Ed Reform in Louisiana. Coming Soon to Your State? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Ed Reform in Louisiana. Coming Soon to Your State? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Ed Reform in Louisiana. Coming Soon to Your State?

by Nancy Flanagan

What has happened down here is the winds have changed
The river rose all day; the river rose all night.
Some people got lost in the flood. Some people got away all right.

Louisiana 1927, Randy Newman

Diane Ravitch's brilliant, must-read blog, Bobby Jindal vs. Public Education, caused me to pull out an e-mail I got from a teacher buddy in Louisiana a few weeks back. My friend is a National Board Certified Teacher, with a long and distinguished career in education. She wasn't invited to Bobby Jindal's education summit--but a Teach for America corps member she's mentoring was, and urged her to attend, saying that she'd learn about the exciting innovations planned for public education in Louisiana.
So my friend took a day away from the classroom and drove up to the Capitol with her mentee. She took notes all day, and sent the following dismayed message:

The Education Summit in Baton Rouge was an invitation-only event for 800 carefully selected people. As we