This past Monday, March 12th, Occupy NOLA teamed up with Occupy Baton Rouge to stage a rally in front of the state capital to support teacher and student rights that is under attack in the Jindal administration. What transpired was both tragic and hilarious, tragic for the true state of democracy in our country, and hilarious and inspirational as to how one young man dealt with this absence of democracy.
A little background:
Yesterday, the House Education Committee in the Louisiana state legislature passed the bulk of Governor Jindal's education "reform" package. Jindal chose to ram this through just two days after he outlined his program, leaving, of course, little time for debate or analysis. Teachers showed up en masse to speak at the hearing, but were largely kept out of the state capital building because the capital police shut down all entrances but one, leaving teachers to stand for hours...without bathroom privileges, waiting to get in, an obvious form of harassment. The Times Picayune dutifully issued their tut tut editorial that teachers should have been in the classroom that day, instead of rallying for their rights and for strong public education. The Times Picayune never saw a Charter school it didn't like, and never saw a union that it liked. Charter schools have been pushed on New Orleans since Katrina and the teacher's union dismantled here, and charters now have a notorious reputation for not accepting so-called behavior problem children, and special ed children.
Anti-democratic legislation warrants anti-democratic tactics to silence dissent, as in the closing of all entrances but one into the state capital. On Monday, a small rally by Occupy NOLA and Occupy Baton Rouge was disrupted by state capital police as they attempted to arrest a young man speaking. The two occupy groups attempted to speak without a permit. I for one refuse to bow down to the need for a permit to exercise a right to speak on the state capital steps. However, I don't have the evasion capabilities of this young man.
Here is what Jindal is proposing as education "reform". It is an obvious power grab by the executive branch, and imbued with fascist flavor.
• Employment decisions -- hiring, evaluations that determine tenure status, layoff plans - would shift from school boards to superintendents and principals. (Evaluations include reviews by principals and performance measures by a teacher's students. Teachers are rated highly effective, effective or ineffective.)
• In any public system scoring C or below in statewide accountability assessment, the superintendent's contract would have to be rewritten to include targets for improvement in student test scores, graduation rates and teacher evaluations. The local board would be required to terminate a superintendent who failed to meet those contracted goals.
• Seniority would end as a consideration in any instances of layoffs, with the new rules tying reduction-of-force decision to the teacher evaluation system, which includes student-performance measures.
• Teachers hired after July 1, 2012 would have to be rated "highly effective" under evaluation system for five consecutive years in order to acquire tenure. (Currently tenured teachers won the protection after three years of being rehired by their school systems.)
• Any teacher, including those who already have tenure, would lose the protected status upon being rated "ineffective," giving superintendents the power to fire them immediately. Teachers would have right to appeal. Teachers could reacquire tenure under the same five-year "highly effective" standard applied to new hires.
• Superintendents would be able to dismiss teachers with tenure without a dismissal hearing, which under current law is held before the local school board, by providing written charges that could include incompetence, poor performance or willful neglect of duty. Bill would set first appeal hearing before three-person panel: superintendent, fired teacher's principal, another teacher of the fired employee's choice. State court appeal could follow.
• Any person hired as a school lunch supervisor after July 1, 2012 could not acquire tenure.
The first battle is lost, but this war on public services isn't over by a long shot.