We’re schoolteachers. We’re right here to tell.

Although it’s been promoted as a elevate, Modification 2 truly guts schooling funding. Many lecturers will see no pay improve. Many will see pay cuts. Constitution-school lecturers like us will see nothing in any respect. Vote NO on Modification 2.

by JADA SMILEY AND COREY BIGGINS
ORLEANS PARISH CHARTER SCHOOL TEACHERS

To push an unpopular agenda, Gov. Jeff Landry is holding teacher-pay hostage. If he really cared in regards to the futures of the following era and lecturers like us amid Louisiana’s rising value of dwelling, he would have included a everlasting pay elevate on this yr’s funds proposal.

As a substitute, he created a entice by tying an current stipend to Constitutional Modification 2 to drive lecturers and our unions into supporting his rewrite of the tax code.

We all know: this isn’t about pay—it’s about gutting schooling funding. To make it worse, he and the modification’s sponsors have insisted on misrepresenting it as a “elevate”. As our college students can inform you, a “elevate’ is a rise in compensation. Modification 2 does the alternative: many lecturers will see no pay improve, many lecturers’ pay can be lower, and constitution faculty lecturers like us will see nothing in any respect. 

It’s no shock that Landry and the legislators and lobbyists behind Modification 2 have tried to mislead the general public on this level. They’re the identical individuals who packaged 109 pages of adjustments into 91 phrases on a poll throughout a March election they knew would have a low voter turnout. Their complete technique has been to attempt to slip this modification by means of, with out the general public understanding their true objectives.

As voters, we should see previous this. Landry could also be making an attempt to make use of us as political pawns to intestine schooling funding. 

As educators, it’s our job to tell. This modification is just not about serving to lecturers—it’s about gutting faculty funding. Don’t fall for the smoke and mirrors. Vote NO on Modification 2. 

Modification 2 is a rip-off

Louisiana legislators may, and may, give lecturers an precise elevate throughout a daily legislative session with out gutting our schooling belief fund. However Modification 2 would liquidate state schooling belief funds that final yr supplied $68 million to schooling for free of charge to taxpayers.

by MATTHEW GREEN
COLLEGE EDUCATION PROFESSOR

I’m a former third grade trainer, present affiliate professor of schooling on the largest trainer preparation program within the state, and I’m voting No on Modification 2 as a result of Louisiana deserves higher. 

As a substitute of completely and sustainably elevating trainer pay, Modification 2 locks in a regressive tax construction that limits state income era, restricts the state’s means to offer providers, and disproportionately forces these in poverty to bear the burden. 

Modification 2 would liquidate Louisiana’s schooling belief funds which have created over $2 billion for schooling funding.

Final yr alone these funds poured over $68 million into our faculties and universities for free of charge to taxpayers. Modification 2’s proponents are promising a trainer pay elevate, however in actuality some lecturers received’t even see the pay bump and can simply substitute pay lecturers had been already getting.  Make no mistake—our legislators may, and may, give lecturers an precise elevate throughout a daily legislative session with out gutting our schooling belief fund. 

Modification 2 cuts early childhood schooling funding, workforce growth funding, and better schooling funding that focuses on selling financial, industrial, enterprise {and professional} growth. These applications are vital to Louisiana thriving and prospering.

At present, Louisiana spends over twice as a lot per capita on prisons than it does on faculties. Louisiana deserves faculties which might be funded at higher charges than our state prisons and we have to inform lawmakers to get their priorities straight. 

As an Affiliate Professor of Schooling on the largest trainer preparation program within the state I get to show future and present educators about methods to enhance schooling of their lecture rooms, faculties, and throughout the state. I inform these future lecturers that Louisiana wants them at their greatest regardless of not getting one of the best from Louisiana in return. Modification 2 would additional hamstring trainer’s means to do their jobs. 

I usually inform those that Louisiana is a poor state by design. Being a poor state begins with the choice of lawmakers about what, and if, they spend money on schooling, housing, healthcare, jobs, and infrastructure, to create the situations underneath which individuals do or don’t thrive. Modification 2 doesn’t simply rob Louisiana of its current, it additionally robs Louisiana of its future. 

Colleges and lecturers are too usually put within the place of getting to reply to the institutional failures of Louisiana – poverty, lack of healthcare, lack of housing, meals insecurity, and lack of jobs and alternatives. Lecturers and faculties face these realities every day. Seventy-one % of public faculty college students in Louisiana are thought of economically deprived. Sure, lecturers deserve higher pay. However lecturers don’t deserve a lower to their assets to do it. 

VOTE NO on Modification 2 on March twenty ninth as a result of Louisiana deserves higher. 

Vote at your native precinct at the moment, Saturday, March 29. Polls can be open from 7 a.m. to eight p.m. Discover your polling location right here.

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