Important Court Decision on Public Records

I want to sincerely thank Tom Aswell of The Louisiana Voice and our attorney J. Arthur Smith III for blazing the way to the proper enforcement of the Louisiana Public Records law. Tom Aswell, represented by Attorney J Arthur Smith III won an important court decision over a year ago requiring John White and the Department of Education to produce public information requested by Aswell based on the public records law. Yesterday, J. Arthur Smith and Adrienne Rachel acting as my attorneys achieved another important compromise settlement and consent judgment against Superintendent John White and the LDOE to further enforce the public records law on my behalf. The settlement of the case Michael R. Deshotels Verses John White in his official capacity over DOE was agreed to before District Judge Hernandez. According to the agreement, not only is the DOE required to produce the public records I requested over six months ago, but the DOE is required to pay all court costs, attorney fees and additional penalties for not producing such records at the time they were requested. I hope this settlement means that no other citizen will be forced to file a lawsuit to view or obtain public records from the Department of Education.

All that Tom Aswell and I were seeking is information that allows us to conduct independent investigations of some of the data and information that is generated by the DOE in conducting our public business. In particular, I wanted to examine data on the new teacher evaluation system and get a better idea how some teachers get rated ineffective and some teachers get exempted when their VAM ratings are considered invalid for various reasons. I also wanted to conduct independent studies on the graduation rates in the two Louisiana Recovery Districts. The problem is that much of the statistical information that in the past was available to the public and to independent researchers is no longer being made available by John White. Many independent researchers have reason to believe that important data is being manipulated for political rather than proper educational purposes.

But even with the LDOE's high priced attorneys and public relations gatekeepers who vigilantly attempt to withhold public information from the public, the Louisiana Courts have not been willing to allow John White and his department to avoid public scrutiny into the workings of our Department of Education. Because of our courts which are not controlled by Jindal and White, the Department of Education is not yet an independent fiefdom within which John White can totally control public education and reorganize it to meet his personal ideological and political goals without public scrutiny.

An Important Case Study
Many of us who are interested in the welfare of public education and of the education profession are appalled at some of the disturbing consequences of the Jindal and White "deforms" of public education. A perfect example of such deform policies is the chaos now being caused in the East Baton Rouge Parish School system. If you are interested in the future of public education, you owe it to yourself to read this post in The Crazy Crawfish blog.

The EBR public school system is under siege by the LDOE because of their attempts to take over much of the school system. As a result, I believe local administrators have resorted to an unwritten policy of forcing educators to promote and attempt to graduate any and all students regardless of actual achievement. This is leading to appalling negative consequences for students and teachers.

According to the excellent investigative report by Jason France of the Crazy Crawfish blog, teachers in some schools are being bullied into ignoring serious classroom discipline problems, and into promoting some non-performing students to make their schools look good on paper. Teachers are often being required to tolerate disrespectful, aggressive and even dangerous behavior by some of the most disruptive students because the central office wants all students to pass no matter what. These schools instead are deteriorating on the inside because of destruction of discipline and respect for the authority and academic freedom of teachers. In some schools, teachers know that their job depends not so much on their success in teaching but on simply finding a way to promote almost all students. The new evaluation and teacher dismissal policies rammed through the legislature by Jindal make it extremely easy to fire teachers who do not produce the results demanded by upper management. The morale of teachers is systematically being destroyed in some schools, and many of the best teachers are looking for a way to retire or resign early.

There is plenty of blame to pass around for this appalling situation in EBR and in some other parishes, but it all starts with the perverse policies of our Department of Education. Efforts to shame and blame schools and educators for the problems in many of our impoverished communities are totally counterproductive and destructive of our public schools. We don't blame doctors for the high death rate of heart patients but we do blame teachers for the underperformance of our many at risk students!

Five years ago in EBR a group of so called "failing schools" were taken over by the state and converted into independently managed charter schools. Now the results of those actions are just part of the carefully guarded public records. Almost all of the takeover schools are even greater failures according to the statistics generated by the DOE, and the only school that seemed to be slightly improving is under investigation by the FBI. How has the DOE reacted to this total failure of their so called “Recovery” effort? They have pretended that the last 5 years never happened and have announced the creation of an “achievement zone” in EBR run mostly by the state and new charter operators with the intent of privatizing even more public schools. That is why the local school system has reacted with the demoralizing policies that attempt to shield local schools from state takeover. It is not about education anymore. It is purely about a power struggle between the state and the local school system with the victims being the students and the teachers.

