HB 976 and 974 Pushed Through Committee

(The following is a report of events at the Capitol on Wednesday, by the Louisiana Association of Educators) See also The Advocate story linked here.

Gov. Jindal Attempts to Suppress Educators & Thousands Push Back to Make Voices Heard

Educators Testify on Capitol Steps to Express Outrage over Attempt To Ram Education Package Through Legislature

BATON ROUGE, LA – March 14, 2012 – Thousands of education stakeholders flooded the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol Wednesday, but a majority of the teachers, support professionals, administrators – even parents and students – who showed up, were forced to remain outside on the Capitol steps due to the governor’s orders of closing down alternative entrances into the building.

“They wouldn’t let people in because they said the committee rooms were full, but it looked like Governor Jindal was trying to keep educators out of the room during his testimony,” said LAE President Joyce Haynes. “If he really believed in his plan, then he should have taken this opportunity to stand before educators and put it all out on the table; instead, he chose to lock us out of the process.”

School employees from across the state came together in Baton Rouge to speak against the governor’s extreme education agenda brought forth in House Bill 976. The bill calls for taking public tax dollars and turning them over to for-profit charter schools. It also calls for the expansion of a statewide school choice program. Educators want to know why the governor is demanding a rush to vote on such complex legislation that impacts the future of Louisiana’s public schools.

“It is the Legislature’s responsibility to schedule a fair hearing process that allows us to offer input on those bills that affect us,” said Haynes.

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu sided with school employees as she spoke out against the rush. She agrees that the governor is moving outrageously fast to try to win committee approval for his plan.

"If this is such a great reform package, it should be able to stand the test of review. This is a democracy. This isn't a dictatorship," Landrieu said in an interview.

“We were forced to attend on a school day,” said Haynes. “Legislators should have made the appropriate move to schedule these hearings when education employees are available to attend, like in the evenings or on the weekends.”

House Education Committee approves both HB 976 and 974

The House Education Committee met until late Wednesday night and heard testimony from LAE, LFT and dozens of individual teachers before adopting both of Governor Jindal's key "reform" bills. Huge stacks of Red opposition cards sat on the committee desk top as teachers jammed every available inch of space inside the capitol. The rest waited patiently outside the Capitol. I was there also, and testified against HB 974. I witnessed only one teacher out of the crowd of about 2,000 who actually testified in favor of this bill. She said she was a second year teacher, and according to her testimony, she liked the provision of the bill that outlawed the use of seniority for reduction in force. She said her school system may soon be laying off teachers.

After initially insulting the teachers who had signed up to testify by passing a motion that testifiers should state the type of leave they were requesting before testifying, the committee met for over 15 hours and attempted to hear from everyone. The motion to intimidate teachers did not work as expected and was denounced by several members of the committee and even Senator Karen Peterson who came before the committee on personal privilege and called the motion shameful and unprecedented. Teachers went on to testify unfazed, with some expressing sarcasm about the "requirement".

Unfortunately, the committee was obviously stacked by the Governor and his floor leaders to insure that the bills would pass no mater what. The committee split on 12-6 and 13-5 votes in favor of approval of the two bills. I will report later on how individual legislators voted.

The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to hear the Senate versions of the bills, at approximately 9:00 a.m. Thursday. Another large delegation of educators is expected to attend, and again request to be heard. 

Let's Review the Democratic Process

On Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. the House Education Committee will hold a hearing on Governor Jindal's education reform package in Committee Room 1 at the Capitol. This legislation will include at least HB 974 and HB 976. The Senate Education Committee will have a hearing on the Senate versions of the bills on Thursday.  Thank you to St Martin Parish and Vermilion Parish School Boards for making it easy for educators to attend. Educators in other parishes must try their best to participate also.

HB 974 basically destroys teacher tenure and eventually makes almost all teachers "at will" employees with approximately the same employment status and job security as a teenage store clerk. If the bill passes, school systems will be mandated to make most teacher employment decisions based on student test scores. But with this legislation, teachers who never achieve, or who lose tenure because of one bad evaluation can be fired for any reason with little recourse.

• The bill absolutely outlaws any layoff decisions for teachers based on seniority. A 25 year teacher must be laid off before a first year teacher if the new value-added evaluation yields even a slightly higher score for the first year teacher. No consideration can be given to the older teacher's 25 years of service to the school system or previous good evaluations.
• Each teacher automatically loses tenure upon receipt of an evaluation of "ineffective" no matter how many excellent evaluations he/she has received in the past.
• The Act 54 evaluation of a teacher that results in an "ineffective" rating shall be considered proof that the teacher is incompetent. Such teacher can be fired at any time without a tenure hearing.
• Even if the teacher's principal rates a teacher as "highly effective" on the qualitative part of the evaluation, a value-added result of "ineffective" overrules the Principal's evaluation and the teacher will receive a final evaluation of "ineffective".
• With this legislation our Governor and State Superintendent of Education are willing to bet the careers of thousands of teachers that an untested value-added evaluation which is producing highly erratic results in other states will accurately identify the 10% of Louisiana teachers that deserve to be fired each year. (According to the Act 54 evaluation plan, the bottom scoring 10% of teachers automatically get rated "ineffective".)

HB 976 would allow the almost unlimited expansion of voucher schools and charter schools throughout the state. Such schools would have a great incentive to recruit the best students thereby pulling high performers out of and lowering average student performance in public schools. The voucher schools would not be subject to accountability regulations and could expel or council out problem students back to the public schools. Local school boards would be required to forfeit the MFP funds for all such students recruited away from public schools. In addition, if a public school is rated by the state as "failing", charter school organizers would be allowed to run petition drives among parents to force a takeover of such schools from the locally elected school board. All MFP monies would follow these students to their new school.

The above legislation is patterned after extremely destructive legislation that is being introduced all over the country by a conservative big business group called ALEC. Click on this link to read a description of ALEC activities. This group is funded by school privatization interests such as K-12 Virtual Schools.

The Education Committee process is as follows: Prior to the start of the meeting proponents and opponents of the bills to be heard may be seated in Committee Room 1 which is on the ground floor of the Capitol on the House side. Seating is on a first come first served basis after the doors to the committee room are unlocked about half an hour before the meeting. Proponents of the bills may fill out a green card and may request to testify on the bill or just indicate support. Opponents fill out a red card and may request to testify against the bill. The hearing begins when the author of the bill is allowed to introduce the bill and discussion proceeds. At some point the chair calls for testimony from the audience. After discussion of pros and cons, committee members make appropriate motions and the bill may be voted up, down, or other approved disposition. If the bill passes it must go through the rest of the legislative process.

Please send emails to your legislator and to members of the House Education Committee. Attend the hearing if possible. Click on this link to use your address to get to your legislator web pages. Their Email addresses are listed there.

Many Educators should also attend the Senate Education Committee meeting on Thursday morning about 9:00 a.m. where the Senate versions of the same bills will be heard upon adjournment of the morning Senate session. Please send emails to your Senator and to the Senate Education Committee members before Thursday.

The future of your profession and the public school system is at stake. Please do everything possible to exercise your democratic rights and represent your profession.
Sincerely,
Michael Deshotels

The Object is to Fire Teachers; and Lots of Them

Have you sent emails to your legislators yet? Time is running out! Just scroll down to my Friday, March 9th post to get sample emails.Well it turns out that the Governor's teacher dismissal legislation, (HB 974 or SB 603) is even worse than I thought it was. When you combine the new legislation with the implementation of the Act 54 evaluation, there are two major ways a teacher can lose tenure and get fired! An astute reader of my blog posted a comment to last Friday's post to point out that according to a letter dated Feb. 28 sent to local superintendents by John White (go to page 4 to the section titled Final Evaluation), a teacher will get an "ineffective" overall rating if either the value-added (quantitative) portion of the evaluation or the Principal's evaluation (qualitative) part of the evaluation is unsatisfactory. So even if your principal believes you are doing a good job, that value-added part of your evaluation that was supposed to count for only 50% of your evaluation can destroy 100% of your future as a teacher.

Remember, you are not guilty of paranoid thinking if "they" really are out to get you!
John White also sent an ESEA waiver proposal to Washington at the end of February that totally changes the Louisiana accountability system. It takes away almost all the responsibility of the parents, sets totally impossible student testing goals to be achieved by all public schools in two years and proposes that the new evaluation system will require 10% of the teaching force to be rated "ineffective" each year (at least in the LEAP tested subjects).

How did all public school teachers' non-educator "bosses" at the Department of Education come up with the figure of 10% ineffective teachers each year anyway? Believe it or not, it comes from a mis-quote of education researchers' findings concerning the impact of teacher quality on student performance. Follow this link  to the  Educators For All website to see exactly how important research was twisted to mean something completely different from the conclusions that were made by researchers.

To put it simply, the incorrect assumption that teacher effectiveness is the most important factor in student success, leads our reformers (Governor Jindal and John White) to the inevitable (but incorrect) conclusion that all you have to do is fire the teachers that produce the least student progress (value-added), replace them with new teachers, and in a few years all of our students will perform at or above average! This is junk science based on false assumptions and has never been shown to work.

The primary factor related to student success in school is the rate of poverty (as measured by the percentage of students on free lunch). So if you have the misfortune (or you simply have chosen to work with at-risk students) your future will be at-risk when the Act 54 evaluation is implemented next year. Even if you are teaching more privileged students, value-added can defeat you if your students do not progress as predicted by formulas you will never see. If HB 974 or SB 603 passes, only one bad evaluation (which is in the hands of your students), and your tenure is gone. Also, according to the governor's legislation, the evaluation itself is the ultimate proof that you are "ineffective" and you  can be terminated immediately even if you have a hearing. And by law, that bad evaluation result must go to any of your future employers. So much for professional treatment of teachers. So much for the "teacher empowerment" talked about by Jindal and White. There are plenty of horror stories about the value-added evaluations being tested in other states like New York and Tennessee. Just click on this link to look at one example in Washington DC.

Please send emails now to your members in the Legislature, and particularly to members of the House and Senate Education Committees. (Make sure you have correct grammar and no misspelled words) I hope teachers and administrators will take a day of personal leave either Wednesday or Thursday to attend first the House Education Committee, then the Senate Education Committee meeting.

Jindal Plan Moving Now! March 14-15

Legislators are telling the LAE lobbyists that the Jindal public school destruction bills will be heard first in the House Education Committee on Wednesday March 14, then in the Senate Education Committee on Thursday March 15. I also got a personal call from a Republican Senator friend who told me the same thing.

They are telling us that if we as educators care about public education we had better show up at these committee meetings in large numbers. Our professional education lobbyists for the teacher unions and School Boards Association are heavily outnumbered by the big business lobbyists. And I'm sorry to say they have millions of dollars more than we have to contribute to legislators' campaigns. What we have is numbers! Public school teachers live and vote in every legislative district in this state in large numbers. When you add our voting relatives, we should be the most powerful political force in this state! Why don't we start to exert our potential influence?

 I know, it's because teachers and principals are busy preparing kids for the all important LEAP tests! I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that if the Jindal package passes intact, the public schools are in serious trouble and if you continue reading the second portion of this blog and my posts from the last two weeks you will know why.

Please talk to your colleagues now, and plan to take a personal day Wednesday or Thursday, March 14 and 15 to come to the Capitol and show your concern about this disastrous plan. Educators should read the bills carefully and some should plan to testify in the committees. Every educator should go to the legislative web site, get the email address of your Representative and Senator now and send an email immediately indicating your opposition to these bills. I am including two sample emails, but I would expect the creative educators out there to customize their own emails to say exactly how they as individuals feel. Now is the time for us to do something important for our profession.

Here are the bills we expect to be heard; (we now have the official agenda and they are listed). In the House Education Committee starting at 8:30 a.m. March 14, HB 974 and HB 976 will be heard. Please click on the bill number to get the full text of the bill. 974 is the School Employment and tenure bill I discussed in my last post, and 976 is the Voucher and Charter school expansion bill. The corresponding Senate bills that will be heard on March 15 are SB 603 and SB 597.  Let me give you the most critical information about the Voucher and Charter school expansion bill.

By far the most destructive part of this bill is the provision that lets BESE authorize a large number of new agencies across the state that can approve new charters in every parish. These charters don't have to tackle turnaround of failing schools. (which have been a dismal failure in the RSD) They will be new charters that can cherry pick the best students from the public schools while public schools continue to serve the left overs. They have every incentive to do this because the new law says that they have to maintain a "B" or better rating. So expect a big PR campaign from these charter companies in your parish to recruit students for college prep schools. If you have resisted setting up magnet schools in your parish because you don't want to pull the best students out of your regular schools, they will specifically target your parish. If you have a lot of middle class families (white and black) who are uncomfortable with the school population in their local school, they will target your parish. Now imagine a few years into the future to see the result of all this. Schools will be re segregated into the haves and have-nots, and the public schools will be left with the have nots.

Now on the issue of HB 974. (tenure nullification and firing teachers based on student test scores) I just want to add a little information to what I gave you earlier this week. The issue is not tenure. Many teachers will tell you they don't care about tenure because they have a principal who knows they are doing a good job and who will never try to fire their good teachers. The problem is this new Act 54 evaluation system will be so erratic and unpredictable that teachers will be mostly at the mercy of the value added formula gurus at the state Department of Education. (there are many horror stories from other states that have tried this) Student performance is supposed to count for only 50% of the evaluation, but I firmly believe it will have a much greater impact than 50%. What do you think will happen if you teach in a high poverty school rated as C or D and most of the teachers get a satisfactory evaluation because of the COMPASS portion of the evaluation? Someone from Baton Rouge is going to come down hard on the principal because he/she is not rooting out the "incompetent" teachers. We all know it has nothing to do with teacher competence. "It's the poverty stupid!" You get the picture. This bill puts every educator unfairly at risk. Please start working on your emails to legislators now, and plan on sending a delegation of teachers and administrators to Baton Rouge on March 14 and 15.

This is how you get the email address of all legislators: Click on this link, and type in your address and zip to find all your legislators. Click on each one to go to their web page where you can get the email for your Rep. and Senator.

Additional Resources: Since this was first posted the LAE website has added a great legislator contact feature. Just click here to take advantage of the LAE expertize.

Take my advice. Forget about your party affiliation. This is not a political party issue. It is a survival of education issue. We just want our legislators to represent us and our families for a change when they vote on this.

Here is a simple sample email. I am sure you can improve on this:
Dear (your legislator):
I am a (teacher) (principal) (etc) who lives in your district. I am very much opposed to HB 974 (or SB 603) because it will unfairly base my continued employment as a teacher on student test scores. I do my job faithfully as a teacher but I have no control over students whose parents send them to school unprepared or let them miss too much school or allow them to refuse to do homework or study. I do not want to have my job and my due process destroyed because of factors over which I have no control. Please vote against this bill. My family and I are depending on you to represent us, not some unproven system.

Here is one for HB 976 and SB 597
Dear (your legislator)
I am a public school educator in your district. I am writing to ask you to oppose HB 976 or (SB 597). This bill (along with a lot of other bad provisions) allows private companies to come into our parish and establish a school that will cherry pick our students so that some individuals can make a profit off of our children. This will not improve education. It will simply further damage our public schools and endanger public educator's careers. Please vote against this bill.

Finally, I strongly recommend that schools have faculty meetings to plan your strategy on this. Someone needs to take the lead and research the bills and inform everyone. Send them to this blog. Do everything you can!

Governor Jindal's war on Public Education and Teachers

Part I Changes in Accountability and School Performance Scores: The ESEA No Child Left Behind proposal sent to the US DOE last week is really a major revision of the Louisiana Accountability System. In my opinion, when combined with the new legislation nullifying tenure, making all professional educators' careers dependent on student test scores, and adding unlimited vouchers and charters, it amounts to accountability on steroids. And just like athletes who misuse steroids to get bigger and stronger, this "miracle" reform plan is likely to produce grotesque and damaging results and side effects.

