“La. judge trims superintendent authority, leaves teacher tenure provisions intact”
by Mike Hasten
Alexandria Town Talk
December 18, 2012
A district judge today threw out part of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s legislation dealing with teacher tenure and school board authority.
Instead of ruling the entire act unconstitutional, as hoped by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, Judge Michael Caldwell threw out only the portion dealing with school superintendents assuming duties that have been delegated to school boards.
The decision left intact the portion of the bill that federation President Steve Monoghan says ” guts tenure.”
Monaghan said he is “leaning toward” appealing the ruling but that will be a decision made by the union’s members.
Act 1 has language allowing parts of the law to be stricken if another part is ruled unconstitutional.
Attorney Jimmy Faircloth, a Pinevillle attorney representing the state, said he will consult with Superintendent of Education John C. White on whether to accept the ruling or appeal.
Earlier: Judge to rule today
BATON ROUGE — A Baton Rouge district judge is set to rule today on the constitutionality of a key Jindal administration education bill approved by the Louisiana Legislature this year.
The Louisiana Federation of Teachers says in a lawsuit that the legislation, now Act 1 of the 2012 legislative session, is “a hodgepodge” of bills consolidated into one, which violates the Louisiana Constitution provision that each bill “shall be confined to one object.”
Judge Michael Caldwell Monday delayed until 1:30 p.m. his decision on whether the new law is constitutional.
“I have gone back and forth on this case,” Caldwell said after reading filings by both sides and hearing arguments Monday on whether legislation making it harder to get teacher tenure and easier to lose it, stripping school board hiring and firing authority and giving it to school system superintendents, and six other changes in school law violates the single object provision.
“I still have not decided where I am right now,” the judge said.
LFT attorney Larry Samuels said the judge’s decision not to issue an immediate ruling “tells us this is a legitimate issue.” Caldwell deciding to wait a day before issuing a ruling “means this is a judge that considers things very carefully.”
Attorney Jimmy Faircloth, representing the Jindal administration and the state, said he was “not really surprised at all” by Caldwell’s decision. “I’m sure he’s being very careful.”
The LFT lawsuit says that at least portions of the law should be thrown out, if not the entire matter.
Samuels said in court, “These are such major ticket items they should have been stand-alone items.” The original goal was to strip teachers of tenure and “this was a calculated way to railroad it through, pure and simple.”
Jamming so many items into one bill “flies in the face of single object,” he said. “The constitution isn’t a set of suggestions. It says, in this case, ‘thou shall have a single object.'”
Faircloth acknowledged that there are several parts to the legislation he says all were related to teacher employment. “Some things are more related than others,” he said.
“The single object rule has not been offended in this instance,” Faircloth said.
He said legislators “knew exactly what they were voting on” and “there wasn’t one single amendment to strip out what a legislator didn’t think they should be voting on.”
Lawmakers opposed to the bill did argue that it had too many objects but in the face of what appeared to be certain approval in the fast-track that the bill was on, no amendments were offered to break it into separate bills.
But Samuels pointed out “the constitution doesn’t say legislators have to object” for something to be ruled unconstitutional.
LFT President Steve Monaghan said after the hearing “Legislators are asking themselves now ‘Why didn’t they?'” try to split the issues. “We know tremendous muscle was applied by the governor’s office”» A steamroll is a steamroll is a steamroll.”
The new law greatly changes the teacher tenure process, making it harder for teachers to earn tenure and easier to lose it. Failing to be rated “highly qualified” under a new teacher evaluation system makes a tenured teacher an “at-will employee,” meaning he can be fired, if a review panel agrees.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” Monaghan said. “We all could have worked together for a better evaluation system, if that was the aim. To attempt what they did, in the manner that they did it was a grievous insult to the process and we think an insult to the constitution.”
Besides the oral arguments, attorneys have presented to the court extensive written arguments on both sides of the issue.
Caldwell said he is taking all of the arguments into consideration in drafting his ruling.
Also included in the LFT complaint that the law includes more than one object are that the legislation changes the contractual relationship between local school boards and their superintendents; strips the authority to hire and fire teachers from school boards and gives it to superintendents; gives superintendents sole authority to determine layoff policies; creates a new section of law regarding how teacher salaries will be determined; and changes due process rights that teachers have under law.
Referring to the reaction from the governor’s office to District Judge Tim Kelley’s ruling last month that using the public school funding formula to fund Act 2, the governor’s voucher bill, was unconstitutional, Monaghan said the LFT would make no comments about the judge, regardless of how he rules.
Jindal’s office issued a statement that Kelley’s ruling was “wrong headed.”