Superintendents exit school group
Louisiana’s public school superintendents have left a coalition of teachers unions and others that have criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s school policies for months, officials said Friday.
“We more or less are going to be headed in a different direction,” said Michael Faulk, president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents and superintendent of the Central Community school system.
Faulk’s group has been a key part of the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education, which includes teacher unions, school board members and others.
The group has criticized Jindal school policies for months, accused Jindal of heavy-handed tactics over the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and may well oppose central parts of the governor’s 2012 education agenda.
John Sartin, former president of the superintendents association, blasted the governor in April when the coalition criticized a wide range of policies, including Jindal’s support for assigning traditional letter grades to public schools.
But Faulk said he has told Jack Loup, chairman of the group, that the superintendents will no longer be a part of the coalition.
“We felt like we needed to work closely with the governor and BESE from our perspective as school superintendents,” he said.
Asked if superintendents generally back Jindal’s agenda, Faulk said, “I believe there is some good that can come out of it. Schools can be made better,” he said.
Faulk also said some parts of the coalition are more critical of the governor’s proposals than superintendents, in part because of the wide array of groups involved.
“It is like mixing oil and water,” he said.
Loup said his group includes a variety of education views.
“It shouldn’t hurt the coalition,” he said of the superintendents’ exit.
The superintendents association represents 70 educators statewide.
It is one of a handful of key public school groups that weighs in on education issues in the Legislature and at meetings of BESE, which regularly refers controversial topics to a superintendents’ advisory panel.
Jindal says public school improvements will be his top priority in 2012.
He has proposed major changes in how teachers are paid and evaluated.
The governor also wants to launch a huge expansion of state aid for low-income students in troubled schools to attend private or parochial schools.
Leaders of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the Louisiana Association of Educators have blasted Jindal’s proposals.
They have questioned the need for major changes in teacher job protection laws, disputed the wisdom of linking classroom performance to pay and predicted that expanding state aid for students to leave traditional public schools will devastate the system.
Rapides Parish Superintendent Gary Jones, another former president of the superintendents association, said the decision to leave the coalition is not surprising.
“I think superintendents recognize that there is a need for some reforms,” Jones said.
“Superintendents don’t want to be perceived as being against all the things that are being proposed,” he said.
“Superintendents by and large agree with a lot of them if not all of them,” Jones said.