In addition to setting unscientific and unattainable student achievement goals in a two year period, the ESEA waiver proposal drastically changes the mechanism for calculating school performance scores. (see pages 49 - 61 of the ESEA waiver application). To put it briefly the rating system is changed from a 200 point system to a 150 point system yet the points needed for various letter grades are not reset proportionately. Proportionally the minimum "A" should go from 120 to 90, but the lowest A is set at 100. The new B is 85 to 99.9, the new C is 70 to 84.9, and the new D is 50 to 69.9. The numbers have changed drastically but, not to worry. The Department plans to jury rig the scoring system to end up with just about the same numbers of schools falling in each category of letter grades as with the old system. So this seems to indicate what many suspected all along; that the Department can manipulate the numbers to produce whatever results they choose. For example, there will be a fudge factor in the calculation that will award bonus points for schools that make greater than expected progress with low performing sub groups using the new value added formulas. These are formulas like the Coca-Cola formulas that are kept in a safe that only the statistics gurus at the DOE are allowed to study and adjust.  This whole scheme is a process that looks scientific because of the fancy formulas, but is really pseudo science used to produce a predetermined result. So local school administrators will only know how it works after the results have been determined.

All schools other than A schools will be expected to increase their SPS by 10 points each year (proportionally this would be like 13.3 points on the old system) so that the state can seem to be progressing to 100% proficiency in only two years. This goal will be unattainable for most schools. No one in the field now really knows what sanctions may result from not attaining these goals.

Now lets look at the main thrust of the attack on public education and teachers:
Part II Legislation, MFP, Vouchers and Charters: (See Diane Ravitch's article on the same legislation linked here)
The major campaign against public education began with a drastic change in the MFP last week by the Jindal controlled BESE. According to the new formula, numerous special schools, charters, and voucher schools will now be able to raid the funding from public schools according to the number of students they gain. One major legal concern is that since the private schools will also raid the component of MFP coming from local taxes that the voters may have approved for specific purposes, this may not be allowed by the constitution. Local school Boards along with the LAE and LFT are encouraged to adopt the LSBA resolution to authorize and pursue an immediate legal challenge.

HB 974 and SB 603 which may be heard in the Senate Education Committee in a full day meeting next Thursday, March 15 will be the big push for destruction of job security for all teachers, principals, and even superintendents! When combined with the implementation of the Act 54 evaluation and the accountability changes described above, these bills (they are identical versions of House and Senate bills) will basically make every educators' job dependent on the student achievement of unrealistic academic goals and could demoralize the teaching profession.

The new legislation will immediately eliminate the normal tenure process for any new teachers and nullify tenure for thousands of experienced teachers. Tenure is ended as soon as a teacher gets one ineffective evaluation. Also, the Act 54 evaluation, in the first year of operation, could put thousands teachers on a path to dismissal because of the mandatory 10% failure factor. This number will only grow by thousands each year as the 10% factor is applied again and again. That's because the evaluation plan for teachers described in that ESEA Waiver will mandate that the bottom scoring 10% of  teachers get an evaluation of "ineffective" no matter what local administrators believe about their teachers' effectiveness. This is further complicated by the fact that 66% of  teachers in Louisiana are teaching non-tested subjects. It is not clear if the 10% failure factor will be applied to the teachers of non-tested subjects. No one has figured out a practical and equally rigorous way of applying value added goals to these teachers. But who cares?

The Principal's evaluation will also depend partially on the number of teachers rated "ineffective" and principals will be trapped by a "catch 22" situation. If the principal applies the (COMPASS) in too strict a manner, too many teachers will get "ineffective" and the principal is in trouble. If the principal grades teachers too easy and the value added portion shows up poor or negative for the unique student gains expected of each teacher, then the State Department will send an investigation team out to find out why those teachers are not being properly punished! (I'm just guessing on that part). All indications are that the ACT 54 evaluation will produce many erratic and incorrect teacher evaluation results. How can anyone justify tampering with the job security of professional educators in this frivolous manner? Local school boards will have no more say in these issues than the BESE Board has in dealing with Jindal and White.

My readers are sophisticated intelligent people. You know what will happen if HB 976 and SB 597 (The charter and voucher expansion bills) pass. This will introduce a major conflict between privatization forces and local school boards. The parent trigger provision allows any charter group to attack a low performing school with a petition drive among parents, bypassing local school boards. But the most dangerous provisions are those that will allow BESE to approve new charters and new voucher schools to spring up and cherry pick students from most local school systems to set up schools that have a performance advantage over local public schools. They will also dump out all their low performers to re-enter public schools. This is just like how the New York Yankees used to guarantee success by buying the best talent. All of this will raid the local MFP. In addition, since the charters and private schools do not have to participate in the teacher retirement system, local school boards will be mandated to pay an even greater contribution to the retirement system to offset the loss of employees. (they are now mandated to pay 25% contribution for each employee)

Educators, this is nothing less than an all out attack on public education and the many dedicated educators who have devoted their lives to the welfare  of children. It makes what happened last year in Wisconsin to public education look like childsplay! And what's sad is the Governor's strategists have calculated that the teaching profession in Louisiana is too beat down to fight back! If educators do not go to the capitol on March 15 to tell our legislators how we know this will damage the education of children and ruin many educators' careers we will be partly responsible for the demise of public education in Louisiana.

I will immediately update the information in this blog when we find out more about the legislative agenda for March 15. Please stay informed and be willing to act on a moment's notice.

The Need to Empower Educators

Important Notice 3/5/12: Jindal Education Reform Legislation Introduced; Please click on the following bill numbers to read the full text of the Jindal legislaton to expand vouchers and charters and nullify tenure, add merit pay and fire teachers. HB 976 and SB 597 are House and Senate versions of the charter/voucher bills. HB 974 and SB 603  are House and Senate versions of bills that shift teacher firing authority to Superintendents and make teacher and administrator firing, loss of tenure, merit pay, and loss of certification dependent on achievement of unrealistic student goals. Please review these bills and prepare to contact your legislators since this package is expected to be the first order of business at the Legislature starting March 12. The Jindal plan is to rush these bill through before educators have time to tell their legislators how damaging these bills are to public education and to teachers and administrators. I will add analysis on this soon.

Something happened last week in Louisiana public education that went completely under the radar of the news media. It happened without the knowledge of and consultation with most professional educators in the field. Our Governor and new State Superintendent have taken pains to pay lip service to the idea of empowering school principals and teachers, yet the changes in policy this week continue the trend of mandating unsound education goals and practices without considering the legitimate concerns of the educators in the field. I believe this week's changes in policy will only undermine public support for public education and demoralize public school educators. The policy changes came about as a result of a somewhat obscure 131 page proposal by the LDOE to request ESEA flexibility and waivers of the No Child Left Behind requirements.

This proposal was submitted to the US DOE without a vote of BESE and without the opportunity for public discussion. The only information shared by the LDOE with local educators was a slick Power Point show presented to Superintendents and the Accountability Commission that did not divulge the choices available to Louisiana in requesting the ESEA flexibility and waiver.

In my opinion, the most disappointing component of Louisiana's ESEA Flexibility Request and waiver of No Child Left Behind was that the request did not take advantage of the most helpful change in rules offered to us on a silver platter by Arne Duncan and the US DOE! If you have followed this blog in the past you are familiar with the concern of many educators about the impracticality of the NCLB requirement for 100% proficiency of all children in English language arts and math by the year 2014. But this is the option (Option C) chosen by Superintendent White and our DOE as part of the waiver request. And to add insult to injury, the LDOE implied that educators in the schools agree with this impossible requirement! See the statement on page 65 of the linked document: “Louisiana remains committed to the AMOs established several years ago, which set yearly growth targets aimed towards 100 percent of children in the state attaining proficiency by 2014.”

On page 62 of the flexibility application, the US DOE had allowed Louisiana to choose between three options for setting student achievement goals according to the following:

"2.B SET AMBITIOUS BUT ACHIEVABLE ANNUAL MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES
Option A reads: "Set AMOs in annual equal increments toward a goal of reducing by half the percentage of students in the 'all students' group and in each subgroup who are not proficient within six years.”

