The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that the funding formula used for the state’s school voucher program is unconstitutional. The program, which was shepherded through the Legislature by the state’s Governor Bobby Jindal last year, was voided by a 6-1 decision because the Louisiana Constitution prohibits the use of public money to fund private schools in certain circumstances.

The issue appears to be that the voucher program is funded out of the state’s Minimum Foundation Program. The majority opinion said that the state constitution prohibits diverting money from MFP towards private schools once it has been allocated.

In addition, the court ruled that the MFP formula didn’t get the needed support from lawmakers, passing with only 51 votes when 53 were required.

The Jindal administration has pushed on with the voucher program despite the earlier court ruling. Roughly 8,000 students have been approved for vouchers in the coming school year. It remains unclear how the program will be funded now that use of MFP money has been struck down. State Education Superintendent John White was not immediately available for comment.

Jindal pledged to continue the program, with an add-on through the regular annual budget process. He’ll need backing from lawmakers to do so.

The Associated Press quotes a statement from Jindal expressing disappointment at the decision but promising to find a way to fund the program through an alternative budget process. Jindal said that making sure that parents have a choice when it comes to their kids’ education is important because they can’t afford the children’s “one shot” at a good education to be wasted.

The opinion, written by Justice John Weimer, goes to some lengths to emphasize that the judges were not taking a position on the effectiveness of the voucher program or its value. The decision was reached, according to Weimer, on strictly constitutional grounds.

The majority included Chief Justice Bernette Johnson and Justices Jeffrey Victory, Jeanette Knoll, Marcus Clark and Jefferson Hughes.

Justice Greg Guidry was the only dissenter.

“The majority overlooks the fact that, once a student leaves a district, the district is no longer entitled to the state’s share of the MFP for that student, and thus the district’s share of the MFP is removed from the MFP allocation to that district,” Guidry wrote.

It isn’t clear what the decision means for the voucher program in the immediate future. As of March, the program – called the Louisiana Scholarship Program – continued to draw a growing number of applicants all looking to take part. On March 29th, the Louisiana Department of Education reported that more than 7,000 new applications were received from families who were hoping to receive a check from the state to leave low-performing schools in their districts and enroll in a private school instead.

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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has announced that nearly 8,000 students have been matched with voucher seats for the 2013-14 school year in the first round of applications, which represents an increase of 3,000 students over the program’s first year. Danielle Dreilinger, writing for NOLA.com, reports that there will also be a second round of applications running from May 6 to 24.

The state received almost 12,000 applications, counting the 4,700 students currently enrolled. Matches were made in 128 of the 134 participating schools, representing 32 parishes. The Department of Education has not finalized which schools will participate in the second round.

Jindal said that evidence from New Orleans, where the program was piloted in 2008, suggests that it works, with third grade proficiency levels rising in both math and English — 23 and 12 percentage points respectively. Performance scores for the program statewide will be released later this month, and Jindal cited high levels of parental satisfaction as justification for keeping the program, in addition to its increasing public popularity level.

“It’s no surprise that interest in the scholarship program is growing,” he said. Academic achievement in these schools has grown more than the state average and students are “doing better than they were at the schools they left.”

Superintendent John White is also a fan of the program, citing lower dropout rates for children in the voucher program compared to those students in public schools.

The scholarship program is about helping students improve, and White said he was “frankly baffled as to why someone would stand in the way of that.”

Parent Valerie Evans, whose son Gabriel is in 7th grade at Resurrection, said the program had been an answer to her prayers. “My son was able to leave a failing school and enter a great school,” she said.

Louisiana’s voucher program is funded through the government per-pupil allotment, with scholarships coming out at $3,000 less than that amount. Proponents of the program state this as an additional benefit with every student who takes advantage of the program directly saving the taxpayer $3,000.

Jindal noted that this saving will total $18m this year alone.

Not everyone is on board with the program, however, and there has been recent legislative resistance. A Baton Rouge district judge ruled at the end of last year that the program was unconstitutional on the grounds that it diverted public school funds to private schools. That decision is currently pending appeal in the state Supreme Court with Jindal confident that the ruling will go his way.

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Parents are on the verge of gaining more power in Louisiana – with the help of groups who don’t typically align themselves on the side of parents. According to The New Orleans Times-Picayune, teachers unions and education officials have come together to show lawmakers that they support the version of the so-called parent trigger law that would allow parents of students to petition to transfer control of a failing school from the Recovery School District to the local system.

