LFT reports:
(Baton Rouge – January 11, 2012) As expected, John White was appointed State Superintendent of Education today by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Nine members voted to support Gov. Jindal’s hand-picked candidate, while District 3 Member Lottie Beebe voted “no” and District 8 Member Carolyn Hill abstained. Reportedly, both were under heavy political pressure to support the governor’s choice.
The motion to hire White was made by District 6 BESE member Chas Roemer, who also asked that the board waive the requirements that a candidate would normally be expected to meet for the position.
Beebe objected, saying “Credentials and experience do matter. The governor’s nominee lacks a great deal of both in my opinion.”
Beebe introduced a substitute motion, calling for a nationwide search for a qualified candidate to be superintendent. She was unable to muster a second for her motion, however.
Representing the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, Public Relations Director Les Landon criticized the politicization of the process that resulted in White’s appointment.
By accepting the governor’s candidate without considering any other qualified person, Landon said, the process damaged the public perception of BESE, sullied the office of the superintendent, put an unfortunate cloud over the candidate and demoralized the teacher corps.
Landon said BESE should have used its constitutional authority to search out the best candidate for the office, and at least post a “help wanted” ad for the position.
But there were no surprises. As soon as the vote was taken, BESE handed out a press release overflowing with praise for White from Governor Jindal, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Rep. Steve Carter (who will chair the House Education Committee) State Sen. J.P. Morrell, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Superintendents Association President Mike Faulk and others.
Gov. Jindal put out feelers for White’s appointment soon after former Superintendent Paul Pastorek resigned last year, but was unable to garner the eight votes necessary to guarantee the result. In last fall’s election, the governor and his allies heavily supported BESE candidates who pledged to make White’s appointment their first order of business.
Since last May, the 36-year old White has served as superintendent of the state Recovery School District. Prior to that, he was deputy chancellor of the New York City school system. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Virginia, and a master’s degree in public administration from New York University.
He was a Teach for America volunteer, and worked as executive director of Teach for America in Chicago. He also has a certification from the Broad Superintendents Academy, which requires 10 months of weekend training.
White’s annual salary is expected to be $275,000. The rest of his compensation package has not been released.
We have assistant professors at $44,000 who have never received raises.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Oh dear. We are in better shape in Hawaii, at least for the time being. The State Board of Supervisors is holding the line against the loonies and incompetents. Which is not to say that our public school system is all that good, but other entities besides the schools themselves bear responsibility for that.
See the G Bitch on this:
http://gbitchspot.com/gbitchspot/?p=2798
http://gbitchspot.com/gbitchspot/?p=2803
At least you’re not as bad as Arizona which is purifying the state by ending the corrupting influence of the Mexican American studies program two days ago and sending out a list of proscribed books to be removed from all Arizona schools including books from your patron saint, Paulo Freire. They also banned the Tempest by Wm. Shakespeare so he’s in good company. Next they’ll have to rename the Phoenix Post the Volkischer Beobachter Amerika after the Nazi party’s official newspaper and do some proper book burning ceremonies.
God. I didn’t know about the Shakespeare (!) and Freire parts. http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/singleton/
I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been stymied by my inability to understand the conceptual frameworks of the key actors in the current topics being discussed in the States since I assume that these folks are rational and have explicable motivations which inform their actions. What is the mindset of the governing class with respect to education in Arizona?
“In a school district founded by a Mexican-American in which more than 60 percent of the students come from Mexican-American backgrounds, the administration also removed every textbook dealing with Mexican-American history, including “Chicano!: The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement” by Arturo Rosales, which features a biography of longtime Tucson educator Salomon Baldenegro. Other books removed from the school include “500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures,” by Elizabeth Martinez and the textbook “Critical Race Theory” by scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.” (Wordstrike)
The same applies to the University of California. The president of the university, Mark G. Yudof, appointed UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley Jr. to head a system wide overview of protocols and policies for policing protests in the aftermath of the pepper spraying incident with a report date of March in 2012. I’ve already mentioned in a previous comment the appointment of the fatally compromised Bill Bratton to investigate the incident itself. Edley had previously been the chief apologist for illegal torture during the Bush regime including being a member of the Obama transition team who decided against prosecuting members of the Bush team for war crimes and also promoting the continued employment of John Yoo at the university.
“Professor Yoo’s infamous “torture memos” ignored various laws and legal precedents and presented a justification for torture and illegal detention. They stated that in time of war the president as commander-in-chief could ignore international and domestic laws against torture. Yoo created an unprecedented “definition” of torture out of whole cloth that was then used by the Bush regime to torture and kill detainees in the so-called “war on terror.”
John Yoo is morally and legally guilty of all the crimes committed as a result of his legal memos. If the dean continues to protect John Yoo he is not protecting academic freedom, free speech, due process or other ideals, but he is protecting a war criminal. He is sanctioning the crimes of Yoo and others in the Bush regime and sending a clear message to the world that war crimes and other crimes against humanity are okay as long as they are done in the interests of U.S. imperialism. Is this the message that the community wants to come out of Berkeley? “
http://www.firejohnyoo.org/2009/04/post-14.html
The dean`s basic argument for Yoo`s continued employment is that his prior activities in the Bush administration don’t affect his teaching performance. An analogy would be a defence attorney stating, “Yes my client is an admitted serial child abuser but this has no bearing on his ability to work as a public school teacher. “ The administration and faculty at UC have no problem with this appointment. I do. Do you? And can you explain to me their motivations?
All my degrees are from Berkeley and it is a conservative and authoritarian institution. People do not believe me on this because of Mario Savio but note, he was protesting precisely that.
Technically I think Yoo would actually have to be convicted of something for them to fire him. Ditto the serial child abuser – he’d have to actually abuse someone now, and that person would have to pursue the issue, and win, and probably file criminal charges too.
Mentality, I don’t know – they’re not educated, not informed, want the kids to be trained and controlled, etc. (Here in LA there’s a new law whereby university curricula statewide have to be uniform. Faculty and individual institutions are no longer determined competent to design curricula. This is the legislature talking. But the fawning letter the UNO faculty wrote the Regents about another weird law affecting them very negatively was frightening – as it showed both desperation and complicity, IMO.)