Our LDOE passed up this opportunity in favor of a PR choice (Option C) that may end up putting a failure label on 90% of our public schools across the state by 2014. So much for the empowerment of local principals and teachers.

The Department tries to hedge this foolish choice by calling the goal of 100% proficiency  an “aspirational” goal. But the USDOE did not ask for an aspirational goal. They asked for “ambitious but achievable annual measurable objectives.” If you look at the table submitted by the LDOE on page 62, you will see that the AMOs for the years 2012, 2013, and 2014 are not achievable in the real world.

My concern is this: If we lie to the public about what is achievable in public education, aren't we setting up our schools for an unnecessary perception of failure in the eyes of the public? Would a doctor guarantee every patient a cure of his ailment regardless of the other factors in the environment affecting that patient's health? Yet that's what we are doing in Louisiana public education.

Do you really care about being empowered as a professional educator? Then why not make your concerns known to the US Department of Education by sending an email to the Department indicating which choice you believe Louisiana should make in its NCLB waiver application? The Louisiana Association of Educators (click on this link to see the LAE letter to the LDOE and the  USDOE) has made its concerns known to the USDOE, but one group is not enough. The USDOE needs to hear from individual administrators, principals and teachers.  If you agree, just copy the following email address: ( ESEAflexibility@ed.gov.) and use it to submit your own email on this subject to the US DOE. I suggest you include your name,  position,  and the name of your school if you want it to be taken seriously.

I hope many educators and even parents will email their concerns on this matter directly to the USDOE.

On Wednesday March 7 this blog will discuss other important details in the Waiver Request which will also affect every public school in the state.

Basic Flaws in Education Reform

New Developments  on ESEA Waiver Request 2/28/12: The LDOE has revised its proposals for the ESEA waiver request. The weight for the ACT average for high schools will be reduced from 50% to 25% and a 25% factor added back for the Graduation index. (This is an improvement). Unfortunately, all schools other than A schools will be required to grow 10 SPS points each year on a much more compressed scale. When you include the addition of the new bonus points, there is no telling how all this will affect schools, yet it is clear that keeping the 100% proficiency goal by 2014 is totally ridiculous. The USDOE had given states the option of progressing to a 50% reduction of its non-proficient student groups over a 6 year period. Louisiana is choosing to reach full proficiency in a little over 2 years!

Several local and regional newspapers around the state are editorializing about what the editors perceive as possible flaws in the Jindal education reform package. In addition, some local superintendents and other long time educators are pointing out basic flaws in the plan. Our readers can get a good overview of concerns of educators and non-educators by reviewing the following recent articles from around the state:

• Problems with Jindal's plan; A letter to the editor of the local Houma news
• Grade All Schools; From the Monroe Newsstar
• Louisiana Should be Shown Proof That Private Schools Are Worth It; An editorial comment by Jarvis DeBerry writing for Nola.com
• Evangeline Parish School Board voices concern about changes: From the Ville Platte Acadian Press
• Define goals of the voucher program; An editorial of the Lafayette Advertiser

Governor Jindal's education reform plan may have been well thought out politically; its like the "shock and awe" campaign waged in Iraq. But like that military campaign, while it may be successful in bringing major change to education, the entire theory and basis of the campaign are dead wrong!
Here are some assumptions that amount to fatal flaws in the plan:

• Many people pay their hard earned money to send their children to private schools, therefore private schools must be better. As Jindal stated: "parents are the best accountability system". Well if that's true why are we spending millions upon millions testing and grading public schools? Several Louisiana school systems long ago have adopted open enrollment polices that allow parents to transfer their children from their local school to another school if they feel it will provide a better education. Also one of the big miscalculations of the No Child Left Behind law allows parents whose children attend schools classified as failing to transfer to other public schools. Most parents have ignored all of these "opportunities" and continued to send their children to their neighborhood school. The fact is many parents send their children to private schools because they do not like the racial composition or the socio-economic complexion of the public school in their community. As a by product of white flight or middle class flight, statistics show that a middle class or higher income student body generally results in higher educational attainment. Let me add that the Zachary school system (a public school system) which has prospered partially because of this trend has attracted many black middle class families whose children also do well in school. Does anyone really believe that the middle class families who have paid their hard earned money to send their children to an exclusive school will tolerate an invasion of low performing and possibly disruptive students into their selective school?  If this voucher proposal passes, some poor families will try to enroll their students because of hope for a better opportunity but most will be refused because of lack of seats. In addition, many who are accepted will soon be expelled or counseled out because there is no way the state will tamper with a private school's right to enforce discipline policies as it has done with our public schools. The real danger, as was pointed out in a couple of editorials, is that fly-by-night operations will spring up to make a profit from the vouchers at the expense of the children and the taxpayers. 
• State Superintendent John White apparently believes that the new value added teacher evaluation system coupled with a dismantling of tenure, will magically cause all students in Louisiana to achieve proficiency on the state tests. Proficiency, which in Louisiana is defined basically as average performance, cannot be achieved by the statistical nature of how average performance is determined! So to accomplish this misguided mission the state will try to decree that at least 10% of all teachers will have to be rated ineffective and ultimately dismissed. Will we call them back when the students fail to perform as expected?
• Finally, the dumbest assumption of all is that the school system can produce 100% high school graduates that are college and career ready. Prior to recent times the goal of public education was to produce students who were college or career ready. This seemingly small change in educational philosophy puts huge numbers of our students in an impossible trap of having to be prepared for college even if they have little aptitude or motivation to do so. See the comments of the Evangeline Parish Superintendent in the article from the Acadian Press. By adopting a high school rating scale that depends on ACT scores, the state is killing most legitimate career training programs in our schools and watering down the true college prep courses. Even in Finland, the most successful educational system in the western world, only 40% of the students are prepared for college. The majority are given top notch vocational training which leads to excellent careers. Add to this the fact that Finland has a poverty rate in their schools of only 5% while Louisiana has a 60% poverty enrollment in our public schools. This is a really dumb requirement!

I believe Jindal and White are setting Louisiana up for an educational disaster.

Guest Essay on Education Reform

By: Bryan Alleman, M.Ed.
Puzzled by the all-of-a-sudden outside interest in Louisiana education politics, I decided to examine a few key metropolitan areas in the United States with pro charter school environments. Each has a suspiciously coincidental connection to the forces changing and profiting from Louisiana’s dramatically turbulent educational landscape. My goal is to determine the relevance of the current charter school movement in Louisiana and its feasibility as a method for improving student achievement in our state.

Before proceeding, it is important to note a phenomenon reported by the American Association of School Administrators called the 95/5 dilemma. The AASA describes how many school leaders have been seduced into abandoning common sense approaches due to an overwhelming emphasis on poor results on standardized tests by a tiny portion of the whole student body—roughly five percent. It is alarming that such a small portion of the overall results are now consequently driving school, district and state policies at the expense of the remaining student population who do not need such extreme measures, and in most cases, are not even beneficial to them at all. More outrageous is the trail of evidence across America suggesting this sensitive issue has been exploited by some to promote a disingenuous reform agenda that often calls for extreme changes and many privately owned charter schools. Originally, charter schools were a noble concept that involved highly trained teachers working with a small number of at-risk students---a real formula for genuine grade level recovery. Now, many charter schools are governed by boards composed of individuals who have succumbed to greed and seek profits at the risk of jeopardizing the only guaranteed escape from the crippling grips of poverty---a good public education for all students. Most charter schools in the New Orleans area are not staffed with highly trained educators but rather young, inexperienced rookies that help to drive the personnel cost down and keep the energy level up. Charter schools continue to be part of a sporadic nationwide movement despite current, valid and reliable research reporting charter school mediocrity. Additionally, many appeals have come from credible, experienced experts calling for policy makers to look at the data now available on charter school performance such as the CREDO study by Stanford and other scholarly research like the POINT study by Vanderbilt on merit pay incentive systems for teachers. Hopefully, such a review of data is paired with a reexamination of their intentions for supporting such a drastic change to public education with no empirical basis. More alarming still are the multiple allegations of rampant fraud including cheating on standardized tests and covered up scandals.