According to bill sponsor Representative Ted James of Baton Rouge, the measure is not meant as a slap on the RSD, which has done much to improve the quality of schools around the state. Instead, the measure would merely put more control in the hands of parents who have recently complained that their voices aren’t being listened to enough when it comes to education reform decisions.

James said although Wednesday’s version of the bill included multiple amendments to address concerns from the RSD, the district’s leaders still were not in support of the legislation. One amendment requested by the RSD, and included by James, states parents cannot petition for removal for Type 5 charter schools.

Other than the RSD, the other major educational stakeholders all seemed to be in favor of the bill. Teachers unions, such as the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and Louisiana Association of Educators, said the bill allows parents to demand more accountability and faster results from the RSD.

Even parties that do not typically line up on the same side of the issue with teachers unions – such as the voucher-supporting Louisiana Black Alliance for Educational Options – support the measure, believing that it would give parents more options when deciding the optimal place to send their kids.

John White, Louisiana’s Superintendent, also endorses the bill.

Speaking after committee Wednesday, James made mention to the parents of Benjamin Mays Preparatory School, who pleaded with the Orleans Parish School Board to take over control of their school after years of failing grades under the RSD. James said his bill would give those parents another option. However, since Mays is a Type 5 Charter School, it would not fall under the schools for which the parent trigger would apply.

The measure has passed without opposition from the House Education Committee and is now expected to go before the full body on the House floor for further debate and an eventual vote.

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The Louisiana State Senate will consider a measure that would link higher education funding to college performance, The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. The bill was approved by the Senate Education Committee earlier this week with members signing on to the proposal to put more pressure on public colleges and universities to raise their student retention and graduation rates.

Senate Bill 117 would authorize the creation of a 15-member panel that would be charged with developing the metrics by which the state’s public universities’ performances are to be judged for funding purposes. The final proposals would then go before the Board of Regents who would have the final say over the implementation.

Although the list of the criteria hasn’t been finalized, nor how much each would weigh on the final funding decisions, the bill calls for the schools to focus on timely graduation, dedicating resources to STEM majors, graduation rates and the the graduates’ potential future earnings.

“What we are doing is asking to move to an outcomes-based funding model…for that portion of the university’s funding that is the state appropriation,” Appel, who also chairs the committee, said at Wednesday’s meeting.

Around 60 percent of public university funding comes from tuition, fees and other self-generated sources while 40 percent comes from the state.

According to the Times-Picayune, since high tech manufacturing and jobs in energy production are vital to the state’s economic future, colleges that manage to produce more specialists in those fields and in the fields of computer science, engineering and mathematics are likely to get better access to state funding than those that do not.

As Jim Purcell – he Commissioner of Higher Education – put it, Louisiana public colleges should work to produce employees in high demand upon graduation. He also pointed out that people who think of funding as a zero-sum game are being wrong-headed as it is highly unlikely that a new focus on STEM would really damage the schools’ liberal arts programs.

“There’s always a balance. Certainly we want to make sure we offer the whole plethora of higher education experience to students in the state. At the same time, state institutions have a function of trying to address the workforce and economic needs of the state. So, to me, it is wise for us to reward institutions for addressing those areas,” Purcell said after the meeting.

While committee members raised concerns over whether the 15-member board would be able to agree on a funding mechanism, Appel said he did not foresee this to be a problem as he had already spoken with all the stakeholders and they agree on the need for such a discussion.

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Although the future of Louisiana’s voucher program remains uncertain, the interest among potential participants continues to grow, writes Danielle Drailinger for The New Orleans Times-Picayune. According to the state’s Department of Education more than 7,000 new students have applied to take part in the program this year — even though the program’s survival now rests in the hands of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

The voucher program – called the Louisiana Scholarship Program – allows students in low-performing schools to get a state-funded scholarship that can be put towards tuition at any school of their choice. John White, the state Superintendent of Education, pointed to the higher numbers as a sign that despite whatever roadblocks are put up by voucher opponents, parents continue to indicate by their action that they support the government giving them more choice about their children’s education.

In the lead-up to the application deadline and the Supreme Court arguments – which fell within a week of each other this month – voucher supporters redoubled their efforts to promote the option. The Black Alliance for Educational Options held rallies and forums, and the Louisiana Federation for Children put out an advertising campaign encouraging parents to sign their children up for the program, which is intended to open opportunities for students in schools graded C, D or F who don’t have the financial resources to pay for tuition themselves.

It’s still unclear if all or even the majority of the new voucher applicants will be able to take advantage of the program this coming year. Although nearly all of the 4,700 previously accepted applicants are guaranteed spots, there has been only a modest increase in the number of schools taking vouchers this year from 118 to 134. Five of those schools will continue to accept vouchers but will not admit any new voucher students.

