Legislation

One of the most important bills that we will hear in this abbreviated legislation is Senate Bill 31 by Senator Cleo Fields. If passed, this bill would prohibit the use of statewide student assessments conducted during the 2020-2021 school year from being used to evaluate teacher performance. Essentially, schools could (and likely would) still have testing this year, but the scores couldn't count against a teacher's performance evaluation.

On Thursday, May 14th the Senate Education Committee will hear Senate Bill 298 by Senator Katrina Jackson. This important legislation has the potential to positively impact students and teachers across our state by removing VAM scores from teacher evaluations. Click here to send a letter to the committee members.

The 2020 legislative session began Monday, March 9^th. It kicked off with the Governor’s annual State of the State address on Monday afternoon and continued with a flurry of introductory committee meetings.

Learn more about LFT's five main legislative priorities this session: 

1. Reduce Unnecessary Testing
2. Secure Pay Raises and Increased School Funding
3. Protect Retirement
4. Improve School Safety & Discipline
5. Expand and Protect the Rights of Working People

On the state-level, school funding is determined by the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP). It's a funding formula for Louisiana public schools. The MFP is seperate from what local school districts raise to fund their schools through taxes and local bond initiatives. Part of the MFP is dedicated to general school funding — that money goes to local school districts to use at their discretion — and part is reserved specifically for school employee pay, but both are critically important.

In 2019, Louisiana took a step in the right direction regarding pay raises and school funding. For the first time in a decade, the legislature passed an MFP that guaranteed raises for every teacher and support employee in the state, but it’s not enough. We have years of disinvestment to make up for and Louisiana educators are still below the Southern Regional Average for pay, which is why it’s vital that this year we continue to move forward.

Click here to see updates and take action!

LFT’s representative on the Task Force is Legislative and Political Director Cynthia Posey and today, she fought back against attempts to limit school funding and raises. Over the last few weeks, LFT took your concerns to the Governor and today he showed he heard us. His team did propose funding for teacher raises. And ultimately, the Task Force came together to take a united step forward towards getting even more funding for schools, teachers, and supports staff.

The MFP is the K-12 Funding Formula for Louisiana public schools. Passing a new MFP with additional funding for schools or teacher/school employee raises is never guaranteed. It’s a long, bureaucratic process and there’s a lot of opportunities for it to go wrong. Click here to learn more about the MFP and what we can do to ensure there's enough money available to pay for teacher and school employee raises. 

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"66354","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image media-image-left","style":"width: 300px; height: 158px; float: left; margin: 10px;"}}]]Get to Know the REC

The Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) decides how much taxpayer money lawmakers are allowed to spend. They usually base their projections off of the recommendations of bi-partisan economists who have extensively studied the Louisiana economy, but once again the REC is playing politics instead of doing what's best for our state.