Voucher bills pass

10th April 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

• Tax refunds-for-tuition and parental triggers enacted

• Teacher tenure effectively ends

• Governor exempts Leges from retirement reforms

While the governor enjoyed victory after victory on his vouchers and teacher tenure bills, Bobby Jindal’s proposal to address the state’s looming $18 billion worth of retirement debt by making state employees to contribute more of their salaries (and raising the retirement age) seemed stuck by early last week.

Then, the governor decided to allow legislators and other statewide elected officials to be exempt from the bill which requires three percent increase in state employee retirement contributions.

All other state employees are included. Suddenly, with the politicians saved from a pay cut, the measure developed new life. However, there are severe legal implications in the move. As John Maginnis put it in his LaPolitics Weekly email, “The constitution states that the compensation of elected officials cannot be reduced during a term in office. The governor’s office stated it would support amending the constitution to allow an increase in the contribution rate for elected officials.”

Or as good government advocate C.B. Forgotston explained to The Louisiana Weekly, “Apparently, Team Jindal doesn’t know what the term ‘compensation’ means. It means their salaries as set forth by law. Under the ridiculous argument put forth by Team Jindal, an increase in the elected officials’ health insurance premiums or increases in state and federal income taxes would not apply to the elected officials during a term of office. Such reasoning is totally preposterous!”

Jindal’s office defended the move saying that elected officials would be included eventually. Still, it was the only political hiccup in a week of major legislative victories for the governor.

On Friday, both the House and Senate gave final legislative passage to major educational reforms. The bills weaken tenure protections (allowing for the termination of bad teachers), establish a statewide voucher program for private school tuition, make it easier to create charter schools, expand online schools and restructure public financing of education.

Final approval to changes in the primary two bills was overwhelming with 60-43 & 60-42 votes and 24-15 & 23-16 in each chamber despite strong opposition from the teacher unions and several thousand teachers who protested at the Capitol in recent weeks.

The most controversial measure for teachers, ending tenure practice, would tie educators to evaluations every three years in which teachers are graded as satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The Jindal administration argued that the current system fails to weed out bad teachers or reward the best. The new mandates would require five years of “highly effective” ratings to earn tenure and continued evaluations to keep it. Ratings come from student performance and observations by principals.

Perhaps just as important were measures in the legislation that limit local school boards’ authority to hire and fire teachers, strengthening the hand of superintendents and principals in such matters.

The voucher bill is even more far-reaching. Ostensibly, it will give the entire state a program now in effect in New Orleans, the Student Scholarships for Educational Ex­cellence Program. State taxpayer-funded private school tuition will go to students attending poorly performing schools who are from families making up to 250 percent of the poverty level.

Voucher dollars

The question was raised on the Senate floor, though, whether the bills will provide enough funds for a private school scholarship. And, whether local school board budgets will be overly damaged by the loss of state Minimum Foundation Program funds.

Gov. Jindal wanted the vouchers to be paid for by existing state funds exclusively, avoiding the claim that he planned to raid local educational property taxes to pay for the scholarships. This focus on state money, though, had two seemingly unintended consequences.

The MFP formula varies from school system to school system based on poverty rates, but generally, across Louisiana, the formula yields $8,529 in average per pupil spending. The state funds 59 percent of that amount or $5,035. Local contributions are less generally at $3,494 or 41 percent. (In Orleans, the sum total is over $10,000 due to higher poverty levels.)

Jindal’s bill allows the state contribution to become a private or parochial school scholarship for students attending schools that are ranked C, D, or F on the accountability assessment and whose families are low- to moderate income, up to about $44,000 for a family of three.

An informal survey by The Louisiana Weekly revealed few LA private or parochial schools that have tuitions at or beneath $5,035. Will the state money alone be enough? Even the legislators recognized that without local funds, it probably would not.

In a related measure, the Louisiana House voted 67-36 to try to make up the gap. Awaiting action in the state Senate, House Bill 969, would allow individuals and firms to make donations to help finance tuition for low-income students who attend private schools. Donors would then qualify for a tax rebate.

The rebate must not exceed 95 percent of what was donated, meaning five percent could be used for administrative costs by school officials. The money would be channeled through a tax-exempt group set up by the school.

The donations matched with the state funded vouchers “expands choice,” said state Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge and sponsor of the measure. But House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Bel Edwards, of Amite, told the House that the bill is riddled with constitutional problems.

Edwards maintained that the House could not debate a “refundable tax credit” bill when such measures are prohibited by the state Constitution in a regular session during an even-numbered year.

In a grandstanding gesture, re­minding his colleagues that they took an oath to uphold the Constitution on January 9, “I hope that certainly means something to you.”

The chief clerk of the House ruled that a rebate bill was allowable this year. “We did our due diligence,” Talbot maintained at the close of the debate, and repeated bids by Democratic lawmakers to amend Talbot’s proposal failed by lopsided margins —just as they did last week.

