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Here’s a damning report from Education Week blogger Marc Tucker that rings true in Louisiana as well as many other states: “From the beginning, the leaders of our state education systems have invited testing experts to help them set the cut points for passing or not passing the state tests. They listen gravely to the advice of the experts, then ask them how many students will fail at the recommended cut point and set a new one at a point that is politically tolerable.” Tucker writes as the Nation’s Report Card’s governing board sets out to write new proficiency standards Read More

(New Orleans – September 25) Louisiana’s charter schools must recognize and bargain with unions if that is the desire of teachers and school employees, according to a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The September 21 ruling by a three-judge panel affirmed a decision by the National Labor Relations Board, asserting that the International High School of New Orleans violated the National Labor Relations Act when the group holding the school’s charter refused to recognize the school’s bargaining unit. Read More

In the last two election cycles, out-of-state billionaires, hedge fund managers and school privatizers have poured millions of dollars into Louisiana school elections. Read More

Louisiana is one of more than 30 states to be graded “F” on our support for public education in a new report from the Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation for Public Education. “Grading the States: A Report Card on Our Nation’s Commitment to Public Schools,” tracks the growth of private, for-profit charter and voucher schools that divert funding from public schools. Read More

Thousands of Louisiana educators wrote to their legislators asking them to reconsider the budget and fund larger pay increases, but on Thursday, May 27th the Senate finalized and approved the budget with no additional funding for schools or school employees. The finalized budget has now been signed by both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate and is awaiting signature from the Governor. On Tuesday, June 8th the MFP (SCR 2) was approved by the full Senate . After much back and forth, the MFP was finalized in the legislature and in the budget. It will Read More

PAY RAISES On March 10th the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) passed their proposal for the minimum foundation program (MFP) – the funding formula for Louisiana’s K-12 schools. During the meeting, the Board decided to heed the recommendation from the MFP task force: passing a proposal that calls for an $80 million dollar increase in the MFP. The task force had decided on a 1.375% increase (or $40 million) put into Level 1 of the MFP for general classroom funding and another 1.375% increase, put into level 3, for raises. That comes out to $400 increase for teachers Read More

School Funding Next Year On Friday, the Governor’s team presented his Executive Budget to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget. This spending proposal will be the baseline for budget negotiations throughout the legislative session and is expected to change before being finalized by both chambers in the final days of the session. In this proposal, the Governor includes a meager amount for teacher and school employee pay raises: $400 pay increase for teachers/certified personnel and $200 for school support staff. Being an educator is harder than ever. This year, teacher morale has plummeted Read More

This week brought an unexpected twist. The 2022 Regular Legislative Session was paused and interrupted a Redistricting Veto Override Session. On Monday, the legislature announced that a supermajority of legislators did not return ballots indicating they did not want to hold a veto override session. So, constitutionally a veto override session is called. At the end of the day on Tuesday, the Regular Legislative Session adjourned, and at noon on Wednesday the Veto Override Session began. While scheduled to go at late as Sunday, the veto ultimately took only a few hours. By the end of the afternoon on Wednesday Read More

Two weeks into the legislative session and, so far, the legislature has yet to tackle the most controversial bills of the session. Committee meetings have focused on more mundane bills but an obvious elephant-in-the-room as tinged discussions. Legislators are finally waking up to the reality that our schools are in freefall. They are finally, beginning to see the teacher shortage for the crisis that it is. Next week several of the most crucial bills will be heard in committee and on the House floor. Find out what happened this week and what we can expect next week: On Thursday, the Read More

The 2022 Legislative Session began Monday, March 14th at noon. LFT is already monitoring hundreds of bills this session, and legislation will continue to be filed until April 5th. Things can change quickly with little notice, whether it’s the agenda of a committee meeting or an amendment to a bill. Please follow us on Facebook and subscribe to our updates and follow along at la.aft.org/legislation so that you can stay up to date with everything happening at the Capitol. Here are a few of the most important bills we are tracking this year: Read More

Teachers go to school for years so that they can understand how to help students learn. Student learning is the bedrock of everything they do in the classroom. The experience of seeing a student work to understand a concept and then finally ‘get it’ is one of the most rewarding experiences a teacher can have, and that is what drives educators to continue to do the work they do. Unfortunately, over the last decade the teaching profession has changed significantly. Teachers don’t have the autonomy to individualize their lessons in the way their students might need. They don’t have the Read More

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Why Do Educators in Louisiana Get Paid So Little? The Minimum Foundation Program is the funding formula for Louisiana public schools. It was established in order to determine the minimum cost of education in all public elementary and secondary schools. However, given the current state of our schools, one must ask: how much does it cost to educate a child in Louisiana? Read More

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Every day, teachers find new and creative ways to keep their students learning. Still, a lot of work goes into preparing an excellent lesson. Teachers need adequate planning time to assess student work, review relevant curriculum, prepare their lesson, draft lesson plans, make copies, find resources for their students to use, and more. For many teachers, their planning time is the only point in the day where they have time to drink some water, eat, or use the restroom. Given the ongoing teacher shortage, many teachers and support staff are being pulled out of their planning time or lunch to Read More

Is Louisiana's System for Teacher Evaluations Accurate? There are many components that go into being a truly effective teacher. In Louisiana, policy dictates that two observations and an assessment score should narrowly judge the entirety of a teacher's work; every component and nuance of teaching for multiple students. Once a score is issued, there is almost no opportunity for teachers to redress any inaccuracies or inconsistencies in their evaluation. Read More

This month, the Governor announced his Executive Budget. Each year the Governor releases his proposed budget, based on the revenue recognized by the state Revenue Estimating Conference, and it is largely considered to be the starting point for the state budget process. In this year’s budget, the Governor proposed a $1,500 raise for teachers and $750 for school employees. He also said that if the REC recognizes additional revenue at their meeting in May, $49 million should go towards funding an additional $500 pay increase for teachers. This raise would be the largest state-wide pay raise that Louisiana teachers have Read More

​BACK TO SCHOOL It’s hard to believe that summer is already ending. Many districts had expanded summer school options for students who struggled through the pandemic-year. This left many educators with even less time to recuperate from an especially exhausting year. But as always, the prospect of a new school year brings excitement and opportunity. LFT staff are preparing to greet new and returning educators at orientations and back to school events all over the state. If you are already a member of the Federation, make sure to check in with your Local representatives at these events so that you Read More

Legislative Overview: The legislative session ended on Thursday, June 10th at 6 P.M. after almost nine weeks of fast-paced and often contentious debate. LFT has tracked hundreds of bills throughout the session and sent our members and affiliate leaders regular updates with the most important information. Now that the session has ended and the dust has settled, here are the main bills that impact teachers, school employees and students. Like at the end of every session, there is cause for both celebration and dread. We end this session knowing there is more that must be done to help teachers, school Read More

SLTs in Teacher Evaluations LFT has proposed multiple bills this session that seek to protect teachers from having SLTs used in their evaluations this year. These SLTs were not designed for such an unprecedented and incredibly difficult year where schools closed without notice and students bounced between in-person and virtual instruction. Unlike in other states, teachers showed up again and again for our students and developed novel, innovative ways to help students throughout the pandemic. That's why thousands of teachers sent letters to the Senate Education Committee this session asking them to ensure that measures of student growth -- which Read More