New York City, NY: Step1:“Break up the monopoly!” In an unprecedented change of governance stakeholders moved education policy decision making authority from a multi member Board of Education, where several officials set the majority of the education policy, to mayoral control of the school system. Such a stronghold on the city’s schools would allow Mayor Bloomberg to make a series of questionable appointments to the office of Chancellor, the city’s top education job (see Table A, A Brief History of NYC School Chancellors Since 2000). This drastic change created a system that is more dictatorial by design than democratic.
CONNECTION TO Louisiana: Mayor Bloomberg of New York City donated $100,000 to support John White for State Superintendent of Louisiana in a very unusual long distance show of support. Money is only one way Michael Bloomberg will try to insert his influence in attempts to keep the failing reform movement going across the nation. Source: http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/10/new_york_mayor_michael_bloombe.html

After filling Paul Vallas’ vacancy in the Recovery School District in New Orleans, John White became Governor Bobby Jindal’s, “natural choice” to succeed Paul Pastorek as Louisiana’s next state superintendent of education at thirty-six years old and without valid credentials. Prior to White’s Louisiana anointment, he spent time working in the New York City school system within Chancellor Joel Kline's administration. (Kline was Bloomberg’s first appointment after gaining control of the city’s schools.) White held an executive level position in the New York City school system related to human resources after working for the Teach for America corporate headquarters in Chicago.
STATUS: After being given complete control of the NYC school system, Mayor Bloomberg’s three hand-picked Supermen, including a Superwoman, have not produced the results promised to the public.

Chicago, IL: Step 1: “Break up the monopoly!” In 1995, Mayor Richard Daley convinced the Illinois State Legislature to move the Chicago Public School (CPS) system under mayoral control…sound familiar? Such an act established the position of CEO of the CPS with Paul Vallas appointed by Mayor Daley as the very first. Controversy soon came and Vallas left the CPS for his next job as CEO of the School District of PA [source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Vallas ]. Vallas would leave the Philadelphia system seventy-three million dollars in the red.
CONNECTION TO Louisiana: Paul Vallas became the RSD Superintendent appointed by Paul Pastorek after Katrina, both strongly supported by Governor Bobby Jindal. Vallas was imported into LA and presided over arguably the largest spending spree in the name of education in this state’s history; notably, occurring in the aftermath and as a result of Katrina. Prior to the RSD, Vallas was in Philadelphia, PA after leaving Chicago. Recently, in a completely legal but highly questionable and rare use of star power, U. S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, phoned each of the Louisiana BESE Board members asking for their consideration in support of John White as the next State Superintendent of Education in Louisiana. Considering the amount of federal money that will change hands if Louisiana plays ball with Duncan via the Race to the Top program, such influence on a state would not pass the ethical smell test local school boards must endure. Secretary Duncan succeeded Vallas as CEO of CPS prior to his cabinet level appointment in President Obama’s administration.

STATUS: System is still waiting for superman after the charter school ‘reform’ experiment failed to produce the results promised to the public.

Washington, DC: Enter Teach for America recruit turned Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, who takes the District of Columbia on a roller coaster ride which leaves that system in turmoil. Under her leadership, the district is filled with lawsuits and investigations pertaining to rampant and unwarranted employee dismissal and test tampering. There are also queries about the actual educational achievement of students during her tenure. Rhee’s imposed merit pay system for teachers and allegiance to the promotion of charter schools contributed to the chaos leaving an educational landscape that is anything but more accessible to all. The usual “Break up the monopoly!” mentality was present here in 2007 when the D.C. Board of Education was stripped of its authority, changed its own function to one of an advisory board, and created the office of the Chancellor of education after giving Adrian Fenty mayoral control of the schools. Michelle Rhee was the first Chancellor of D.C. schools appointed by Fenty per the suggestion of Joel Kline. [Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-07-08-schools-DC-investigation-cheating_n.htm ].
CONNECTION TO Louisiana: Michelle Rhee founded the money-generating nonprofit organization, The New Teacher Project, which provides fast track training to aspiring new teachers often times working with a large number of Teach for America recruits in urban areas. Rhee is now providing that service right here in Louisiana which has watered-down a once highly rated and effective professional preparation program that took years to refine. I imagine this training is sold as an ideal supplement to the fluid, ever-young Teach for America based work force---imagination among Louisiana educators has been necessary since Governor Jindal invites more business lobbyist and out-of-state investors than teachers and educational experts to meetings about our future. Louisiana has a contract with Teach for America essentially guaranteeing its members teaching jobs in Louisiana schools. Rhee’s second money-generating nonprofit organization, Students First, is very well funded and functions as a super PAC targeting local and state school elections to help promote charter schools. Rhee recently stated that she wanted to raise one billion dollars for Students First---a statement indicative of an intention to be the first ‘billionaire educator’ more than improving student achievement and far from the notion of actually putting students first.
STATUS: System in turmoil after charter school ‘reform’ experiment failed to produce the results promised to the public and stakeholders even with the benefit of lessons learned in other urban areas like NYC. Is there too much kryptonite in the Potomac?

There is a definite pattern to the charter school reform model. First, rewrite the rules of governance so one powerful individual can make all decisions very quickly (usually through the office of a newly elected urban mayor); then, fire a significant number of teachers to create an artificial emergency teacher shortage; next, pick up the phone and hire Teach for America recruits; then, send them through Michelle Rhee’s New Teacher Project to train batches of inexperienced neophytes. Finally, mention Harvard University enough to lessen concerns about the mass teacher extermination while altering the accountability system to constrict traditional schools with laborious regulations and strenuous unfunded mandates while many charter schools enjoy the freedoms of a pre-NCLB era in education. But why? The reason most certainly is not a lack of funding for charter schools. According to Rupert Murdoch, “…education is a goldmine...”. Plus, investors are plentiful and are anxious to ante up. Well-financed foundations exist to promote the need for charter schools. The Jeb Bush sponsored organization, the Foundation for Excellence for Education, refers to a select group of current and former system leaders as "Chiefs for Change" with none other than Louisiana's very own Paul Pastorek providing some very interesting sound bites from the dais. Beginning with Pastorek’s Napoleonic sounding introductory address at 9:54 (all times given are approximations, in minutes), he gives us the aforementioned, “Break up the monopoly!”, mantra by channeling Rupert Murdock, who was the keynote speaker for the foundation’s conference, at which Pastorek spoke freely about his experience in Louisiana.

Beginning @11:15  “…. (educating children) is not a right…” as part of an explanation of his pro competition philosophy in regards to public education.
Beginning @42:00  Explains why compromise is wrong. Encourages others not to compromise either.
And between 43:30 and 61:40  Pastorek manages to: tout his own performance; rant in an even more Napoleonic sounding fashion while giving reasons why he thinks he is not divisive, yet admits to a legacy of being divisive while working in Louisiana as superintendent; accuses Louisiana educators of being lying hypocrites since, despite educators across the state repeatedly telling him all students can learn, his trans-cerebral abilities convince him that public school teachers really don’t believe all students can learn; blame poor classroom teachers for the lack of parental involvement in schools; remind his cohort on stage that they wouldn’t want to attend some public schools in Louisiana either. The final blow comes when he disingenuously excuses talking about his state so much by offering his intentions for mentioning Louisiana so frequently not by citing an overwhelming sense of pride, but rather by hoping those present will benefit from the stories he shared.
{Watch the video: http://wpc.230d.edgecastcdn.net/00230D/august2/fee/webcast/index.html (click “Chiefs for Change”)}

To be an educational leader, it takes more than a willingness to fire teachers en masse while blaming unions and tenure policy when both are doing exactly what they were designed to do---afford protection from the ill-intended. It is obvious to me, the charter school reform movement is led by those that believe in the fallacy, If you can’t do, teach. More frightening is their approach, which I describe as---If you can’t teach, DESTROY the profession!
Click here to see; TABLE 1: BRIEF HISTORY OF NEW YORK SCHOOL CHANCELLORS SINCE 2000

About the author: Bryan P. Alleman is a life-long resident of Louisiana and a certified math teacher, school and district administrator. He lives and works in Crowley, LA and may be reached via email, balleman@acadia.k12.la.us .

