State District Judge Mike Caldwell, who earlier threw out parts of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s education reform law that limited the authority of local school boards has dealt another crushing blow to the Louisiana’s gonenor’s* overreaching education revamp.
Caldwell had earlier left intact the provision that made it more difficult for teachers to attain job protection via tenure but on Monday agreed with the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and reversed his previous ruling, saying that the entire bill must be declared unconstitutional because too many different items were crammed into it.
In previous court cases, Judge Tim Kelley, Caldwell’s contemporary in the 19th Judicial District which is East Baton Rouge Parish, had struck down the method by which the state, through Jindal’s school voucher program, planned to pay private-school tuition with public funds.
Both Kelley and Caldwell are Republicans and Kelley’s wife served as Jindal’s commissioner of administration during most of his first term.
Prior to those two rulings, a federal judge knocked down the proposed voucher program, saying that it had the potential to disrupt a desegregation consent decree in Tangipahoa and possibly other districts.
Another 19th Judicial District Judge, Republican Tim Morvant, ruled back in January that a 401(k)-style retirement plan for future Louisiana employees was unconstitutional because it had received only a simple majority of legislative votes instead of the required two-thirds vote.
The administration has said in each case that it would appeal and repeated that assertion following Monday’s ruling but all in all, it’s not been a good few months in court for Jindal and his attorney, Jimmy Faircloth.
But at least all those appeals will keep the meter running for Faircloth.
*Gonenor is a hybrid word coined by one of our readers (we only wish we could take credit) that combines the words “gone” and “governor,” which, when combined, implies (correctly) that Gov. Jindal is often absent from the state.
or maybe Govern?no! Jindal… who seems to embody the mindset of “government doesn’t work, government is the problem, so elect us and we’ll prove it.”
Where is our Attorney General during all of this fray? Seems to me that we need to consider a new face in that position. You know, like one that legislators could look to for legal guidance.
Put a half mustache on the gov. and what do you get?
You mean if you put it in the middle? Yep. And the way his part is going more toward the center he kind of looks like Der Fueher.
YAY! Another surge in the war for the teachers and students of Louisiana. Now, how do we take the funding from the executive branch to keep appealing legal cases when the courts declare them unconstitutional? Seems like the money they are spending defending the deformation of the public schools and the abuse of teachers would be much better spent educating the students and paying for real teachers. Maybe it would put a plug in the drain that the experienced teachers are going down through early retirement as well.
Thank goodness *someone* can say no to the little man.
Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in BJ’s office right now just to see the hissy fit?
I’d give money for that…not a lot though.
The arrogance of Bobby Jindal and his underlings is hard to understand. When you are told over and over by authorities made up of your own political party, how can you not be ashamed of your behavior. It’s good to know that he is no longer mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate. Louisiana has caught on and now it seems that the Nation has as well.
I wonder if he will wear the court systems down and win in the end. He doesn’t seem to want to take “NO” for an answer. But Hilter didn’t either and we know what happened to him. I can’t understand why he is so driven, what is it that is pushing him for this power, how many times does he have to fall on his face before he realizes that the people of Louisiana do not want these changes. The marjority of people I know like the neighborhood schools, the schools that are in the community and want to keep a good relationship with their neighbors. It seems Jindal doesn’t have nor never had that type of relationship. maybe he should see a head doctor, cause it looks like he needs one. I can imagine his children will need one when they grow up since we see this on the outside, can you imagine what he’s like behind the walls that hide him every night?
I would love to meet the teacher/principal who terrorized Jindal so thoroughly as a child that he feels the need to vilify and destroy the entire public school system, and the teachers along with it. Teachers are constantly asked to do more with less, and many are pouring at least 1/4 of their paychecks back into their classrooms because they are not provided with materials aligned with the Common Core (required). The new COMPASS teacher evaluation rubric is a joke. High School teachers and Kindergarten students are judged by the same criteria. How many elementary students do you know who are developmentally ready to “run the classroom,” “offer unsolicited suggestions for alternative ways to approach problems,” or “create their own assessments?”