Efforts by State Rep. Harold Ritchie, D-Bogalusa, to limit the rebates to “D” and “F” schools—and to offer donors tax credits instead of rebates—also failed 48-49. The House did authorize an amendment delaying the rebates until the end of the school year, and not until a number of conditions are met.

It would prorate any rebate if the student moved to a public school, and taxpayers would only qualify for a rebate if the school certified to the state Department of Education that the donation financed a scholarship.

In the debates, critics also contended, though, that while Jindal only sought to reallocate state money, the loss of those MFP funds, would still harm local school districts.

The Administration argued such a charge made no sense. If a student left for a private school, the local dollars remained behind. Therefore, the per capita student funding in the local public school district would increase by nearly $3,500 for every private school voucher granted.

On the surface, Jindal and his aides had a point, and their argument was backed up by the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Office. The Louisiana School Boards Association, however, replied that when only a handful of students leave a school, there is not a significant drop in expenses to make up for the lost revenue.

The same number of teachers must be paid. A school needs just as many busses, and the utility bills remain at an equivalent level. Only when there is a loss of a huge number of students, forcing school closures, would the money begin to be felt, and even the Jindal Administration admitted that there would likely be only a few thousand vouchers applied for in the first few years.

(While over 380,000 Louisiana students would qualify, few expect that there are more than a tenth of that number of private or parochial school places available—especially as the voucher bill limits scholarship students to no more than 20 percent of the overall private student body. It was an effort to keep private schools not overly reliant on state dollars, but it does limit voucher openings for the coming decade.)

Besides Vouchers

The legislation also creates new paths to create charter schools. These are schools funded with public money but run with broad independence and autonomy from state and local education officials.

Under current law, only the BESE Board or local school boards in higher-performing districts can authorize charters. However, one of the bills establishes a procedure that would allow a nonprofit corporation “having an educational mission” to authorize charters. These include colleges, philanthropic organizations or nonprofits established by a parish or city. Every university or municipal government could open a school, independent of that parish’s school board authority, but utilizing property tax dollars.

School board members cried foul, but legislators reminded their locally elected colleagues that historically, school boards began as property tax bodies prior to the foundation of either municipal governments—or the establishment of four-year universities no more than an hour from any Louisianian’s home. The Boards were never intended as the only channel of education, and since local mayors and councils are elected, and university officials report to boards appointed by an elected governor, this procedure is hardly undemocratic.

One element of the bills could further diminish local school boards’ power by making it easier for the state to take over failing schools, as occurred in New Orleans post-Katrina as well as a few other schools across the state.

State law already permits a BESE takeover of a school failing for four consecutive years. The bill says that the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Edu­cation could put a school into the state Recovery School District if it has been failing for three consecutive years should more than half the parents of students at the school sign a petition for such a change. The school would effectively made a charter by the RSD, under a procedure known nationally as “the parental trigger”.

Elements to lessen tenure protections and charter failing schools by a majority vote of the parents were defended in the debate by the measure’s Senate sponsor, Conrad Appel, R-Metai­rie. As the debate opened, he said, “Teachers should be awarded for performance, not just because they are teachers. Not just because they have been there for a long time,”

At the time, nearly 100 red-clad teachers and other opponents of the measure looked on from a rear balcony and side galleries. Almost a 1,000 protested outside the Capitol prior to the votes.

“You’re holding the teacher responsible for the whole problem,” Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, usually a Jindal ally, told Appel. He complained that good teachers who miss the high tenure mark become “at-will” employees who can be fired for subjective reasons.

In a surprise move, the Jindal Administration allowed some legislative amendments to the Ed reforms. One to the tenure bill, offered by Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, simply said that if a teacher is rated highly effective based on objective performance marks but “ineffective” by a principal, which could result in loss of tenure, the principal could not serve on a three-member appeal committee appointed by the local superintendent.

On the voucher and charter school bill, amendments included ones designed to strengthen public scrutiny of private entities getting the public money. For instance, one amendment requires annual independent audits of non-profit corporations given the power to authorize charters; others require charter authorizers to comply with public meetings and records laws and the state ethics code.

Still, the changes were not enough to mollify Democratic critics of the GOP measure. In an interview with the Weekly, La. Democratic Chairman Buddy Leach claimed, “Bobby Jindal’s plan is unconstitutional, immoral and just flat wrong for the children of Louisiana.”

“The Louisiana Democratic Party has been working with the House and Senate Democratic caucuses and also the Legislative Black Caucus to fight against this Bobby Jindal, Baton Rouge-based, Big Government takeover of our public schools,” said the Chairman.

Leach said to the teachers amongst this newspaper’s readership, “I applaud and thank you for everything you do for our Lou­isiana school children, but also for having the courage to be here today to stand up to a bully, because that’s exactly what you are doing. A bully who puts his own national political ambitions over the welfare of our Louisiana children and a bully who won’t even come down here to hear what you have to say.”

This article was originally published in the April 9, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper