Education

A report  in the Chronicle of Higher Education detailed a letter received by LSU’s Board of Supervisors. A national organization that monitors academic freedom at colleges and universities shook their finger at what they called the mistreatment of faculty at LSU.

At the start of the Louisiana Smart Growth Summit in November, keynote speaker Mitchell J. Silver – who works for the Department of City Planning in Raleigh, North Carolina – gave his audience some constructive criticism:

“Baton Rouge, you’re not keeping your young people. They're leaving," said Silver.

The Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana reported earlier this month that the number of its members retiring from jobs in K-12 education jumped by more than 25 percent last year. The spike came after the legislature passed changes to the way teachers are evaluated, compensated and awarded tenure.  

The retirement system’s figures include people retiring from food service, and other non-classroom jobs. And State Superintendent John White says the figures are misleading.

He says the number of teachers leaving the classroom for any reason – including promotion to administrative positions – has in fact remained steady at around 12 percent over the past three years.

Louisiana State University will end its affiliation with the Truancy Assessment and Service Center because of mid-year budget cuts.

Last year after Cecile Guin, the head of TASC, convinced the Legislature to preserve funding for the program.

TASC intervenes in elementary school students’ lives when it’s reported that they’ve missed school.

The finance chief for the Louisiana Department of Education had a hard time answering questions Friday about alternate plans for funding the 4,900 low-income elementary and secondary students attending private schools.