As Scott reported last night, John Bel Edwards has declared war on school choice in this state. His administration has gone so far to weaken the state’s voucher program, depriving poor, mostly black children of a chance to escape their failed government schools.

But Edwards is not done yet. He’s now working to undermine the pro-school choice state Education Secretary John White. White supports “no-nos” to the teachers’ unions JBE is beholden to such as high education standards and charter schools, along with school choice.

The latest attempt by Edwards to undermine White is who he picked to serve on a state education panel. In 2015, the Federal government passed an education law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, which repealed many of the Federal government mandates under No Child Left Behind.

JBE created a panel to draw up how Louisiana will comply with the new law. Who he’s putting on the panel is interesting.

From The Advocate:

Edwards, who differs with White on key education policies, issued an executive order in May creating the 15-member Governor’s Council on the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Panelists named Wednesday includes several members who often disagree with White on key education issues, including Scott Richard, executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association; Debbie Meaux, president of the Louisiana Association of Educators and Debbie Schum, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Principals.

Meaux said last week she expects the advisory panel to make recommendations that differ with those of the superintendent.

Richard has said the state needs to trim the number of tests given students.

How many and which ones could also spark arguments even though reductions of some sort have wide appeal.

Richard said Wednesday he does not see any conflict between the review by the state Department of Education and the advisory council.

He said it makes sense to have more stakeholders tackling an issue “that affects just  about every citizen in Louisiana.”

White said in a text message, “All ideas must be evaluated based on a simple question: will the proposal benefit the children of our state? I look forward to an open dialogue and to learning of any and all proposals that meet that high bar.”

The plan is to attack Louisiana’s education standards. They’ll sell it as reducing the number of tests and some other nonsense. They want to weaken them in order to placate the teachers’ unions.

If they can also attack and weaken John White, that’s even better. That’s what this panel is really all about.