Vouchers aren’t just making a splash in Louisiana. According to The New York Times, 17 states currently offer some form of vouchers to their residents, either funding the scholarships directly or giving tax breaks to corporations that donate funds to independently run scholarship programs.

The Arizona Legislature last May expanded the eligibility criteria for education savings accounts, which are private bank accounts into which the state deposits public money for certain students to use for private school tuition, books, tutoring and other educational services. Open only to special-needs students at first, the program has been expanded to include children in failing schools, those whose parents are in active military duty and those who are being adopted. One in five public school students — roughly 220,000 children — will be eligible in the coming school year

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As Louisiana’s voucher program is getting a hearing from the full 7-judge panel of the Louisiana Supreme Court, advocates both for and against it are making their case to the public. Until the judges make the decision, after a hearing that was held Tuesday, the program – and Baton Rouge families qualifying for vouchers – remain in limbo.

Nearly 5,000 children in Baton Rouge qualify for the voucher program, which is a state-sponsored scholarship which allows families to use the money towards tuition at a school of their choice. The program remains on hold after the ruling by a Baton Rouge judge that the program was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the appeal filed by the state.

Meanwhile, those who turned out to march in support of school choice – parents among them – are wondering why it’s unconstitutional for tax payers to have a say as to where their tax money is going.

“If you take my take my tax dollars and give it to the public schools, how come is it now you deem it illegal and unconstitutional to apply it to where I have the right to say where it goes?” parent Anthony White said.

“As a parent, if my child is attending a public school that is failing, and it’s evident and it’s shown numbers-wise, LEAP-score wise, as a parent I should have the right to remove my child from that environment,” parent Essence Jackson said.

Joyce Haynes, head of the Louisiana Association of Educators – the teachers union that filed the lawsuit challenging the program – offers up a familiar criticism of the voucher program. In her view, the program strips resources from already pinched public schools, degrading the quality of education for everyone.

Haynes says that tax money should go to the district, not follow the student. She further challenges the assertion that so many public schools in the state are failing, noting that the “bar is always moving” when it comes to public school assessment.

She expressed hope that the Supreme Court upholds the ruling of the lower court and that the state should concentrate on improving all public schools so they can provide excellent education to all students rather than trying to take apart the public education system piece by piece.

Opponents of the voucher program feel that money should automatically go to designated school districts, while supporters of the voucher program feel it should follow the child.

“This case is about whether 198,000 students in D- and F-ranked schools are going to be able to access quality education through private options, or whether they’re going to be forced to stay in schools that are under performing and failing,” Justice Institute attorney Bill Maurer said.

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Superintendent of Louisiana schools John White has announced that a $5 million federal grant will be used to train teachers who are interested in working in turnaround schools in the state. The money will cover a year of intensive training for interested educators who will then take on leadership roles at schools most in need of intervention.

This use for the “Believe and Succeed” grants is part of White’s 5-step program for 2013, and he has said that he expects the participation rates in the new initiative to be low at first with only a few teachers submitting applications to compete for the $50,000 grants.

Still, the program could be a remedy for nearly 200,000 Louisiana students currently enrolled in failing schools. Expansion of charter schools has gone some way towards relieving the crush, but according to NOLA.com, not enough of them are currently operating to take over the full load. The training program will either serve as a stop-gap while more charters ramp up to speed, or as an alternative approach to turn around a failing school system.

State figures released in January show that 7 percent of the state’s schools are charters. And viewing charters as only way to turnaround a failing school also shuts out some would-be reformers, White said. For the winning grant recipients, the state education department is recommending five principal training programs: Building Excellent Schools, Columbia Summer Principals Academy NOLA, Leading Educators, New Leaders and the New Teacher Project. Most are open only to participants in the greater New Orleans and Baton Rouge regions. However, applicants may also choose other training programs or design their own.

With the newly-trained leaders at the helm, White said that he expects the new schools to be run autonomously with minimal district interference similar to charters. Among the freedoms allowed will be complete control over personnel, budget, and curriculum.

The districts that would like a say on selecting the candidates for training will have to kick in part of the training cost. The program isn’t limited to individuals, and is open to non-profits and charter operating companies as well.

However, district approval isn’t necessary. In that case, the department will increase the grant amount to cover the entire cost of the training plus a year’s salary for the future school leader. Most independent applicants will be matched down the line with failing schools that want change, possibly in a different district. Or candidates may be directed to create a brand-new school through the charter system.

The deadline to submit application for those who wish to be part of the first training class is April 26th of this year.

