Who is planning to run for OPSB?

Every day this looks more like something we need to keep track of.

The vice president of the board that governs the Choice Foundation, a three-school charter network in New Orleans, urged Lusher Charter School teachers last week to vote against forming a union, highlighting long-standing tensions between unions and charter schools.

Lusher is not among the schools run by the Choice Foundation.

Robbie Evans, who also is chief executive officer of the trading company Con-Tech International, said he decried unions in an email to dozens of Lusher teachers because he sees unions as an impediment to charter schools’ progress.

Ha ha the anti union charter school guy works for something called "con-tech." That's almost too good.

Anyway it will be worth watching who is running for the school board this fall (as well as who those candidates' friends are) as we get closer to turning a measure of power back over to that body. Still not sure how much power, though.

What’s made the Peterson bill particularly controversial, though, are the provisions aimed at making sure schools don’t face meddling from board members.

In a way, the bill — the product of long, intense negotiations — creates a new kind of school system. It says explicitly that “the local school board shall not impede the operational autonomy of a charter school under its jurisdiction” in the areas of curriculum, hiring and firing of personnel or collective bargaining, among a raft of others.

The bill also shifts the balance of power in favor of the local superintendent, who can only be removed by a supermajority of the seven-member board.

Well that's one way to put the Superintendent in position to make a lot of money anyway. Maybe we need to keep track of who his friends are too.