Ruling expected Tuesday in La. teacher tenure suit

A Baton Rouge district court judge says he’ll announce his decision Tuesday on whether Gov. Bobby Jindal’s revamp of teacher tenure and salary laws was passed in violation of the state constitution. “I have gone back and forth on this case,” Judge Michael Caldwell told attorneys today after hearing arguments. “And I still have not decided where I am on it.” The bill—pushed by Jindal and passed by lawmakers earlier this year—makes changes to the powers of school boards, teacher hiring and firing rules, teacher pay scales, the duties of principals, and the job protection status known as teacher tenure. A statewide teachers union, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, filed a lawsuit claiming that too many objectives and statutory changes were crammed into one bill in order to rush the legislation to final passage without adequate debate. LFT lawyer Larry Samuel says the bill violates a constitutional provision designed to give lawmakers the ability to properly comb through proposals and weigh their impact. Attorney Jimmy Faircloth, representing the Jindal administration and the state, says all parts of the bill—which became Act 1—were related to teacher employment, including job protections, pay-for-performance plans and evaluation methods.