Report on Legislature #2

This is my second report on education legislation. I have tried to group the important education bills into several categories. This does not include teacher retirement bills. These bills will be described by the Retired Teachers' Association. Future posts will include more detail on important education bills:

Student Information Privacy and Parent's Rights

HB 555 by Henry, HB 560 by Ivey, HB 946 by Schroeder, HB 384 by Cromer, and SB 455 by G. Smith prohibits certain student data collection and sharing

SB 308 by Crowe and HB 591 by Henry provides for privacy rights of parents

SB 449 by Appel provides for privacy of student data

SB 536 by LaFleur provides of K-12 privacy

HB 591 by Henry provides for parental rights

HB 735 by James allows for parent petitions to remove schools from the Recovery District

HB 817 by Nancy Landry allows parent petitions for changing school and district management

School Standards and Standardized Testing

HB 359 by Harrison and HB 423 by Pat Smith temporarily suspends school letter grades

HB 481 by Shadoin provides for DOE to supply curriculum guides for schools

HB 554 by Henry provides for legislative approval of content standards and allows local standards

HB 556 by Henry prohibits the Common Core State Standards, 557, 558, 559, 376, 377, and 379 are related to the same issues and were discussed in legislative report # 1.

HB 559 by Ivey provides for Louisiana based school standards in the place of CCSS

HB 809 by Cox provides credit for lower ACT scores for accountability

HB 845 by Reynolds requires curriculum guides for required subjects

HB 953 by Leger provides for state standards as opposed to national standards

HB 988 by Schroder provides for local control of standards

HB 163 by Burns and HB 996 by Schroder prohibits PARCC testing

HB 1015 by Schroder provides for promotion of students with disabilities based on IEP and prohibits the use of standardized scores of such students for school accountability

SB 171 by Appel provides for definition of competency based education to align with Common Core

SB 405 by Walsworth provides that all state accountability tests must be reviewed by stakeholders

Teacher Evaluation, certification standards, and Tenure

HB 101 by Edwards requires same employment standards for teachers in charters as in regular schools

HB 124 by Pat Smith gives first preference to hiring certified teachers in charters.

HB 306 by Hoffman prohibits the freezing teacher salary because of one ineffective VAM score

HB 415 by Hoffman requires reworking of teacher evaluation by the Eval. Advisory Committee

HB 453 by Hunter provides for tenure process for teachers in the Monroe City system

HB 533 by Seabaugh prevents the use of students with excessive absences for VAM

HB 653 by Landry restores the Jindal revision of tenure declared unconstitutional in Act 1

HB 890 by Johnson revises the evaluation of teachers and administrators to require reliable measures

HB 375 by Guymann lowers percentage of teacher evaluation based on VAM to 25%

HB 947 by Havard lowers the percentage of teachers evaluation based on VAM

HB 949 by Schroeder revises the evaluation of teachers and administrators changing percentage weight of VAM and SLTs for different grade levels

HB 982 by Gaines provides due process for teacher removal

SB 364 by Nevers delets VAM and substitutes multiple measures for teacher evaluation

HB 995 by A Williams revises evaluation of teachers

School Board and local Superintendent powers

HB 191 by Pearson and HB 651 by Landry provides for powers and duties of School Boards and Superintendents, restores provisions of Act 1 of 2012

HB 1022 by Landry provides for powers of School Boards and Superintendents and prevents school boards from interfering with Superintendent in personnel matters and prevents firing Superintendents for such actions.

