Union Leader Criticizes Omission From Tenure Talk

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The leader of the LouisianaAssociation of Educators says the statewide teacher union has been excluded from the Jindal administration's discussions about tweaks to Louisiana'steacher tenure law.

LAE president Debbie Meaux said Friday that leaving her organization out of talks will make it more difficult to reach a compromise with the education community.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has signaled he's willing to make changes to his 2012 law that made it tougher for teachers to reach job protection status and that reworked the process for appealing firing decisions. The law has been challenged in two lawsuits.

Jindal had included one union, the LouisianaFederation of Teachers, in the preliminary talks while leaving out the LAE.

After The Associated Press questioned the omission, the LAE received a call from Jindal's office.