NCLB Waiver Request Continues Failure Trap

Superintendent White's request for a waiver of the US Dept. of Education mandates of the No Child Left Behind law has serious basic flaws. Even so, such flaws will probably have no affect on its approval by Arne Duncan.  Since Duncan campaigned for White to be appointed, he will obviously approve anything White submits. The proposal amounts to a guaranteed failure trap for Louisiana public schools. The 120 page document linked here will institute major changes in Louisiana education policy.

The most basic flaw in the Louisiana waiver application is that it would keep the original requirement of bringing all students and all schools up to "proficiency" in ELA and math by the year 2014. (see page 59 & 60 of the application) This is the exact same false assumption about education attainment that has caused the collapse of the NCLB structure! To put it simply, you cannot force all students to perform at average or above levels. There will always be a distribution of students above and below grade level. All educators can reasonably do is improve overall performance. This is the crazy mandate that is forcing the need for the waivers in the first place! This so called "bold goal" of total proficiency for all is either dishonest or evidence of a staggering ignorance about the facts on the ground by our new state superintendent. (The application waiver form requires ambitious but achievable goals)White claims in his proposal that the state will require the continued acceleration of  school performance scores as we approach 2014. He apparently believes that the new value added system will somehow magically cause every single low performing student to move up to grade level.  All the state's low performing schools will be mandated to produce proficiency for all students in a little over two years. Boy is he in for a big shock! Just take a look at the chart on student performance history he included with his waiver application (on page 56). Notice how the slope flattens out in the last two years. White and his staff may need some remedial work in math and data analysis if they think this curve will tilt upward dramatically in two years.

The only thing I can figure is that White believes his scheme for giving extra points to schools for accelerated growth will somehow correct or compensate for the overall lack of student performance. White has not yet disclosed the formula he will use for the bonus point system. Or Maybe White and Duncan believe that it is a good idea to set unreasonable goals for student achievement because this allows these non-educator "leaders" to keep the real educators under constant pressure of failure.

White proposes that the creation of a new super subgroup of low performers will allow local systems to provide better services to boost their performance. That may be a helpful idea but the projection for progress is unrealistic.

Another major concern, is that White proposes to eliminate student attendance and dropouts in grades K though 8 as a factor in awarding SPS points. There was already too little emphasis on factors that reflect parent responsibility. This change totally removes all parent responsibility factors. We are creating a system where parents are led to believe that they have no responsibility to produce responsible behavior in students. Everything is now the responsibility of educators. This poisonous attitude will only cause a further deterioration of parental support and assistance in education. In addition, the change may encourage more dropouts before 9th grade. I believe there are already a large number of dropouts that are being improperly recorded as transfers.

The waiver proposal drastically changes the SPS system for high schools. 50% of the SPS would be determined by the graduation rate, and 50% would be determined by the average ACT score for all students. This removes the end of course testing as a factor in determining SPS. All students would be required to take the ACT. Any school with an average ACT score less than 18 would get zero points for this component. (see page 52) This means that White believes that our high schools should be converted totally into college prep institutions. It totally neglects the need for good vocational-technical programs and for career prep. One lesson White as a non-educator has not yet learned: forcing all students to take college prep is counterproductive. All this does is water down the rigor of true college prep courses while depriving the majority of students of career training of any kind. It winds up hurting all students.

This ESEA waiver is pretty important. It completely changes the focus of our school systems with minimal input from the real educators. It will be submitted to the feds before the end of February without so much as a vote of BESE. BESE has become irrelevant.

No Evidence for Voucher Choice

The heart of Governor Jindal's education reform package this legislative session will be a proposal that any low income family whose children attend a "C" or lower rated public school could receive a "scholarship" to attend a private or parochial school instead of his or her public school. The governor makes the claim that parents are the best judges of the best school for their child. To drive his point home the governor made a big indignant fuss over a statement by LAE Executive Director, Michael Walker-Jones that some low income parents may not have a clue as to which school is actually better for their child. Here's why Walker-Jones is correct and the Governor is guilty of misleading demagoguery on this issue:

So far the only accepted measure of a successful school has been the School Performance Score which is based primarily on student performance on state tests and which has been used quite arbitrarily by BESE to assign letter grades to schools. At the same time, no such data has been collected on private and parochial schools because these students are not tested by the state. So the governor and his supporters use state test scores to rate some public schools as unacceptable, so that parents can receive "scholarships" to switch their children to private schools, yet there is no such data on the private schools. The parents really don't have a clue based on the data used by the state to rate the private schools as good or bad.

There is however a small amount of data that has been collected on students in the New Orleans area where the public to private "scholarships" have been allowed for several years. This linked article from the Times-Picayune does a good job of analyzing the results of such limited public to private vouchers to date. The author also presents data from other systems such as the Milwaukee school system which have more extensive data on such programs. The title of the article makes it clear that the Governor has no legitimate justification to unleash this destruction of our Louisiana public education system. But just as he proposes to privatize the state group benefits health insurance program with absolutely no evidence of improved value for taxpayers, he is doing the same to the education of our children.

Do I think the Governor's vouchers will produce an immediate mass exodus of public school students to private and parochial schools? Absolutely not! The existing private and parochial schools do not have the capacity or the willingness to take on public school students en mass. That's not the danger. The problem is private schools are by their nature "exclusive". They will definitely take on some students but they will systematically exclude the lowest performers, the discipline problems, and the special needs students. In many cases, parents will not be the ones choosing schools for their children. The administrators of the private schools will be doing the choosing.

But there is another more destructive trend that will grow with time. When it becomes clear that there is money to be made by capturing public school students, new private schools are sure to spring up. If such schools are not carefully regulated by those entrusted to guard our taxpayer dollars, we cannot even imagine how many ways our taxes can be wasted and we cannot yet estimate how many students will be harmed. We see many abuses already in some of the semiprivate charter schools that have sprung up to handle takeover schools. The state has done a poor job of monitoring such schools and there is much evidence of artificially inflated school performance scores, huge salaries paid to administrators, unreported child abuse cases, and on and on. How will our state department possibly monitor dozens of new schools that are totally private. Yet the governor proposes to hand over millions of our tax dollars to these unregulated untested programs.

It is quite ironic that the public schools that have been micromanaged by the state for years will now be damaged and weakened in favor of profit making schools that have almost no safeguards for the taxpayers or parents. The LAE Exec. Walker-Jones is right. Many parents who are being used to support this scheme don't have a clue!

Jindal's Good Ideas

Not everything about Governor Jindal's reform plan is wrong or misguided. There are definitely some good ideas in the plan that should be considered. Here are some suggestions for making important parts of his reform package work.

