“The last thing our children need at this moment is a bitter feud between the superintendent of education and the organizations that represent teachers and school boards.”
-LFT President Steve Monaghan
(Baton Rouge – August 10, 2009) The state’s largest education organization is asking Governor Bobby Jindal to step in and mediate the ongoing dispute between State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek and some advocates for public education.
“The last thing our children need at this moment is a bitter feud between the superintendent of education and the organizations that represent teachers and school boards,” Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan wrote in a letter to the governor. “It is time for cooler heads to prevail.
In recent weeks, both the Louisiana Association of Educators and the Louisiana School Boards Association have called for Pastorek to be released from his post, citing a lack of trust in the superintendent and a belief that Pastorek’s agenda is antithetical to public education.
Pastorek says he has no intention of leaving, and says that he has the support of the governor and his employers, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The governor, Monaghan said, is the only person with sufficient stature to bring the opposing parties together in a summit aimed at establishing a civil discussion of important issues.
“Such a meeting would obviously not resolve all differences,” Monaghan wrote. “But it would help to create a framework for discussion of those differences.
“There is a grave danger that the current situation could threaten the progress our schools and our children have made. This could make it even more difficult to cooperate in the future,” Monaghan’s letter concludes. “We hope that you will lend your skills and your leadership to this situation.”
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