Spiers; Dist. 7- Timmie Melancon; Dist. 8- Vereta Lee.
To find out what BESE district you live in, just click on each Dist. # above to see the maps of BESE districts.

BESE Takeover Effort Intensifies

We predicted that as it got closer to election day, the out-of-state contributors who support the takeover of BESE would dump in massive amounts of contributions to LABI controlled candidates. 
We are now witnessing a massive advertising campaign financed primarily by out-of-state reformer groups that are acting in cooperation with the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) to continue their total control of education in Louisiana. See this blog post by Mercedes Schneider, who I believe is the most effective investigative reporter of educational issues in Louisiana. Schneider describes how a faction of the Louisiana Democratic party called Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is backing candidates for BESE using out-of-state money.

Schneider also describes here how other groups including Stand for Children are coordinating their efforts in Republican majority BESE districts. Brigitte Nieland who recently worked for LABI, is now the political action staffer for Stand for Children. Again, the goal is to provide LABI with totally committed candidates in both Republican and Democratic districts to do their bidding on all major education issues. What does this mean for our children and their teachers?

Election of these LABI controlled candidates will insure that John White remains State Superintendent for as long as he cares to do so. It will also mean that teachers and children will continue to spend most of their class time getting drilled and rehearsed in how to take the state standardized tests. Teachers are now being required to teach "scripted" lessons "with fidelity". This means that White and his reformers consider teachers nothing more that robotic test teachers. That's also why almost no teacher's children are choosing education as their profession and we are experiencing a growing teacher shortage. But the worst result of all this "deform" of education is that our children are actually performing at their lowest ranking ever on standardized tests. So the experiment has failed but as Einstein warned: "Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting to see different results."

If you are sick of this "insanity", please vote against all of the LABI endorsed candidates.
Those are: District 1; James Garvey, District 2; Kira Orange Jones, District 3; Sandy Holloway, District 5; Ashley Ellis, District 6; Ronnie Morris, District 7; Holly Boffy, District 8; Preston Castille.

Here are the candidates I believe would be independent of LABI and willing to restore practical and creative education to our schools. Please consider voting for:
Dist. 1; Lee Barrios, Dist. 2; Ashonta Wyatt, Dist. 3; Janice Perea, Dist. 5; Dr. Stephen Chapman,  Dist. 6; Gregory Spiers, Dist. 7; Timmie Melancon, Dist. 8; Vereta Lee.