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Only silence from House and Senate Education committees as fraudulent Course Choice registrations spread like kudzu

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on May 23, 2013 | 7 Comments »

The reports of fraudulent registration of students for courses in the Louisiana Department of Education’s (DOE) Course Choice program continue to filter in with more reported signups and solicitations in East Baton Rouge, Calcasieu and Claiborne parishes.

And while State Superintendent of Education John White is certainly culpable in the whole sordid mess, it is significant that only one of 28 legislators who are members of either the Senate or House Education Committees took the opportunity to address two emerging education issues when asked to do so by LouisianaVoice.

We sent emails to each member of the two committees (along with a select few other legislators). We identified ourselves at the outset and said that we had been writing about the leaking of teacher evaluation data by White, which would seem to be in clear violation of Act 54 of the 2010 Legislature.

We also said we were continuing work on the developing story about 1100 students in Caddo and Webster (a story that has since grown to include the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Calcasieu, Claiborne and Bossier) who were signed up for courses by Course Choice providers without either the knowledge or consent of the students signed up or their parents.

Course Choice providers like Fast Start and FastPath are paid one-half of their tuition, which ranges from $700 to $1250 per course, up front with the remaining one-half being paid upon the student’s completion of the course. Course Choice providers are given wide latitude in deciding whether or not a student completes his or her course.

We posed the question of whether or not an investigation should be conducted into how FastPath and Smart Start received students’ names and other personal information in order to sign them up for the courses.

One member, Rep. Rob Shadoin (R-Ruston), responded to our inquiry, saying, “I do not know enough details on these matters to give you a comment. I have general knowledge of what you speak but no specifics. I’m sorry I ain’t much help to you on the subject.”

Might we suggest, Mr. Shadoin, that as a member of the House Education Committee you might wish to bring yourself up to speed on education issues such as these—or resign from the committee?

But at least Shadoin did respond, such as it was.

That was a little better than the deafening silence from the all but one of the other members of the two committees.

State Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) said of the leaking of evaluation data on three Caddo Parish teachers to State Rep. Alan Seabaugh by White, “It would seem that whoever disclosed the information in the DOE in blatant disregard for the statutory protections affording teachers the right to keep certain specific evaluation information from public view is just the latest indication, among many, that those folks (in DOE) have no respect for the rule of law.”

Edwards also was critical of the Course Choice registrations. “The roll-out of Course Choice is proving to be every bit as scandalous and controversial as the roll-out of vouchers: unfit providers offering inferior educational opportunities while aggressively seeking to profit at taxpayer expense and while mal-educating our children and deceiving their parents.”

Here are the responses of the members of the House Education Committee:

• Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge), Chairman: Silence;

• Patrick Jefferson (D-Homer), Vice Chairman: Silence;

• Wesley Bishop (D-New Orleans): Silence;

• Christopher Broadwater (R-Hammond): Silence;

• Henry Burns (R-Haughton): Silence—in fact, deleted our email without reading it;

• Thomas Carmody (R-Shreveport): Silence;

• Simone Champagne (R-Erath): Silence;

• Cameron Henry (R-Metairie): Silence;

• Paul Hollis (R-Covington): Silence;

• Barry Ivey (R-Baton Rouge): Silence;

• Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette): Silence (Readers may remember Landry as the member who attempted to ram through a rule that teachers testifying before the committee in 2012 should be compelled to say whether or not they were on annual or sick leave);

• Edward Price (D-Gonzales): Silence;

• Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux): responded he would have a statement, but never sent it;

• Pat Smith (D-Baton Rouge): Silence;

• Jeff Thompson (R-Bossier City): Silence);

• Alfred Williams (D-Baton Rouge): Silence;

• Ex Officio member House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles): Silence;

• Ex Officio member Walt Leger (D-New Orleans): Silence.

Senate Education Committee members and their responses:

• Conrad Appel (R-Metairie), Chairman: Silence;

• Eric LaFleur (D-Ville Platte), Vice Chairman: Silence;

• Dan Claitor (R-Baton Rouge): Silence;

• Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville): Silence;

• Elbert Guillory (D-Opelousas): Silence;

• Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe—still trying to learn if humans can be grown from high school lab cultures): Silence;

• Mack “Bodi” White (R-Baton Rouge—obviously too busy trying to get his breakaway school zone in South Baton Rouge approved): Silence;

• Interim member Page Cortez (R-Lafayette): Silence.

Nine House Education Committee members—Carter, Ivey, Smith, Alfred Williams, Jefferson, Henry Burns, Carmody, Jeff Thompson and Kleckley— and two Senators—Claitor and White—represent parishes into which these Course Choice providers have already moved to begin registering students and yet they still choose to remain silent on the issue.

