(June 16, 2010) On Tuesday evening, the Senate joined the House of Representatives in surrendering its lawmaking authority to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. By a 23-14 vote, the Senate approved HB 1368 by Rep. Jane Smith (R-Bossier City), the so-called Red Tape Reduction and Local Waiver Empowerment program.
LFT strongly opposed the bill, calling it a "misnamed and misleading" assault on public education and the separation of powers in state government.
The purpose of the bill is to let local superintendents, with school board approval, ask BESE for a waiver of virtually any law or policy governing public education. Class sizes, teacher salary schedules, teacher tenure and many more rules and regulations may be flouted under this law. In a time of budget cutbacks, there is reason to fear that school boards will use the new law to save money at the expense of students, teachers and school employees.
Schools that are in danger of being taken over by the state may forestall that action by applying for waivers and employing one of four prescribed strategies for improvement.
The bill was on the top of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s wish list this year, and the governor pulled out all the stops to get it passed. Not even the 30,000 messages sent by members of the LFT Action Center were enough to counteract the governor’s clout.
One of the 14 senators to oppose the bill, Sen. Buddy Shaw (R-Shreveport), tried to point out the bill’s flaws in a series of amendments.
Passage of the bill means that the legislature has “abdicated its responsibility to make laws,” Sen. Shaw said, noting that it adds up to a “serious constitutional flaw in the separation of powers.”
HB 1368 represents the first time that the legislature has given a policy board the authority to overrule state laws, said Sen. Shaw.
And since the 11-member BESE includes three gubernatorial appointees, the bill means that the Louisiana governor’s office, already one of the most powerful in the nation, will have even more influence.
“Why transfer all this weight over to BESE, which has his (Jindal’s) three appointments?” asked Sen. Shaw. “Let’s hold it within our own branch of government.”
An amendment that would have deleted reference to laws from the bill, making it apply only to policies adopted by BESE, was voted down by the Senate.
In a jab at Gov. Jindal’s presidential aspirations, Sen. Shaw said, “I know that it will sound really good on the campaign trail to say we removed all the red tape from public education.”
However, he added, the law will impose another layer of bureaucratic “red tape” in the approval process that school districts must go through to get the waivers. Sen. Shaw suggested that the name of the bill be changed to the “School Regulation and Waiver Program;” that amendment, too, that was rejected by his colleagues.
One amendment that survived the process allows teachers in to vote on whether or not the waiver will apply in their schools. How much weight that will have remains to be seen. If the choice is between state takeover and a detrimental waiver of state law, teachers may feel they have no real choice in the matter at all.
Voting for the bill were Sens. Chaisson, Erdey, Michot, Alario, Butch Gautreaux, Mount, Amedee, Guillory, Nevers, Appel, Hebert, Quinn, Claitor, Heitmeier, Riser, Crowe, LaFleur, Smith, Donahue, Long, Walsworth, Duplessis and Martiny
“No” votes were registered by Sens. Broome, Jackson, Murray, Chabert, Kostelka, Peterson, Cheek, McPherson, Shaw, Dorsey, Morrell, Thompson, Nick Gautreaux and Morrish.