LOUISIANA

Louisiana's new policies and legislation



Louisiana's new policies and legislation

The cornerstone of Louisiana's application continues to be the creation of a "value-added" system for measuring teacher performance. Such an approach would judge teachers on growth they make with individual students, not simply the students' absolute test scores. Half of a teacher's evaluation would be based on the test score growth data with state education officials authorized to craft the precise formula.

Pastorek thinks Louisiana can now make a more convincing case that the plan would have a statewide impact since the Legislature last week approved a bill that makes student performance a component of public school teacher evaluations. Gov. Bobby Jindal signed the bill into law immediately after the vote.

"They want whatever change you are talking about to affect the largest audience," Pastorek said. "This will help us compete against other (states) who also passed laws. It's one thing to get acceptance on a voluntary basis, but if you actually have a law that says, 'You must do it ... it gives the Department of Education a more powerful assurance that it will be done."

Comparable legislation has already passed in Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, Washington, Tennessee and Michigan. Indeed, the dangling of Race to the Top's millions prompted significant -- although not seismic -- changes to education laws in several states. For instance, after months of tumultuous debate, New York's lawmakers supported raising the state's cap on charter schools last week, partly in an effort to compete more aggressively for the Race to the Top money.

Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, said the state's failure to win in the first round helped shape some of the legislative priorities for education officials this session. "I don't think we would have spent quite as much time on fashioning legislation if the application had been successful," he said.

The LFT has supported the state's application, while the other statewide teachers union, the Louisiana Association of Educators, has remained adamantly opposed to the plan throughout.

About 40 percent of the state's school districts -- representing nearly 50 percent of Louisiana's public school children -- signed on to the state's application initially. That number has not changed.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said she's "hopeful" about the second round. But she added that Louisiana's loss in the first round "was a real setback for us."

"The fact is that these reforms are not easy, and just because 100 percent of any state doesn't want to participate doesn't mean that the one third or one half of the state that wants to participate shouldn't be rewarded for that effort."

Most education in Louisiana was provided through private (often parochial) schools until Reconstruction. Not until Huey Long's administration, when spending for education increased greatly and free textbooks were supplied, did education become a high priority of the state. As of 2000, still only 74.8% of adult Louisianians had completed high school, and 18.7% had completed four or more years of college.

The total enrollment for fall 1999 in Louisiana's public schools stood at ...