Louisiana Federation of Teachers is the statewide affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). ^[1]  The union represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, and higher education faculty and staff. ^[2]

The Louisiana Federation of Teachers has a long history of unionizing in Louisiana. While the union was chartered with AFT in 1965, prior iterations of the organization date back to 1932. ^[3] In 1974, under the leadership of union activist Nat LaCour, the organization secured the first collective bargaining agreement with a local school district in the Deep South. ^[4]

Finances

Louisiana Federation of Teachers receives contributions through union dues. In 2018 the Baton Rouge local chapters received $2,509,896 in contributions, $1,763,252 from local 80169,^[5] the primary union for the state, as well as $671,754 from Baton Rouge local 1560,^[6] and $73,890 from Baton Rouge local 6529. ^[7] This is only the information available from chapters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Other local chapters in Louisiana receive significant contributions, such as the local union in Metairie, Louisiana, which received $1,504,043 in contributions in 2018. ^[8]

In 2020, Louisiana Federation of Teachers spent $167,101 on organization leadership’s medical and dental insurance, $9,243 on organization leadership’s life insurance, and $141,006 on pension-saving contributions. ^[9]

Policy

Opposition to School Choice

In 2012 Louisiana Federation of Teachers sued the State of Louisiana and Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for carrying out Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 99 (“SCR 99”) and 2012 La. Acts 2. The laws earmarked funding for school voucher programs, subsidizing students attending nonpublic schools. Louisiana Federation of Teachers argued that the bills were unconstitutional because the Louisiana constitution required that all government funding for education be earmarked by the state board of education, not legislatures. ^[10]

Lobbying

Louisiana Federation of Teachers lobbied to pass Senate Bill 31, a statute that would prevent results from statewide student assessments in 2020 and 2021 from being used to evaluate the performance of teachers. ^[11]

Louisiana Federation of Teachers lobbied to pass Senate Bill 298, a statute that would prevent the use of the Value Added Model (VAM) in determining teacher quality assessment scores. ^[12] The VAM is a statistical model that considers students’ capabilities prior to interacting with teachers, accounts for the average amount of growth to be expected over the course of the class, and then measures student capabilities after the class is over. The objective of the VAM is to determine how much value a given teacher adds beyond the average expected value in terms of improvement in student capabilities. ^[13]

Leadership

Larry Carter is the president of Louisiana Federation of Teachers. ^[14] Carter began working in the school system in 1993 and joined a union, United Teachers of New Orleans, the same year. After seven years of teaching, he joined union leadership. ^[15]