Yes, it’s easy to point the finger at the snow cone stand mentality of DOE management by White and Course Choice ramrod Lefty Lefkowith but by their overwhelming silence in this matter, these committee members are every bit as complicit as anyone in the Claiborne Building.

It’s as if these people live in a vacuum. Take the computer-generated response we received from Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia):

“Thank you for contacting Senator Riser regarding your thoughts and concerns. He appreciates hearing from you. He will keep this in mind as they go thru the legislative process.”

Now that’s taking an issue head-on.

Meanwhile, Course Choice peddlers have moved into East Baton Rouge and Calcasieu to sign up students. Two in Calcasieu have been rejected thus far; one was a student signed up for two courses deemed inappropriate for the student’s grade level and another student registered for five courses (at $700 to $1250 each—half up front, remember) was not enrolled at the school the student said he/she was.

Course Choice representatives have begun canvassing neighborhoods in Homer in Claiborne Parish to sign up students and offering them free iPads.

Caddo, Bossier, Webster and Claiborne are all contiguous parishes in northwest Louisiana.

Claiborne Parish school officials have issued public announcements that the local school board has no connection to the Course Choice representatives.

Meanwhile, from the House and Senate Education Committees, to borrow a line from Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence:

Silence Like a Cancer Grows.

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Pylant bill would only guarantee constant revenue stream for shady Course Choice providers already circling like vultures

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on May 22, 2013 | 15 Comments »

There have been ridiculous bills filed in the Louisiana Legislature. In fact, you can just about count on at least two or three each year.

But HB 648 by freshman Rep. Steve Pylant (R-Winnsboro) is the most asinine monument to waste and corruption in decades of wasteful and corrupt legislatures.

Even as LouisianaVoice reveals case after case of more than 1100 bogus registrations for Course Choice courses in three north Louisiana parishes, HB 648 would actually require the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to “adopt rules and regulations that require all public high school students, beginning with those entering ninth grade in the fall of 2014, to successfully complete at least one course offered by a BESE-authorized online or virtual course provider as a prerequisite to graduation.”

In the wake of what has been taking place in Caddo, Bossier and Webster parishes (and more recently in Calcasieu where it has been learned that one student not enrolled in the school listed by the student attempted to sign up for five courses and another signed up for two courses considered inappropriate for the grade level), Pylant ought to do the decent thing and withdraw his bill in the interest of saving himself further embarrassment.

His bill would accomplish precisely one thing: it would encourage even more fraud than has already taken place with course choice providers signing students to courses in those parishes without the knowledge or consent of the students or their parents.

In one case a severe and profound child was signed up for a class and in Bossier Parish, about 40 students did not attend a school in that parish as their applications indicated.

First grade students were signed up for high school Latin and high school English classes and many of the students ostensibly signed up in Bossier were registered for highly technical advanced mathematics classes.

Pylant, the retired sheriff of Franklin Parish, was elected in 2011 to the seat formerly held by Noble Ellington, who retired and was hired at a six-figure salary by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.

Ellington, the former national president of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in fact, contributed $500 of his campaign funds to Pylant in 2011.

Pylant also received more than $13,000 from the Republican Party of Louisiana, the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, and the Republican Legislative Delegation Campaign.

He also received $2500 each from Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign fund and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley’s political action committee, so it’s fairly easy to see where his allegiance lies.

But that is little reason to pass legislation that will only encourage an already serious problem of fly-by-night companies signing up students only for the purpose of qualifying the course provider to receive one-half of its tuition up front—whether or not the student ever turns on his or her computer.

The State of Idaho has already been there, done that, and decided it was a bad idea. Voters in that state easily repealed Idaho’s version of Course Choice—they called it Online Learning—by a whopping 2-1 margin in a statewide referendum last November.

Course Choice easily falls under the heading of “What’s going on here?”

And what’s going on, simply put, is the continued raping of the state treasury—sanctioned by the Jindal administration.

But Pylant’s bill qualifies for “What the heck is he thinking?”

The answer to that question is anyone’s guess.

We only know one thing for certain: it’s a win-win for shady operators and a lose-lose for Louisiana taxpayers.

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Break out the hip waders: Rep. Seabaugh’s surreptitious involvement in VAM ‘fix’ scheme gets deeper and deeper

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on May 13, 2013 | 22 Comments »

More information about the 14-minute telephone conversation between Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White and State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) is emerging that reveals a concerted but complicated effort by White to placate Seabaugh’s demand that evaluation scores be adjusted upward for three teachers at South Highlands Elementary School.

Even as he was attempting to surreptitiously help three teachers in his House district, Seabaugh was trying unsuccessfully to push a bill through this year’s legislature that would have prohibited the payroll deduction of union dues for public employees.

HB-552 was aimed at teachers unions like the Louisiana Federation of Teachers for successfully challenging Gov. Bobby Jindal’s education reform bills of 2012. It was defeated by a single vote with Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) casting the deciding vote.

The information, provided by a source with intimate knowledge of the details of the events, shows that Seabaugh took an active part in trying to implement changes on behalf of the three teachers through repeated contacts with White.

White, in order to appease the lawmaker, soon began talking and messaging within DOE about a “Seabaugh Solution” so openly that Seabaugh apparently felt compelled to tell White that he did not want his named associated with the solution.

The chronology of events was detailed in a two-page document provided LouisianaVoice by the confidential source.

Last Wednesday, LouisianaVoice reported on the 14-minute conversation between Seabaugh and White that was recorded by an employee who White had apparently asked to participate on a speaker phone to answer any questions that Seabaugh might have that White could not address.

Seabaugh is said to have initiated the conversation with White after he was contacted by three of his constituents—teachers at South Highlands Elementary in his Shreveport district. The teachers were unhappy with poor evaluations and Seabaugh attempted to persuade White to try to help those specific individuals. White apparently attempted to accommodate the lawmaker even as he complained to him in that telephone conversation that he felt like a “ping pong ball” being bounced between the governor’s office, Seabaugh and Chas Roemer, President of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Because LouisianaVoice obtained several emails about the Value Added Model (VAM, also known within DOE as Compass) that were written around October of 2012, it was estimated that the telephone conversation between Seabaugh and White occurred around that time. The sequence of events outlined in the latest document reinforces the accuracy of that estimation.

In October of 2012, the source said, a teacher at South Highlands made a data request of DOE in which she wanted to know why she had received an ineffective rating. “A report was produced that showed that her 2011-2012 students’ average scaled score for the content that she teaches declined when compared to those same students’ average scaled score for the previous year.” The document added that “Her students performed worse than other students in the same grade and content in Caddo Parish or the state (as a whole).”

The document said White “began talking (and) messaging about a ‘Seabaugh Solution’ when he was asked about the fix for these teachers.” When people found out about the fix that would accommodate those three teachers, they became angry at Seabaugh and contacted his office (to) make sure he was aware of their ire. “Seabaugh told John White that he did not want his name associated with the solution,” the source said. “White made it clear to his staff that they should not use the term ‘Seabaugh Solution’ anymore.”

The document said many fixes were tried, “but none of them captured all the three South Highlands teachers. “For one teacher, one of her students who was in Mastery in third grade was now in Approaching Basic in her fourth grade class.”

Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Will Sentell apparently heard rumors of the attempt and requested an interview with White, according to the letter to LouisianaVoice. This created the problem for White of how to provide the report to Sentell without it being seen as coming directly from DOE.

“A meeting was held in which (DOE general counsel) Joan Hunt was present,” the document said. “Others at the meeting had copies of the report…and it was obvious to those who read (it) that these three teachers are ineffective teachers.” Those in the meeting “agreed unanimously that these teachers were ineffective but (they) could not come out and say it openly (because of Seabaugh’s involvement in the attempts to adjust their evaluations). Hunt said that her child is gifted and she would not want her child to be in that school with those teachers,” the source said.

As a solution, it was decided to use an intermediary to provide Sentell with the requested report. The intermediary was instructed to say she had obtained the information through a data request from DOE—apparently so that it could not be traced directly back to White. During the interview, White even asked Sentell where he got the report, the document said.

During the course of his interview with Sentell, White confided “in an off-the-record remark” that the three teachers were ineffective and that Seabaugh was “pushing hard” to fix it.

“At the start of the new year (supposedly January 2013), the focus was on finding a fix for these teachers because White had gone around saying that there would be a fix for teachers instructing high achieving students,” the source said. “Several of the fixes (attempted) could not be used because (they) would not cover all three teachers. This indicates how bad those teachers really are.”

“Other fixes were discarded because Hannah Dietsch (Assistant Superintendent overseeing teacher evaluations at $130,000 per year) was afraid they would have ‘messaging’ problems,” the document said, adding that the criteria for the fixes were:

• It had to capture all three teachers;

• It had to be done at the ‘back end’ of the model (in the calculations);

• It had to be simple to message.

The original model has a ceiling built into it that prevents students from being predicted to achieve a score that is higher than the test itself. The highest a student can score in the LEAP/iLEAP is 500. The ceiling is different for each content area. It may be around 485 for English Language Arts (ELA). That would give a teacher a plus-15 for every student who scores a perfect score of 500 on the test.

