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Thursday, April 5, 2012

Louisiana Educator: Governor's Education "Deform" Passes Senate

Louisiana Educator: Governor's Education "Deform" Passes Senate:

Governor's Education "Deform" Passes Senate
by 

Click on this link to read the Times Picayune article about HB 974.

HB 974 passed the Louisiana Senate Wednesday afternoon by a vote of 23-16. I will report the names of the Senators voting for and against the bill in my next post. The bill must now go back to the House floor for a vote because several amendments were added on the Senate floor. If the House approves the bill as amended, it would then go to the Governor for his signature. If the House rejects the amended bill, it would be sent to a conference committee that would most likely be controlled by allies of the Governor who would probably act to put the bill back close to its original form.

This an issue because the amendments to the bill may make it slightly more difficult for teachers to be fired for invalid reasons or because of personality conflicts between the teacher and the principal. One amendment added by Senator Adley would allow that a teacher who received a highly effective rating on the quantitative portion of the Act 54 evaluation, but an unsatisfactory rating by the principal on the qualitative portion of the evaluation, a chance to be reevaluated by a separate team of evaluators. I believe this scenario would be a rare occurrence that would affect very few teachers, but it is still good to have it in the bill. Unfortunately there is no