Vouchers, Charters and Course Choice

HB 702 by Edwards limits vouchers for kindergarten students to low performing zones

HB 268 by Reynolds provides accountability for voucher schools

HB 269 provides for tracking of tuition for voucher schools

HB 424 by Thierry provides for auditing of non-profits that receive voucher funding

HB 701 by Edwards provides for eligibility for vouchers

HB 774 by Shadoin and SB 179 by Morrish changes provisions for course choice program

HB 780 by Talbot provides for tax rebates for student tuition

HB 836 by Harrison provides for accountability for voucher schools

SB 61 by Nevers provides for public school choice allowing transfers of students in public schools

SB 78 by Kostelka provides for financial disclosure of members of charter school boards

SB 460 by Adley provides for auditing of voucher schools

HB 184 by Havard provides for charter school assets

HB 999 by A. Williams limits charter management fees

HB 522 by James provides for property return by Recovery District

SB 219 by Murray provides for return of property from Recovery District

SB 437 by Morrell provides for performance reviews for takeover schools after 5 years

Other Important Education Bills

HB 125,127 by Harrison provides for an elected State Superintendent

HB 777 by Pat Smith modifies discipline laws for students

HB 944 by Fannin modifies the career diploma law

HB 948 by A Williams provides for certain schools in RSD to be returned to local school boards

SB 83 by Nevers provides for a single high school diploma with multiple endorsements

SB 191 by Morrish provides for equal weighting of IB, AP, and dual enrollment courses for accountability

SB 354 by White provides for a constitutional amendment defining authority of public school districts established by the legislature
 

Education Legislation

I have asked my readers to consider participating in my Defenders of Public Education email system. This system is designed to provide up to the minute information about important education legislation. The “Defenders” can then contact their legislators and advise them before they vote. The Defenders include a cross section of parents, school board members, and educators whose primary interest is to see our public schools constantly improve and provide a great education to our students. Over 1100 persons have signed up so far. All you have to do if you want to receive emails about important actions on education legislation, is just send me an email at louisianaeducator@gmail.com and include your zip code so I can figure out who your legislators are.  This post will give you a first look at the important education legislation of this upcoming session that starts Monday, March 10^th. But before I go into legislation, I need to tell you about a very important national group.

The Best National Group Supporting Our Public Schools

This blog has often identified the enemies of public education. Now I want to tell you briefly about a great National group that is a true champion of public education. This is the group called the Network for Public Education (NPE). It was formed by a group of public education leaders including Diane Ravitch and Education Week blogger Anthony Cody. Diane writes the Diane Ravitch blog which each day gives us very important information about attacks on public schools. She has written  two books that are very important to our defense of public education: The Life and Death of the Great American Public Education System and more recently, Reign of Error; The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools. Diane Ravitch is the strongest and most respected voice at the national level defending our public schools. Anthony Cody and many other leaders in the Network for Public Education help to blog the truth about what is now referred to as the “corporate takeover” of public education.

The NPE held its first annual conference this last weekend in Austin, Texas. I was privileged to attend this historic and extremely informative and powerful conference. Other participants from Louisiana were Noel Hammatt, former president of the Louisiana School Boards Association, Jason France, writer of the sensational pro education blog the Crazy Crawfish, Mercedes Schnieder, a true rising star of Louisiana education who writes the blog Deutsch29. (Go to the Mercedes blog here for a good recap of the NPE conference) Lee Barios who writes the blog, Geaux Teacher!, and last but not least, Jack Loup, the chairman of the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education. Please consider visiting the NPE website and read the regular posts on this blog. It demonstrates in an alarming way that what is happening in Louisiana is just part of a national plan by some of the richest and most powerful billionaires in this country to totally destroy public education and replace it with a for profit free-for-all system of mostly non-educators who want to use our children and our tax dollars for their personal benefit. Please consider also making a financial contribution to the NPE so that it can continue and expand its important mission of informing the nation about the danger of these attacks on public education.

My First Report on Education Legislation for 2014

This article in The Advocate by Will Sentell gives you an introduction to some of the major pieces of education legislation for this session. In addition, I urge my readers to simply use the bill numbers of the legislation in which you are most interested and use the bill look-up system at Louisiana Legislature web site to read the full text and a summary of each bill. I know my readers are all very busy people so I try with this blog to give you the gist of important legislation and my opinion about how it affects public education and the practitioners of public education. So here are my brief descriptions of some of the most important bills at this point. You can click on the bill number to see the full text of the original bill. More will be discussed in future posts.

