Obviously these will in the race
for District 4 of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. This one
features three Republicans: the appointed incumbent principal Mary Harris, challenger teacher Glynnis Johnston,
and challenger businessman Tony
Davis.
Whether to support reforms implemented
in the past few years to Louisiana’ historically worst-in-the-nation
educational system has created a fault line across the state in BESE competitions.
These changes for the first time demand meaningful accountability out of
schools and teachers, through the use of valid and more objective performance measurements
and in increased parental schooling choices for their children. As such, these
have become bitterly resisted by teacher unions and teachers unwilling or
unable to raise their levels of performance, by administrators and school board
members whose jobs and reelections are threatened, and by ideologue
policy-makers who prefer government command and control that places the desires
of adults over the needs of children.
This noxious combination has
organized itself into a special interest called “Flip BESE.” But besides trying
to weaken accountability standards and to reduce educational choice, its
endorsees cleverly oppose the Common
Core State Standards Initiatives. Typically, Republicans and conservatives
have favored these school reforms, but many also see Common Core as problematic.
By emphasizing their Common Core opposition above all, they seek to obscure
their reactionary agenda and thereby trick voters into supporting them who
otherwise would not.
Harris got the Flip BESE
endorsement and, while she touts herself as “strong conservative” and “lifelong
Republican,” appears against sensible accountability measures with her
euphemistic use of “overtesting” as something to fight against and employs
another catchphrase common to the Flip BESE crowd as a believer in “local
control” of schools – that is, forswearing BESE’s power to charter schools,
practically meaning eliminating charter schools as few are chartered at local
levels because districts don’t want to lose power over and the money directed
to schools that get chartered. She opposes Common Core.
So does Johnston, who additionally
opposes the idea that teachers should be evaluated on the basis of how well
they help students progress, falling back on the traditional, if not
derogatory, excuse that demographic aspects of students make some inherently unable
to learn adequately – a reprehensible notion contradicted by research into the
performance of charter
schools and voucher
students.
Davis, who as a business leader in
Natchitoches has been involved heavily in educational matters, entered the race
at the last minute presumably as an alternative to the reactionary and
anti-Common Core agendas of Harris and Johnston. He has done little campaigning
and it is unclear what his views are on pertinent education issues.
Education also has emerged as an
issue in the contest to succeed outgoing state Sen. Robert Adley. State Rep. Henry Burns,
lawyer Ryan Gatti, and businessman Todd
Hollenshead. Although possibly Republicans Burns and Gatti could face each
other in the general election runoff, probably only one will finish better than
third to tangle with the Democrat Hollenshead.
Gatti in his television ads alludes
to putting education decisions “back in the hands of teachers” – a velied attack
on accountability reforms. He reiterates that on radio and that ad also refers
to Burns’ being against anti-bullying legislation. That bill is not made clear
but Burns did vote
in favor of Act 861 of 2012,
which instituted effective anti-bullying measures in schools.
Even as Gatti asserts that he is a “true
conservative” on this and other issues, trying to draw a distinction with Burns
who voted for around $500 million in tax increases this year, problematic for
him if elected to act as one would be if his good friend state Rep. John Bel Edwards were to win the
governor’s race. The liberal Democrat, for whom Gatti
held a rally and to whom he gave $1,000 in 2014
and $2,000
more in 2015, is not expected to triumph, but were he to it’s questionable
whether Gatti would vote as a conservative on education, where Edwards generally
echoes the Flip BESE preferences, or on other issues where Edwards chooses to use
his relationships and other tools of the office at his disposal to get
legislators to back his liberal preferences.
Voters need to gather full
information about these candidates and to understand the code they use in order
not to be misled when making their choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment