Paranoid Grigsby Wants LABI to Drive a Spear Through the Hearts of the Teacher Unions!

This is almost unbelievable! Bob Mann reveals here why delusional Lane Grigsby wants LABI to make the passage of HB 418 denying payroll dues deduction to teachers, the number one priority of LABI! He believes that this denial of a basic benefit to teachers will finally kill the "evil teacher unions"! Please watch the video in this article in nola.com by Bob Mann. Grigsby who is a key board member of LABI has somehow convinced himself that if big business could somehow cripple the teacher unions, that finally the ill advised reforms of education pushed by LABI would fix our education system.

This whole fantasy by big business bosses that only the teacher unions prevent the success of their  experiments with education reform is both delusional and paranoid! 

LABI leaders believe that the main reason public education is not producing college ready, work ready, "human capitol" is that thousands of lazy and incompetent teachers are just not teaching hard enough and well enough to get all kids ready for the workforce! No matter that some parents do not send their children to school regularly, and that no one at home sees to it that kids do homework and study for tests, or even pay attention in class. It never occurs to LABI leaders that kids who get kicked out of their homes regularly, don't know where their next meal will be coming from, and have almost no good role models that instill in them a solid work ethic, are just not going to do well in school no matter how hard teachers work.

LABI is convinced that if the Louisiana Department of Education could just require that large numbers of teachers be fired based on VAM scores, and if those teachers had no due process rights, and no organizational support to allow them to challenge unfounded dismissals, the remaining teachers and the new TFA replacements would finally get through to the kids. Good luck with that one!

My opinion is this: If more teachers were active, involved members of their teacher unions, LABI, CABL, John White, Arne Duncan, and Bill Gates would not be using our students as lab rats for their unscientific reform ideas.  HB 418 will be going to the House Floor for a vote of all Representatives (not Senators yet) sometime next week. If you care about the teaching profession, please ask your Representative to vote no on this bill.

Click on this link at the Louisiana Legislature web site to plug in your address so that you can get the contact information for your state representative. You can then send and email or telephone his/her office and leave a message to oppose HB 418.

Legislation Defending Our Public Schools

Breaking News! 2:00 pm, Wed. May 6. HB 166 by Bouie passed the House Ed Committee by a close 9 to 8 vote. HB 21 will be debated in committee next Tuesday, May 12. Please send emails in support of HB 21 and also HB 340 now! Another option is to send a phone message to your rep. on the Floor by calling 225-342-6945 or by calling the legislator's home office.

There are three important bills being heard in the House Education Committee, at 9:00 am, Wednesday, May 6th that could go a long way toward supporting our public schools and restricting predatory charter efforts. (Note: If you click on the bill numbers below you can view the legislation)

HB 21  by Rep. Edwards, prevents BESE from authorizing new charter schools to be located in school districts rated B or above if such schools are opposed by the local school board. BESE has adopted the practice of approving new predatory charter schools in some high performing districts even when the elected school boards saw no need for such schools. This is circumvention of the democratic process. Even the most conservative voters today believe that public policy decisions should be made as close to the local level as possible. But the recent actions by BESE substitute the judgement of a state body in the place of locally elected school boards. New charters that are created in higher performing districts operate on one simple principle: attract and retain only the highest performing students so that the organizers can achieve success not by the excellence of their instruction but more by the ability and motivation of the carefully selected students! This of course, attempts to drain the best performing students from successful school systems and could lower their performance scores. At the same time, such predatory charters damage the teacher retirement system by refusing to pay down their share of the unfunded liability while receiving the full MFP funding. Regular public schools are required to spend almost 25% of payroll on the unfunded liability while the charter operators get to pocket this windfall!

HB 340 by Rep. Edwards would prevent charter schools from recruiting new Kindergarten students from attendance districts that are rated C or above. This bill is designed to close a loophole in the charter school law that violates the original rule that only students in low performing schools would have the option of attending charter schools. Again, the predatory charters are doing their best to attract students from more affluent neighborhoods that produce better academic results. This bill would prevent the poaching of such students by predatory charters.

HB 166 by Rep. Bouie would require that RSD takeover schools that achieve a passing status be returned to their original school boards. This was the original intention of the law creating the Recovery School District, that has been circumvented by the actions of BESE that leave the decision up to the unelected charter school agency instead of to the elected representatives of the people.

Please Contact members of the House Education Committee and ask that they vote "yes" for these three bills.