SB 365 by Senator Appel who is chairman of the Senate education committee would immediately nullify the tenure of a teacher as soon as she/he gets an ineffective rating on the Act 54 evaluation system. So basically, if administrators want to avoid any due process for a teacher such as a tenure hearing, all they have to do is give the teacher one bad evaluation and the teacher would have no recourse at all if the administrators recommend termination. This is a horrible piece of legislation by one of the leaders of the Jindal “reforms” which produced Act 1 and Act 2 of the 2012 legislative session. Since much of those laws have been declared unconstitutional by the courts, this bill by Appel is continuing the attacks on the teaching profession in Louisiana.

SB 449 by Senator Appel would set up a system to manage and protect the privacy of student information. This is apparently is an attempt by Appel to appease the parents who in recent months have strenuously objected to have their children's private educational information made available to numerous private groups, corporations and even employers. I have not yet had time to analyze this bill but we will visit it again in the near future.

SB 171 by Senator Appel rewords the Louisiana Educational Assessment program to make the statewide testing system comply better with goals of the Common Core State Standards to test the student skills necessary for college and careers. The bill does not mention Common Core standards. It just defines our Louisiana standards in the same way the CCSS are defined. This is an example of rebranding the Common Core.

House education committee member and announced candidate for governor, John Bel Edwards has introduced several bills that are designed to remove some of legislation passed recently that attacks our public schools and the education profession in Louisiana.

HB 101 would restore the requirement that teachers in charter schools meet the same eligibility requirements for their job as teachers in regular public schools . Jindal had removed the need for teachers in charter schools to be certified teachers. They only needed a bachelor's degree, and not necessarily in their teaching assignment. Unfortunately this bill still allows TFA teachers to teach with no more than 5 weeks training for any teaching job.

HB 701 removes voucher eligibility of students attending “C” schools. Jindal's legislation had allowed students attending C, D, and F schools to be eligible to attend voucher schools.

HB 702 removes the loophole that allowed any student starting kindergarten to enroll in a voucher school if their parents met the income guidelines.

HB 703 prevents BESE from approving new charter schools in a school system that is designated as a C, B, or A school system. The local school board would have sole authority to approve such charters. In the recent past, BESE has approved charters over the objection of school systems even if they were rated above a D.

Representative Brett Guymann and Cameron Henry have strongly objected to the Common Core State Standards, particularly since they were adopted without public input and without approval of the legislature. They have introduced several bills dealing with school standards.

HB 376 and 377 by Guymann would first require that BESE adopt standards using the Administrative Procedures Act and then receive legislative approval. This would give the legislature the final say on our state education standards. It would also require that Louisiana continue to use the standards we had prior to the CCSS until the legislature has a chance to review any new standards that are being proposed by the DOE. My readers may remember that the standards we had before this year were referred to as the Grade Level Expectations and had been rated number 2 in the nation by Education Week in 2012. At that time our DOE expressed pride in our standards. Guymann's HB 379 would allow local school boards to adopt their own curriculum standards instead of state standards if they are as rigorous as the state standards.  Other legislators have proposed much more on standards:
HB 556 and 557 by Cameron Henry would prohibit the use of CCSS and revert to old standards until new standards can be developed.
HB 558 by Henry prohibits the use of the PARCC test.
HB 554 by Henry would prohibit the CCSS, and allow the legislature to adopt alternative standards and would allow local school boards to adopt their own standards if they are at least as rigorous as the state standards.
HB 559 by Ivy prohibits the use of CCSS and requires that Louisiana develop its own standards.
HB 163 by Burns would prohibit the use of the PARCC tests.
HB 481 by Shadoin requires a gradual phase in of the Common Core standards with a curriculum guide to be distributed by the DOE before the standards are taught.
HB 845 by Reynolds requires the state to provide curriculum guides.

HB 273 and 274  by Guymann would abolish BESE and make the Superintendent of Education an elected position.

HB 375 by Guymann would change the VAM portion or the SLT portion of a teacher's evaluation to count for 25% of the teacher's overall rating. The bill does not deal with regulations implemented by White that allows the VAM to overrule the principal's evaluation in cases where a teacher got an ineffective VAM. I believe that this rule by White was never legal to begin with. I believe it still needs to be clarified in this bill.

Those are all the bills I have looked at so far. There are many others that are also very important to public education. I intend to summarize more education bills in my next post.