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A judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has ruled that the entire education reform bill supported by Governor Bobby Jindal was unconstitutional because it packed too many items into a single piece of legislation. This represents a reversal of a previous decision that some parts of the law didn’t violate the state’s constitution.

Parts of the law had been previously thrown out by the same judge – Republican Michael Caldwell – for the same reason. Specifically, he ruled that the parts of the measure which limited the control of local school boards was unconstitutional. However, in his previous decision, he allowed the provisions that dealt with tenure and eliminated teacher pay scales.

On Monday, Caldwell widened his previous decision, saying he had misread part of the bill for the previous ruling that allowed any part of it to stand.

The Republican judge determined that the entire bill must be declared unconstitutional because the bill bundled too many objectives that should have been spread out among multiple measures.

This is a big win for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, the largest teachers union in the state, who originally filed the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law. After Caldwell handed down the original decision, the attorneys representing the LFT asked him to review it.

Steve Monaghan, president of the LFT, said that this affirms the union’s belief that the bill was unconstitutional from the get-go.

The Jindal administration have already indicated that they plan to appeal.

“While the ruling does not judge the substance of the law, we’re disappointed that the court reversed its original ruling. We expect to prevail in the state Supreme Court,” Jindal said in a statement.

The Republican governor returned to a similar theme, accusing his opponents of trying to stall efforts to improve teacher quality and student performance.

In a statement, Jindal called his opponents “the coalition of the status quo,” saying that their efforts were the chief reason why the state couldn’t move forward with bold plans to improve the school system and assure better academic outcomes for the state’s students.

The ruling means that many of the education reforms passed during the last legislative sessions have now been rejected by the courts, including limiting the power of the local school boards, forbidding the practice of using seniority when making layoff decisions, making getting tenure more difficult and putting in place state oversight for superintendent contracts for local boards.

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Education experts in Louisiana were left confused by the latest executive budget proposal unveiled by Governor Bobby Jindal. The total money allocated towards higher education was reduced by about $200 million from the year before, but the confusion arose from the fact that distribution of money among a number of funds that comprise the total higher ed dollars underwent substantial changes as well.

Among the biggest changes was the withdrawal of nearly $700 million from the general fund, and a deposit of nearly the sum total of that money in the statutory dedications fund. Both lawmakers and university administrators expressed confusion about what kind of an impact these moves would have on university funding going forward.

Sen. Dan Claitor said the $200 million higher education cut looks bad, but it’s actually even larger than it seems.

“We are uncertain about the switch from state general funds to statutory dedications,” said University Director of External Affairs Jason Droddy.

The budget proposal assumes that the privatization of two of the three LSU hospitals will get finalized, although the process has not as of yet been completed. If the contracts aren’t sealed by the time the new budget goes into effect, the funding will have to be found to keep the hospitals operating. If the privatization goes through, Jindal anticipates that 7,000 people will lose their jobs, but hopes that the majority will be rehired by the new operators once the transfer of control is complete.

Director of Media Relations Ernie Ballard said Jenkins and other University administrators were still assessing the proposed budget and had no further comment about changes to the LSU hospitals. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the proposed budget’s funds, more questions about how higher education will be affected remain. LSU is one of many universities that receives state funding, and the amount each school receives has not yet been decided. Discussions regarding appropriations to individual schools are expected to begin in March and should be finalized this summer, Droddy said. Because these talks are just getting under way, it is unknown how Jindal’s proposed 2014 fiscal year budget will specifically affect University students.

Until the terms of the budget are clarified, LSU colleges and universities will not be able to make operating decisions such as how much tuition to charge or how many new students they can afford to admit. However, even though the administrators are lacking in the detail, Claitor already said the fact that overall budget has been reduced by $200 million “doesn’t bode well.”

He also warned that any further cuts can’t help but have an impact on the quality of education provided on LSU campuses.

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When the federal Department of Education set up its “Race to the Top” program in 2009, it envisioned states creating unique models for reform in data, assessments, teacher recruiting and school improvements. This year, at least 37 states are actively working out such programs, and some have already instituted them.

But along the way, creating these models means allowing heated arguments among all of the stakeholders: states, administrators, unions, and individual teachers and parents. As Maine debates possibilities, Louisiana teachers protest the plan that’s already in place for this school year.

Louisiana’s planned evaluation, called the Compass, will take into account not only standardized test scores but also classroom observation. In areas where standardized testing doesn’t apply easily, such as music, schools will evaluate teachers for completion of academic targets. When teachers do not score high enough, they will lose their tenure. Continued poor performance will lead to the teacher being fired. The system is set to begin at the end of the 2012-2013 school year.

