Nobody can deny the fact that the public school system in Louisiana ranks among the nation’s worst. It’s nothing new, nothing shocking. It’s been that way for many, many years.

Every politician who ever called himself or herself governor of this state has made promises about bringing improvement to the system. Very few have accomplished much. Many have argued that as long as teacher salaries were below those of other states, things would not improve. So over a period of time salaries were raised in an effort to encourage good teachers to stay in the Louisiana public school system or to come here.

Throwing more money into the system has not produced the desired results. Now, the United States of America is getting ready to grant millions and millions of dollars to a number of chosen states in a renewed effort to improve their public school systems. Louisiana is among the favorites to get the largesse, sometimes in April.

In my view for a very long time, there are three highly important ingredients to elevating the state’s public school system. But governors, school boards and even the public have looked the other way, afraid to face up to the truth.

The three elements of a better school system are these: (1) eliminate tenure; (2) employ merit raises instead of across-the-board raises; and (3) figure out a workable teacher evaluation system for teachers and principals.

I would suggest that most teachers, if these were put to referendum, would vote “no”.

Tenure, of course, is essentially a contract. The problem with tenure is that it guarantees a poor teacher a job.

I suspect most teachers prefer the across-the-board pay raises because even if they are not really proficient in their jobs, they still get the raises. Merit raises, on the other hand, mean that some teachers would get raises and some would not, It means that the best teachers would get larger raises than teachers who were not excelling in their work. And there’s the rub.

A lot of teachers fear that under the merit raise plan, they could be discriminated against.

And that’s where my No. 3 provision comes into play — a workable evaluation plan.

I remember years ago then Gov. Buddy Roemer tried a controversial evaluation plan and met all kinds of resistance. His push for education system reform fell victim to teacher associations’ pressure. Maybe it wasn’t a good system; I don’t know that. But until some vast changes take place in our state’s public school system, Louisiana will continue to be counted among the lower achievers nationwide.

Something that seemed to be obvious to me is a way we could do much better without once more trying to reinvent the wheel.

Why haven’t our education system leaders gone to other states which have excellent school systems and import their successful strategies here? That’s a no-brainer. With all of the new committees which seem to get appointed every few years to come up with some answers, why hasn’t a governor or state superintendent of education done that?

It is no disgrace to admit that others are doing a lot better than we are with their tax dollars for public education. There are quiet rumblings across the country even now about tenure elimination and merit raises, although the powerful teacher unions are fighting the movements. Unions aside, I think if our Louisiana political and education leaders would look beyond our state lines and play copycat, it would be a meaningful start at improvement.

Lou Major Sr. is the former CEO and current board member of Wick Communications and a resident of Slidell.