Unveiling his plan for revamping K-12 education last week, Gov. Bobby Jindal outlined dozens of proposals that go further and deeper than many thought he would or than any previous governor’s reform plans have, spanning tenure, school choice, merit pay, salaries, seniority, pre-K accessibility, and the hiring and firing powers of superintendents versus school boards. It’s a comprehensive plan, though short on details, that now needs to be crafted into a manageable package of bills for lawmakers to digest and debate. His speech to the annual meeting of the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry was received more warmly in boardrooms than in teachers’ break rooms. The governor says he is not seeking a war with teachers, but he peppered his speech with fighting words, like “surviving” and “breathing,” to describe all it takes for them to earn tenure or pay raises these days. He could tone down the rhetoric, surely, but that won’t lessen the conflict ahead, particularly on the tenure issue, where there appears to be little middle ground between his position and that of teachers. Read the full column here.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
