Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Responds to Ed. Sec. Duncan's Slam over Common Core

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Responds to Ed. Sec. Duncan's Slam over Common Core
Dr. Susan Berry

On Monday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) responded on Twitter to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s criticism of Jindal’s decision to remove his state from the Common Core standards and the PARCC multi-state test consortium.

During his press conference, in which he unilaterally announced the launch of a new “Education Equity” initiative, Duncan took two jabs at Jindal and Louisiana.

Asked by a reporter what Duncan thought about Jindal’s decision to remove his state from the Common Core standards last month, the secretary responded, “Obviously, great teachers are essential to everything we’re trying to do to help students. We think this is essential to moving education forward as a nation.”

“Across the country as we go into the fall, over 40 states are moving forward with higher standards. We think that’s fantastic,” Duncan added. “We think in Louisiana the governor is a little bit isolated there. The state board, the business community, the teachers are all moving forward.”

“Teachers need the support of their statehouses to raise the bar, and, again, having high standards, telling the children the truth about where they are in terms of being truly college and career ready, we think that is absolutely the right thing to do for the nation,” Duncan said.

In addition, Duncan used Louisiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina – all Republican-led states – as examples of places in the nation in which the percentage of teachers rated highly effective is higher in low-poverty, low-minority schools than in high-poverty, high minority schools.

“In Louisiana, the percentage of teachers rated highly effective is 50% higher in low-poverty, low-minority schools than in high-poverty, high-minority schools,” Duncan said.

Jindal responded on Twitter:

In November of last year, a federal judge ruled in favor of the Obama administration, which sued Louisiana over its school choice voucher program, by requiring the state to permit federal oversight of its program, a decision that opened the door to the court’s acceptance of further involvement by the federal government in local school choice policies.

Duncan is launching his Excellent Educators for All Initiative, without the approval of Congress. The endeavor is another social justice program that places children’s race and family income ahead of parental and family stability as main influences of student success.

Under the initiative, states will be required to prove to the federal government that they are ensuring “poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers.”

In addition, Duncan said the program will spend $4.2 million to provide “a new technical assistance network” to provide support to states and districts as they implement their plans to ensure equity in schools.

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