An outstanding new colleague of mine, Dr. Wayne Lewis (who blogs here on ed. policy - love to bring on these blogging faculty members!) brought me up to speed on the political fight that is going on in Louisiana right now between the State Superintendent of Schools and, well, just about everyone else. Today we hear that Gov. Jindal is being called in to try to mediate the situation.
First, this is what happens when you put a lawyer, who has not been a teacher, in a position like this. There are lots of lawyers out there that have also been teachers, so next time try one of them.
But, the point here is not lawyers in education positions, or even that the summer heat is flaring tempers in Louisiana, but for last few years I have watched Louisiana repeatedly go out on a limb. Just search Louisiana over there in the search box and see all the wild things that Louisiana was trying. Louisiana, through various political lines, has pushed its teachers pretty far and the byproduct of that kind of rapid change is someone's head on a platter. There is blood in the water now for Paul Pastorek, and he likely won't last much longer. There is always a price to be paid for change, for better or worse.