News

Today is the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week!

Attacks on public education in America by extremists and culture-war peddling politicians have reached new heights (“lows” may be more apt), but they are not new. The difference today is that the attacks are intended not just to undermine public education but to destroy it.

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. He is president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, and he believes that current NAEP standards do not align to real-world college and career readiness. That, he says, must change.

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.

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.

The Legislature passed a budget: Now it's up to us to fight for our children, our schools, and our profession!

The war on teacher unions continues: We care. We fight. We show up.

Judging by the reaction from Louisiana’s biggest business lobby, you might think that a recent Supreme Court decision about public sector unions will have a major impact in our state.

It won’t. But that’s not stopping big business from using the decision to attack the LFT and other unions in our state. Here are the facts.

Legislature steps back from budget cliff!

When it all came down to a vote, lawmakers didn’t even need the full 10-day special session to take a step back from the fiscal cliff and compromise on a multi-year budget fix that sets Louisiana on a more stable, reliable course.

Governor John Bel Edwards has announced his education agenda for the regular legislative session that opens on Monday, March 12, and ends on June 4. The governor's agenda includes reasonable, fair changes to the teacher tenure process and teacher evaluati

After a decades-long struggle to get Louisiana teacher salaries to the Southern regional average, a new report shows that our teachers now earn nearly $2,000 less than our peers.

Louisiana teacher salaries reached parity with other Southern states in 2007, according to the Southern Regional Education Board. Our average salaries reached a high-water mark in 2012-13, at $51,381. But by 2015-16 (the last year that figures are available) our average salary plunged to $49,745. That year, the Southern average was $50,955 (the national average was $58,363).