• Streamline the Tenure Process and Remove Political Influence: All teachers want from tenure is a fair process that provides a review for possible errors or bias in the event they are recommended for dismissal. Sometimes personality conflicts occur on the job that have nothing to do with a teacher's performance. In rare instances there may be an effort to remove a teacher so that a politically favored person can have the job. That's what tenure should prevent. If the changes maintain reasonable due process, it is good for everyone to streamline the tenure process.
• Revising Teacher Pay Schedules: The Governor is right about wanting to allow flexibility in some areas of  teacher pay. It is a good idea to provide a special incentive pay supplement for teachers who agree to teach in some of our most difficult turnaround schools. This extra pay could easily be justified by the fact that more work is expected of teachers in a school with a high proportion of at risk students. One of the most critical areas in such schools is a major effort to improve communication with parents and to produce an increase in positive parental involvement. It takes extra time for teachers to communicate with parents, often after regular working hours. It is not a good idea however to "rob Peter to pay Paul". The governor proposes in his speech that pay increments for years of experience be abolished so that the money can be used to pay those who are more deserving or valuable. What about an experienced teacher who has put down roots in a community and who has a family to support and a mortgage to pay? Does it make sense for a school system to pay more to an inexperienced teacher who is much more mobile and will more easily leave the school system no matter what he/she is being paid. The Governor also suggests in his speech that persons who take advantage of alternative certification methods to become teachers should be allowed to receive higher pay from "day one". How can such higher pay be justified when the person has not yet demonstrated the ability to teach? In considering pay for experience, there should be such a thing as a social contract with long time employees that rewards commitment to the school system. Part of Jindal's plan would destroy that social contract and the loyalty long time employees have to a school system. Instead of forcing local systems to reduce the pay of some teachers to pay others more, the state should help fund incentive pay to attract good teachers to difficult to staff positions.
• Paperwork Reduction: The Governor talks about reducing needless paperwork that takes away from teaching time. Great idea! Often the state's efforts to ensure compliance with all kinds of mandates generates huge amounts of time consuming paperwork for administrators and teachers. Teachers need this time for classroom planning and for actual time with students.
• More Flexibility With Education Dollars: The Governor wants to request a waiver from burdensome federal regulations on the use of federal dollars. Many federal mandates on the use of federal funding have not produced acceptable results. Yet many local educators believe they can get better results by using the funds in more productive ways. The same may also be true of state funding. With money as tight as it is today, flexibility would be a welcome change.
• Early Childhood Education: This is one area where effective programs have been shown to produce good results for students for their entire school careers. Any change that would ensure that the most effective programs such as LA-4 are expanded would be desirable. Many educators question however, why the Governor recently passed up possible federal funding in this area.
• Empowering Teachers: Both Governor Jindal and Superintendent White talk about empowering teachers. This is also a good idea because teachers are smart and empowering teachers would recognize their status as professionals. I do not see anything however, in the Governor's reform proposals that would empower teachers in any way. On the contrary many of the proposals place teachers in constant jeopardy of suffering from mistakes in a rushed evaluation system, reduction of due process rights, seniority rights, and subject teachers to whims of the State Department of Education. This is the opposite of teacher empowerment.

Those are the potentially good ideas in Governor Jindal's reform package that could make improvements in our public education system. The problem is that some of the Governor's other initiatives such as more vouchers, and more charters will take vital funding from public schools at a time when MFP freezes and increases in mandated costs have already devastated local school system budgets.

The worst thing about the Governor's reform package is that as presently proposed it will make it even more difficult for educators to close the achievement gap for our high risk students. Struggling schools in high poverty areas need the best administrators and the best teachers and, yes, even more resources. The new evaluation plan is guaranteed to drive the best teachers and administrators away from such schools because the system will be punishing educators for factors over which they have no control. In addition, the vouchers and charters will only draw away the highest potential students from high poverty schools leaving the students that are more expensive to educate. Finally, switching to site based budgeting may make it more difficult for school systems to allocate extra resources to such schools.

It is unfortunate that the Governor's good ideas may be overshadowed by the destructive ones.

School Choice; A Short History Lesson

"Freedom of Choice" That was the title of some of the original plans for school desegregation proposed by many school systems in Louisiana in the early stages of federally mandated school desegregation. Some school boards in Louisiana had originally proposed to desegregate schools by allowing students who had previously been "trapped" in racially segregated schools to transfer to a school with a majority of other race students. The purpose was also to guarantee equal opportunity to such students to receive their education in a school that was perceived to have better opportunities than their segregated school. This looks a lot like Governor Jindal's more recent proposal doesn't it? Although the Governor's proposal is not a racial desegregation plan, it is supposed to work in a similar way. Students would be allowed to transfer to another school that is perceived by parents to offer better opportunities. Another difference is that the Governor now assumes that the "superior" schools parents could choose would be private and parochial schools. These are schools that have never participated in the accountability program that has labeled some of our public schools as failing.

The "freedom of choice" desegregation proposals across the nation however, were struck down by the federal courts as not sufficient to reverse the many years of entrenched segregation. Instead the courts in most cases implemented a system of forced transfers of students to balance the ratios of black and white students in  schools. This plan was referred to by many opponents as "forced busing". After 50 years of desegregation efforts it is obvious from the numbers that many of these efforts to achieve desegregation failed. In cities such as Baton Rouge, many white parents either moved to neighboring parishes or enrolled their children in private schools. The East Baton Rouge school system over a period of 40 years therefore went from a black-white ratio of 40% black and 60% white to 81% black, 11% white, and 8% other.  Even so, the East Baton Rouge parish school system has now been declared by the federal courts as unitary or desegregated.

Soon the legislature will consider Governor Jindal's new "school choice" proposal. The two new criteria for "school choice" will be that a student be originally enrolled in a "C" or lower rated public school and that his/her parents have an income below a certain level. If the new choice legislation does not contain additional careful restrictions, it is quite possible that it will result in a new variety of segregation. Since private schools by their nature can choose which students they are willing to enroll, and since most such schools have only limited slots available for new students, it makes sense that they will choose to enroll mainly the students with the highest potential for achievement. So it turns out that most of the "choice" will be in the hands of private school administrators rather than with parents. Incoming State Superintendent John White seemed to endorse this idea when he stated recently that parents of "promising" students who are presently enrolled in low performing public schools should be able to choose another school where the parents believe their child will be more successful.

This new segregation could occur when students who "show promise" are "chosen" to attend private schools and some of the new charter schools that will spring up under the Governor's plan, leaving the low achievers, discipline problem students, and special needs students in the public schools. Such student transfers would result in a decline of average student achievement in many public schools. This trend would be the exact opposite of what the No Child Left Behind law and Louisiana's accountability system were intended to rectify.

The idea that creating "competition" for low performing schools (that in fact are serving high poverty communities) will somehow force improvement is wrong. It has not been shown to work anywhere in this country! Such a scheme is based on the assumption that low performance is caused by lazy or incompetent teachers and administrators.  The real reason for low performance is, to paraphrase Carville; "It's the poverty stupid!" To chastise such schools with D or F ratings and to encourage some selected students to transfer out is destructive. What Louisiana needs to do is to work hard to provide quality education to students in their communities by encouraging positive parental involvement and by providing incentives for teachers and administrators who have demonstrated an ability and willingness to work effectively with high poverty students.  The Jindal "choice" plan will only set education back.

Jindal Reform Effort Misguided; Destructive

I have been involved with Louisiana education for over 40 years now and never have I seen such a misguided and wrong headed attempt to implement change in our educational system as was announced by Governor Jindal on Tuesday! If you study the Governor's proposals you can only come to the conclusion that he believes that the teaching profession in Louisiana is rife with incompetent or lazy teachers and administrators, and that if we simply fire and replace them our students will magically start doing much better on the state tests. Almost everything in the Governor's plan is based on this incorrect assumption.

Probably the most dangerous part of the plan is the proposal to expand tremendously the school voucher programs that have apparently failed to produce results in the New Orleans area. According to the local charter school advocates in New Orleans led by former BESE member Leslie Jacobs, the students who got "scholarships" to attend private and parochial schools have performed at an even lower level than the students in the Recovery District. So the Governor wants to take an ineffective program and allow it to drain students from over 70% of the public schools in the state (any school rated as "C" or lower by the new school grading system). This program could become a huge drain on public school funding as students get free tuition to attend private schools. This would effectively become the largest (in terms of percentage of population) school voucher program in the country. All this damage would be done to public schools without a shred of evidence that it improves the education of the transferring students!

The Governor claims that the "scholarship" students will still be tested using the state testing program in their new schools to insure accountability. This is what I predict to be the long term result of this expanded voucher program: The private and parochial schools will carefully select the students they want for the limited amount of space for new students in their schools and cull out many using expulsions until they have retained only the higher performing students. The public schools will then have to contend with more lower performing and more special needs students than before with less money. Contrary to what some parents are being led to believe, this process will result in an even greater disparity in the education of high poverty students.

In addition to expanded vouchers, the Governor plans to propose that any group wanting to set up a charter school in any parish or city school system rated as D or F would be able to go directly to BESE (which is now controlled by charter school advocates) to have new charters approved. This rule would apply to over 50% of the student population in Louisiana. Some charter organizations would even benefit from an expedited approval process. All this means that there would be huge drains on the MFP for many of our local school systems without the opportunity for the local citizens in that area to have any input in the process! The "smarter" charter management organizations also know how to use public money for recruitment campaigns that also drain off the higher potential students from public school systems.

