Doug Mouton / Eyewitness News
BATON ROUGE -- The 2012 Legislative Session doesn't begin until March 12, but already the debate over K-12 education is on.
Wednesday, Governor Bobby Jindal met with roughly a dozen legislators at the Governor's Mansion in Baton Rouge.
"We're open to anybody that's got constructive ideas and suggestions," Governor Jindal told media members inside the Mansion after the meeting. Governor Jindal has met with lawmakers, teacher groups, BESE Board Members, school superintendents and parents about how to fix Louisiana's educational system.
"We need bold reforms," Governor Jindal said. "Just tinkering around the edges and making incremental changes is not enough." The Governor said that's why he's meeting with all stakeholders in the debate before unveiling his education plan in January.
The Governor's education plan as he outlined Wednesday, has three parts. The Governor wants more school choice, as he said, "no kid should be in a failing school." He also wants school districts to have more flexibility in how they spend their money. And Governor Jindal wants teachers held more accountable.
"The single most important thing we can do to improve our children's education is to make sure we've got an effective teacher in every classroom," Governor Jindal said, but how to ensure that figures to become the most heavily debated part of the Governor's plan.
"It makes sense to link a teacher's evaluation, at least in part, to student achievement," Governor Jindal said he wants half of a teacher's evaluation linked to student achievement, which would include student growth. That means the student's level of achievement at the beginning of the school year would be compared to his level of achievement at the end.
"So teachers that are teaching hard to teach subjects, or in schools where kids are starting below grade level, we're not going to punish them for that, we'll actually reward them if they're able to get those students closer to grade level or at grade level," Governor Jindal said. "Good teachers will be recognized, will be rewarded, will be encouraged by this kind of model."
Some of what Governor Jindal wants to do with teacher evaluations was approved by the Legislature last year, but now, he wants to go further, including the possibility of tying financial bonuses for teachers to student achievement.
"It is not a money issue," Covington State Representative John Schroder said Wednesday. "We're not under funding education in Louisiana compared to other states in the country. So, that's not an excuse. Teacher pay is no longer the excuse." Representative Schroder was part of a group of legislators to meet with Governor Jindal Tuesday. Schroder believes, by and large, Louisiana Legislators support what the Governor is trying to do.
"When you sit down and look at all the facts, we have to do something. We'll have some battles over what those somethings are, but I don't think anybody can argue that we've got some serious problems," Representative Schroder said. "The model's broken. All the statistics prove it. We need to change. There are some accountability measures that have passed the last four years that will be implemented this year, but we need to go further."
Governor Jindal said he expects to unveil his detailed plan in mid-January.
