News

Jindal to teachers: complain away!

by Walter Pierce

Gov. Bobby Jindal has issued an executive order saying teachers can complain about Louisiana's use of the Common Core education standards.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. Bobby Jindal has issued an executive order saying teachers can complain about Louisiana's use of the Common Core education standards.

The Republican governor, an opponent of Common Core, said he put out the order Wednesday after teachers said their criticisms of the standards on social media and in public were stifled by school administrators.

The complaints were reported by The Town Talk newspaper in Alexandria.

Jindal's order says school administrators aren't allowed under state law "to deny a teacher's constitutional freedom of speech."

The Common Core standards are math and English benchmarks adopted by more than 40 states.

Jindal accuses the Obama administration of using Common Core to try to control local education curriculum. But lawmakers and the state education board refused to strip the standards from Louisiana classrooms.