The Governor also wants the new untested teacher evaluation program to form the basis for firing or demoting large numbers of teachers based on student test scores. His plan would also encourage local systems to reallocate teacher salary money to give merit pay raises to teachers who are deemed proficient by the new evaluation system. The problem with this plan is that it is based upon an untested value added model similar to one that is already failing in Tennessee and New York. Principals there are reporting that all the VAM evaluation does is produce much more of a bureaucratic burden on principals with highly questionable results. In Louisiana the two chief architects of the new Value Added Model have resigned from their roles in the program, passing this potential monster on to other staff. Such an inaccurate, inappropriate system for evaluating and rewarding teachers can only destroy the morale of an already besieged teaching force in Louisiana.

There is much more to this destructive list of reform priorities announced by the Governor that needs to be analyzed, particularly after it is drafted into legislation. I intend to use this blog to attempt to inform educators of the details and potential hazards of this reform plan as it unfolds. I hope that educators will make their voices heard by the Governor and the Legislature about the real consequences of these proposals on the welfare of our students.

Click on this link to see the text of the Governor's speech on this plan to LABI

A Serious Blow to the Teaching Profession

BESE has now formally appointed John White, a man from far away with almost no professional credentials as our State Superintendent of Education. To accomplish this, the Governor and BESE were willing to waive all of the professional requirements in Louisiana Law. The following is my comment on this appointment:

 This appointment of the new State Superintendent by BESE deals a serious blow to teaching and school administration in Louisiana as a profession. Mr White may be a fine person, but his credentials as a professional educator are too minimal for him to be respected as the leader of education by the 50,000 teachers and administrators in the field who have real education credentials. It is permissible to have the Board overseeing education to be composed of lay people but it is bad policy for BESE to waive all the professional requirements for the position of State Superintendent that are in Louisiana law. How can this man be leader of a profession of which he is not a true member? I believe this appointment is bad for the morale of professional educators in Louisiana. The fact that we are all frustrated with the poor performance of many of our Louisiana students does not justify the scapegoating of the entire teaching profession. If we look carefully into this issue we will find that we are punishing the very professionals who are working the hardest to prepare our students for the future. Once we discourage these dedicated teachers, and they leave the profession, they will be almost impossible to replace.
Michael Deshotels, Retired Educator

Have You Been Invited?

According to the notice linked here, on January 30, Louisiana will conduct an education summit titled LEADERSHIP FOR CHANGE! 2012 Louisiana Education Summit, where presumably proposals for education reform for Louisiana will be discussed. The conference will be led by Governor Jindal and Representative Stephen Carter (Rep. Carter was just appointed chairman of the House Education Committee).

This education summit should be a big deal! The event is apparently by invitation only. One would assume that it would include local superintendents or at least officers of the Superintendent's Association, school board officials and local school supervisors of curriculum, local accountability supervisors, and even classroom teachers. These are the people who have dedicated their careers to the education of our Louisiana public school students. They are the ones who know the most about what works and what does not work in our schools.  They should be the first ones invited to any education summit where the future of Louisiana education will be discussed and planned.

Instead the agenda and presenters for the conference makes it look  more like an indoctrination session for selected persons by a group of education reform carpetbaggers who seem to be selling schemes for education privatization to Louisiana. In this scenario, the Louisiana education system is considered by the new carpetbaggers as backwards, ineffective, wasteful, and dominated by entrenched defenders of the status quo who only want to protect their cushy jobs. The new carpetbaggers want to encourage the Legislature to remove or modify teacher tenure so that a certain percentage of teachers can be fired based on student test performance. EBR is already considering a plan that would fire 25% of their teaching force based on student scores (see my Dec. 23 post). The main thrust of the summit though seems to be to recommend that Louisiana make "bold" changes in the educational system that would expand school choice in the form of more charters and more vouchers. Governor Jindal has already implied that he favors an expansion of the voucher system now operating in New Orleans.  Leslie Jacobs of New Orleans reports however, that the test performance of the voucher students has been even lower than that of the students who stayed in the Recovery District. Take a look at this recent article from the Times-Picayune where the reporter Andrew Vanacore claims to have the scoop from some of the Governor's insider power brokers about his plans for education reform in the coming legislative session.

Representative Carter said he thought Louisiana leaders should hear from leaders in other states who had been successful at education reform. Lets take a look at some of the presenters at this Leadership for Change Summit:

• The keynote speaker is Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City public education system. His background is that of a very high priced lawyer. As New York schools Chancellor he presided over a reportedly dramatic  improvement of student performance in that system only to find a few years later that it was the standard for student performance that had been lowered. When the standards were restored to their former rigor, it turned out that the system had made almost no progress. Mr Klein is now directing a new "for profit" education software and distance learning venture for NewsCorps tycoon Rupert Murdock.
• The present Vice Chancellor of the New York school system will also speak, along with soon to be appointed State Superintendent, John White.
• Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is on the agenda. He is a major promoter of school choice and a virtual schools proposal called Digital Learning Now. We are informed that Jeb Bush is the one who suggested to Jindal the new school letter grading system which has inadvertently labeled 87% of the Louisiana Recovery District schools as "D" or "F".
• Dr Howard Fuller, the founder of the Black Alliance for Education Choice will be a principal speaker. There may be a pitch here for school vouchers for black children.
• Ben Austin of The Parent Revolution in California and Scott Shirley of Kipp Charter schools in Arkansas will serve on a panel

It looks like Louisiana is in for another major education reform push. This time the goal seems to be to let the private entrepreneurs with minimal education background have a go at it.

Real Education Improvements!

As we start off the new year in Louisiana education I believe it is appropriate to highlight some of the real improvements in elementary secondary education we have witnessed in the past year. This blog often dwells on criticizing bad ideas, punitive reform plans and false promises made to the Louisiana public, so it is appropriate that we start off the new year with what we believe is working in public education. I believe that use of the combined intelligence of 70 local superintendents and 50,000 public school teachers is the best way to implement real education reform in Louisiana schools.

Public School Enrollment Increases: Though it causes a problem for the Governor and the Legislature to fund the increase cost of the MFP, public school enrollment increased significantly this school year. I believe the increase in public school enrollment shows that more parents believe their children can get  a good education from the public schools. It means that local school systems all over the state are putting great emphasis on providing better services to our customers the parents and their children who attend public schools.

Graduation Rate Improves: The graduation rate in 2011 improved from 67 % to 70.9%. This did not happen by accident. It means that local school systems have concentrated their efforts on keeping students in school who normally would have dropped out between the 9th and 12th grades. In Assumption Parish, Superintendent Tibby Martinez gives credit to an effort to provide more career prep courses in high school. More students are motivated by better training programs for job entry or technical training after high school. In Natchitoches, the emphasis has been on credit recovery for at risk students. This school system's efforts were featured on an NBC Education Nation  TV report on education advances.

Advanced Placement Courses Increased: Advanced placement courses which award college credit for high school students who demonstrate a certain level of mastery by passing an AP course culminating with an advanced placement test have increased across the state. In June, 2011 BESE approved a goal of having advanced placement courses offered in all school systems. Local school systems were already in the process of adding more and more AP courses, so this was an idea whose time had come. Students who pass AP courses have a much better chance of succeeding in college. For many of our high performing students this is just the kind of challenge they needed.

Virtual Schools Implenented By Local School Systems: The Advocate article linked here shows how St Martin Parish Schools will be utilizing virtual courses to attract and retain more students to their school system. In the Zachary Community School System my grandson has benefited from taking an extra math course offered using internet based instruction.  According to the State Department of Education, some  of the public school enrollment gains this year were due to transfer of students from home study programs and private schools to state approved virtual schools. In my post of January 6, 2011, I suggested that local school systems should take advantage of new technology to offer virtual school options to parents and students who prefer to receive instruction in an "at home setting". Such an offering could win significant numbers of students back from home schooling or private schools.  I want to caution again however, that virtual instruction methods will only work for a small percentage of students who with the support of parents have the self discipline to establish an instruction routine in the home that approaches the structured instruction provided in a brick and mortar school. In most cases virtual instruction will not be effective for high-risk students.

The above developments represent real improvements in our public schools!