Dear Lusher Parents: No, the sky is not falling. Contrary to what you might have read on Saturday in the Uptown Messenger, Lusher is not about to be pushed off the edge of a $1.2 million fiscal cliff. Lawmakers in Baton Rouge have not conspired to punish New Orleans with a law all its own. […] More
If you follow this blog, you know I’ve repeatedly called for the Louisiana Democratic Party to once again wholeheartedly embrace common sense education reform policies. Instead, over the past four years, LaDemos have said things like this: .@DavidVitter has fought for mandatory testing, paving the way for Common Core. #lagov — Louisiana Democrats (@LaDemos) November […] More
Apparently some folks haven’t gotten the memo, so let me reiterate something: The war over Common Core in Louisiana is over. Yep, kaput. Done. Finito. The ship has sailed. The curtain has fallen. Louisiana’s citizens have spoken through their elected representatives in the legislature, who have rejected every single bill – and there have been […] More
I’ll admit, I had a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride on Twitter on Monday. It all started when I saw this tweet, which made me angry: Hillary Clinton is planning a huge break with Obama on education: https://t.co/95vi3UPyqW pic.twitter.com/9DZAgdhWCN — Vox (@voxdotcom) November 17, 2015 However, when I saw this tweet, I was hopeful […] More
It’s been a nerve-rattling couple weeks for those of us who identify as pro-reform Democrats. It all started with Arne Duncan’s surprise announcement that he was stepping down as Secretary of Education at the end of the year. As President Obama noted, “Arne’s done more to bring our educational system — sometimes kicking and screaming […] More
Two Democrats are facing off in BESE’s District 2 race: incumbent Kira Orange Jones versus political newcomer Kara Washington. Orange Jones, who lives in New Orleans, leads Teach For America’s work in the region. Since unseating Louella Givens in 2011, Orange Jones has emerged as a champion of common sense education reform policies on BESE, […] More
BESE’s District 1 race is a no-brainer. The contest is a rematch of the 2011 election, once again pitting incumbent Jim Garvey, an attorney from Metairie first elected to the board in 2007, against Lee Barrios, a former St. Tammany Parish middle school teacher. Four years ago, Garvey easily won reelection in the first round with […] More
There’s a difference, of course, between ambition and naked ambition. The former is a quality we admire in an individual who is willing to push themselves to the heights that their talents can take them. The latter is much less flattering; it denotes a gracelessness in pursuit of those ends, a willingness to jettison principles […] More
When the Democratic candidate for Governor, John Bel Edwards, met with the Editorial Board of Lafayette’s Daily Advertiser on Tuesday to explain how “things would be different in an Edwards administration,” the two-term State Representative had a lot to say about the state of public education in Louisiana. Some of the points he made were […] More
In the face of overwhelming evidence that the New Orleans’ education reforms have worked, critics have been forced to change their messaging strategy. Instead of denying the results outright, opponents now maintain the district’s academic gains amount to a Pyrrhic victory, bought at the expense of local teachers and the city’s most disadvantaged students. Thus, […] More
Peter Cook