Empowered education – The Wall Street Journal called it a “moon shot.”

The Wall Street Journal called it a “moon shot.” Well, Apollo has landed.

Despite a vocal minority of public school teachers protesting for weeks on the steps of the state capitol, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s ambitious slate of education reforms passed through the state legislature in just 23 days and with bipartisan support.

The bills Jindal has signed into law make significant changes to teacher tenure, charter schools and school vouchers.

Education will become a much more competitive line of work thanks to the new limits placed on teacher tenure and the new hiring and firing authority given to district superintendents. Louisiana and the Baton Rouge region could see the birth of more charter schools with the passing of this new legislation, while more parents of students in failing public schools will be given the opportunity to qualify for state-funded vouchers for enrolling their children in private or parochial schools.

But empowering superintendents and parents to make decisions that can improve the futures of our young people is only a small part of the solution. Teachers need more than to be slapped with new regulations on tenure. They need additional support, too.

Those folks who were shouting on the capitol steps and waving signs are not the enemies; they are our educational work force, the people charged with training the minds of the next generation. And just like their students, they deserve more opportunities to be educated and inspired to develop new skills.

In addition to higher academic standards for education degrees at LSU and other state colleges and increased faculty—something more easily accomplished if Jindal would stop cutting funding to those institutions—Louisiana needs more alternative training programs for future educators; programs like Teach for America, which produced the state’s new superintendent, John White, and has proven it can quickly and effectively recruit and equip top talent to be leaders in the classroom.

Moreover, these new programs need to collaborate with traditional ones to determine best practices, plug any deficiencies either may have and—perhaps most importantly—create incentive programs and performance-based rewards for alums who excel.

Of course, parental involvement is crucial. Studies show a lack of it affects student performance. But it can never be the lone scapegoat for our state’s poor academics. If Louisiana wants better students, it’s going to have to produce better teachers.

For certain, the work is only just beginning that will be necessary to implement these new laws and find the ingenuity to renovate and revitalize how teachers teach and how students learn in Louisiana.

It is going to take much more leadership to follow through on effective change with Jindal’s education reforms than it took to get them signed into law.

Still, the potential impact of the new laws and the legislative success passing them should not be understated. State Rep. Steve Carter, state Sen. Conrad Appel, Jindal’s Chief of Staff Stephen Waguespack and a host of support organizations that lobbied for change deserve to be recognized for the tremendous amount of work put into initiating such major alterations to the way the public education system operates in our state.

This is one small step for Louisiana, but it could mean one giant leap for our children.