Here are the email addresses of the House Education Committee members:

carters@legis.la.gov, hallj@legis.la.gov, legerw@legis.la.gov, reynoldsg@legis.la.gov,  shadoinr@legis.la.gov, smithp@legis.la.gov, pricee@legis.la.gov, richardj@legis.la.gov, iveyb@legis.la.gov, landryn@legis.la.gov, hollisp@legis.la.gov, edwardsj@legis.la.gov,  carmodyt@legis.la.gov, burnsh@legis.la.gov, broadwaterc@legis.la.gov, bishopw@legis.la.gov, jeffersonpo@legis.la.gov

Latest News in the War Against Public Education and the Teaching Profession

First the Good News:

HB 330 which would have greatly expanded vouchers, and HB 505 that would have taken away all due process rights of teachers were removed from the House Education Committee agenda for last week. These bills may not be revived partly as a result of the many emails legislators received opposing such legislation. I want to thank many of my readers for communicating with their legislators and informing them that these bills would be destructive to public education. HB 505 by Ivey is however, rescheduled for consideration by the committee this coming Wednesday, but even Governor Jindal has indicated that he may not support it. Please continue your efforts to defeat this horrible bill.

Now for the Continued Attack on the Teaching Profession:

House bill 418 passed a carefully stacked committee of the House Labor and Industrial Affairs Committee Thursday despite much vocal opposition from teacher, police, and firemen unions. This is the bill that would prohibit teachers and other public employees from using payroll deduction for payment of their union or association dues. Our state government is 1.8 billion dollars in deficit, and public employees are subject to layoffs, pay freezes, and outright cuts, yet big business (LABI) and teacher haters want to pass legislation that reduces the influence of professional educators, but does not save the state or local governments one penny!

HB 418 is cynically named the Payroll Protection Bill. These union hating legislators pretend with the use of this title that teachers, police, and firemen are like innocent children who need for their big brothers in government to protect them from the "evil" unions. Payroll deduction will still be available for numerous charities, insurance policies, and even highly questionable cancer polices that are considered by the insurance industry to be little more than rip-off polices. Our big buisness bosses in LABI don't care about the teachers that may be preyed upon by all of these other groups. They only want to protect teachers from their own organizations that are dedicated to fighting for teacher rights and benefits.

Are those big buisness interests such as LABI and CABL concerned about the innaccuracy of VAM ratings, or the serious flaws in the new evaluation system, or the loss of seniority for teachers, or the interference of the LDOE in enforcement of student discipline, or the fact that now some teachers are being required to work many extra hours without pay? No, in fact they helped sponsor and lobby for these changes. But they do want to neutralize their biggest upponents in beating up on teachers!

I am proud to say that even though retired, I am a lifetime member of the Louisiana Association of Educators and I also have great respect and support for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. I worked for 20 years as a staff member of the LAE and helped to win many important battles for teachers. I am now watching helplessly and frustrated the de-professionalization of teaching. It is sad to regularly get letters from dedicated teachers who are being driven out of the teaching profession because of the many ant-teacher policies and laws passed in recent years.

HB 418 will be going to a vote on the House floor probably the week after next. That means that every Representative will get to vote whether or not they want to deny educators one more benefit and whether they really want to stifle the voice of teachers in speaking out against bad education policies and in favor of improving benefits and status of the teaching profession. No, this won't destroy the teacher unions if it passes, but statistics show that when you deny a group of employees payroll deduction for the payment of union or association dues, the membership of those organizations declines and their influence is curtailed. This bill has nothing to do with Payroll Protection! Its only purpose is to reduce the influence of educators on education policy.

This is both Stupid and Ironic

I got an email from a frustrated teacher not long ago, basically saying the following:

 "I am sick and tired of the teaching profession being blamed for everything that parents are not doing in the rearing of their children. I have never before worked so hard to educate children and received so little support and appreciation for the job that I have done for 20 years.  If they want to take away my payroll deduction for dues, I just may not join in the future." 

All I can say to that is, wow how stupid! This is exactly what LABI wants to accomplish. Surely no one else in the teaching profession could possibly be willing to play into their hands this way. Look, I know how frustrated teachers must be at this point but such a reaction is childish and counterproductive!

I believe educators have a good chance of defeating this repressive and unproductive legislation. LABI is letting it be known that its PAC will contribute to legislators who help them do this dirty deed. But even so, all teachers have to do to defeat it is tell their Representative and Senators to vote No for HB 418! It's all going to be determined by how many emails they get (or don't get) from teachers opposing this.

SB 54 passed to Senate floor by Senate Education Committee

Senate bill 54 by Senator Broome is a well intentioned bill, but will in my opinion do nothing but harm by tying the hands of elementary school principals in maintaining discipline. This bill like many other changes in the laws in recent years relieves parents of their responsibility in making sure that students are orderly and do not deprive other students of their education! Please read my analysis of this below, and ask your Senator to vote "NO" on this bill when it goes to the Senate floor.