(AP) – At a Baton Rouge Catholic school with New Orleans’ archbishop looking on, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Wednesday signed sweeping legislation overhauling public education in the state while allowing many parents to send their children to private schools at public expense.
The bills marked what may be the signature achievement of his young second term. Jindal said this may be the most important bill he has signed since becoming governor in 2008.
He and other supporters of the three bills said they will transform education in a state that traditionally lags most of the nation in school performance.
“Ultimately, it will break the cycle of poverty,” Aymond said of the legislation, signed as school children from Redemptorist Elementary School crowded around the governor at a teacher’s desk.
The wide-ranging measures also make major changes to teacher tenure, making it tougher to earn and keep while eliminating seniority protection when teachers are laid off.
The measures also give more hiring and firing power to school principals and superintendents, at the expense of locally elected school boards. The bills make it easier to create charter schools – private schools run with broad autonomy from state and local education officials – such as those that have proliferated in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
The measures open the way for some students to take part in online classes and enable the state to better coordinate a fragmented system of publicly funded prekindergarten and early childhood education programs.
Parents and teachers may notice few immediate changes to the education system in the upcoming 2012-13 school year.
State offficials have estimated as few as 2,000 will take part initially in the voucher program, based on other states’ experience. New charter schools will take at least a year to get through the application and approval process. The earliest a teacher can lose tenure under the new evaluation system is spring 2014.
Jindal pushed the bills through the House and Senate in the early weeks of the legislative session – in daylong committee hearings and floor sessions that sometimes lasted past midnight.
Vehement opposition from teacher unions and others in the education establishment who had long managed to stave off most voucher programs and erosion of teacher protections. They criticized the record speed at which the bills were pushed through in a session that doesn’t end until June. They also accused Jindal of advancing the ideas to boost his conservative credentials nationally.
Aside from calling the measures unfair to teachers, opponents questioned whether the evaluation methods to be used in rating teachers will accurately measure or help improve student performance. The opponents have raised the possibility of lawsuits on a variety of issues, alleging the voucher bill and changes in the role of school boards may violate the state constitution’s provisions on funding and governance of public education.
“Every step of the way, there has been those who have been defending the status quo,” the governor said.
Later, Jindal added: “We are very confident the courts will agree with us.”
Jindal said he chose Redemptorist to sign the bills because the Baton Rouge school will likely be among those accepting the state vouchers and because it has a history of turning out good students.
The voucher bill will let families earning up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level, and whose children attend public schools earning a C, D or F under the state’s accountability program, attend private schools at public expense. The Jindal administration estimates as many as 380,000 children will be eligible for the program and boasts that it is the nation’s largest such program, although it is expected to start slow.
Among the many tasks facing the state Education Department and Superintendent John White in implementing the legislation signed Wednesday will be development of an accountability program. Critics, and even some supporters of the bill, say a plan is needed to make sure students who accept the vouchers actually do better than they would do in their public school.
Also Wednesday, the Senate passed another education bill backed by Jindal. It would give tax rebates to people who donate money to nonprofits that provide students with scholarships to attend private and parochial schools.
The proposal approved Wednesday is aimed at children from lower-income families who attend poorly performing schools – similar to the requirements in the new state voucher program.
The person who donates the money would get a tax rebate off about 95 percent. The House-passed measure by Rep. Kirk Talbot, a Republican from River Ridge, goes back to the House for approval of Senate language changes.
 
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