In Maine, by contrast, there is no plan yet laid out for the school year. As the state considers options, the hottest topic at Monday’s hearing on the state’s current plans was just how much student standardized test scores should influence teacher ratings. The Bangor Daily News reports that Maine’s Department of Education wants student scores to be at least 25% of a teacher’s evaluation.

But teachers and some administrators argue that making the scores such a large part of the state’s eventual mandatory program will not be good for anyone. Administrators will be tasked with carrying out the plan, and some, like Richard Durost of the Maine Principals Association, worried that it will be more burdensome than it’s worth.

Richard Durost, executive director of the Maine Principals Association, asked if the state would provide money, time and logistical support to help school systems implement performance evaluations. He also noted that his organization has not found any research to demonstrate that educator evaluations improve student achievement.

Another administrator suggested capping the role of student scores at 15% until schools have more experience and data from the process.

Teachers were concerned that the new program would not put enough emphasis on professional growth, and that it would be too quick to end a teacher’s career without chances for improvement. Some asked that more teachers should be included in the state’s process, and one special education teacher, the last to speak at the hearing, asked for a delay in implementation.

“The appropriate recommendation to DOE would have been to request a delay in implementation rather than pushing ahead with an incomplete and faulty evaluation system,” Soifer said, after listing concerns about costs that would put poorer districts at a disadvantage, the proposed rules’ emphasis on punitive measures, and mandates to create local systems that he said would undermine the goal of statewide reform.

In 2012, the Maine legislature enacted a law that mandates the creation of a federally-compliant evaluation system by the school year 2015-2016.

Pressures like this sometimes block agreements from being made at all, reports New York Newsday in an Associated Press story. In the state of New York, school districts were left to create evaluation programs by January 17, in order to qualify for state aid. While 99% of the state’s districts qualified, the biggest one, the New York City system, could not reach an agreement with the United Federation of Teachers.

In a hearing in Albany on Monday, New York Mayor Bloomberg demanded that the state should give the city’s schools their $250 million share of aid anyway, saying that most of the upstate districts created sham agreements.

Bloomberg said most school districts outside New York City adopted faulty local evaluations to extract school aid, not improve teachers. He said the evaluations fail students and protect bad teachers during his testimony at a daylong state budget hearing in which upstate mayors pushed for ways to save some of America’s iconic cities from insolvency.

As Bloomberg complained that other districts had cut corners to defraud the state, UFT President Mike Mulgrew said that they couldn’t even agree on their points of disagreement, and it wasn’t clear if they would continue to talk. In an AP interview, Mulgrew said:

“It’s embarrassing for the mayor of New York to go to Albany to testify at a budget hearing and not know what he’s talking about.”

But at Monday’s hearing, Bloomberg’s evaluation of the union’s role was just as scathing.

In a sometimes heated testimony over three hours, the mayor told legislators that it was irresponsible for them and Cuomo to pass the 2010 law because he said it ties school aid to union approval of local teacher evaluations. He said unions have no incentive to approve effective evaluations.

Louisiana’s teachers aren’t complaining about negotiations, since their state has already determined an evaluation system. Their concern is the effect on teachers themselves. As Danielle Dreilinger reports in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers has called the Compass system “fundamentally flawed.” It is encouraging teachers to retire faster, they say. And the teachers who are leaving are the best, most experienced teachers.

John White, Louisiana’s Education Supervisor, discounts this claim. His department released a report on Monday that showed retirement has remained stable since 2009 at about 11% of the workforce. White said that the new system is not pushing out the best veteran teachers, and also pointed out that some of them leave teaching when they’re promoted to administrative positions.

The state’s report used about 25% of teachers, whose students test in core subjects, to estimate how many teachers who have left are among the top or bottom brackets. While 16% of retiring teachers were in the top “most effective” bracket, so were 19% of the teachers who stayed on. The number of retiring teachers rated “ineffective” was as high as 12%, while remaining teachers in this category were only 8%. In the state’s eyes, the sifting process is heading in the right direction, leaving a higher percent of effective remaining teachers.

Louisiana Federation of Teachers isn’t buying the state’s argument.

“A stable attrition rate only means that enough teachers are entering our classrooms to replace those who leave,” said LFT President Steve Monaghan. “Attrition does not address the absolute fact that we are losing experienced veteran teachers at a much faster rate than before. More importantly, it completely ignores that teacher morale in Louisiana and nationally is at an all-time low.”

It’s a tough time to be a teacher, but it’s also clearly a time of much creative arguing and rethinking, and that can only be good for education in the end.

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