When coming up with the numerous fixes, the letter said it was suggested to White that if a student scored 485, that teacher would automatically get a plus-15 instead of a zero. If a student scored 490, that teacher would automatically get a plus-15 for that student instead of a plus-10.

“White did not like that suggestion and ‘chewed off the ass’ of the person who suggested it,” the source said. That was the part in the (recording) where one employee whispered to another about a suggested fix that White did not like—but later agreed to in his telephone conversation with Seabaugh.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables on May 8, 2013 | 6 Comments »

“I think we can get it past BESE (the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education). I may ask your help on that but I think we can get it past BESE.”

“The assumption on the board (BESE) is that I’m just doing the governor’s bidding on some favor that he’s cashing in on.”

“I didn’t want to open the formula up to such scrutiny…”

“I can get it corrected. I want to make sure it’s possible without publicly (unintelligible).”

—Comments made by Superintendent of Education John White in a 14-minute telephone conversation with State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport). White, in the course of that conversation, acquiesced to Seabaugh’s wishes that the Department of Education’s (DOE) Value Added Model (VAM) for teacher evaluation should be “tweaked” after White admitted that he “should have given the (VAM) procedure more thought.”

“I want minimal impact and an ability to bury it…”

—White, giving instructions to begin the “tweaking” process to a DOE employee immediately following the phone call with Seabaugh.

“I suggested (to White) that we tweak this model and it doesn’t have to be policy and he chewed my ass out.”

—The employee, to a co-worker following the telephone conversation between White and Seabaugh.

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White, Seabaugh conversation reveals agreement to ‘tweak’ DOE’s VAM plan; White whines about his ‘ping pong’ status

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on May 8, 2013 | 18 Comments »

A 14-minute telephone conversation that was recorded by an employee of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) has revealed a plan hatched between State Superintendent John White and State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) to “tweak” DOE’s Value Added Model (VAM) teacher evaluation plan in a way to keep changes from being public or necessitating policy change with the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

The date of the recorded conversation is unclear but a flurry of emails within DOE in mid-October of 2012 and again in mid-March of this year centered around changes to the VAM plan so the telephone conversation most probably took place a few days prior to the October interoffice communications.

After White agreed to make changes in the VAM—also known at the DOE as Compass—as suggested by Seabaugh, the employee who recorded the conversation over a speaker phone was heard to whisper to a co-worker that White “chewed my ass out” after she had earlier made similar suggestions to tweak VAM.

White is heard opening the dialog by telling Seabaugh, “I truly made a mistake in the way I communicated it. I owe you an apology.” It was unclear what White has communicated to Seabaugh that warranted an apology.

Seabaugh is heard telling White that Brigitte Nieland a vice president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) sent Seabaugh a lengthy email “telling me how horrible I was because of this whole thing of exempting some teachers and not others.”

Nieland is vice president of Workforce Development and Research for LABI as well as director of the Education and Workforce Development Council.

He told White that LABI had been prepared to go to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and campaign against the proposal. “I don’t love LABI,” he said. “They endorsed my opponent the first two times I ran so I will never change a position I have because LABI is on the other side. But in this particular case I don’t think it’s necessary to fight.”

Seabaugh’s complaint was apparently that if a student’s score dropped from, say a target score of 430 to 420, he should not be given a score of minus 10 but simply a zero so long as his newer score kept him in either Advanced or Mastery classification. That way, said Seabaugh, “It won’t count against the teacher if he went back a little.”

Seabaugh said he was not trying to exempt anyone from the VAM evaluation, “just tweaking the way you calculate the numbers. Why not, if you stay within the top two categories, you just get a zero. You’re not doing away with the system…and you’re not exempting anyone or creating some kind of other category.”

At one point White suggested creating a policy that keeps data but does not always use the data in the evaluation.

“I don’t believe you can get it past BESE, so why not write it in such a way as we can get it passed?” Seabaugh responded.

“I’m going to feel out the board on that,” White said. “I think we can get it past BESE. I may ask your help on that but I think we can get it past BESE.”

Further into the conversation, White expressed exasperation at being a go-between. “There’s a disconnect,” he said. “To be honest, I’m a messenger between you, Chas (BESE President Chas Roemer) and the board. All the while, the governor’s office is saying, ‘Trust me, trust me, trust me. You gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this.’ And I get it. But people have a helluva lot harder time believing me that there’s a real issue than they do out of the governor’s office of from you. I’m a little concerned about playing ping pong. The assumption on the board (BESE) is that I’m just doing the governor’s bidding on some favor that he’s cashing in on. I don’t want to be crass about it; I’ll stand up for it and I have. But I think it might take a little bit more than me to try and convince them it’s the right policy because they’re being hit on the other side pretty hard.”

Seabaugh brought the conversation back to tweaking the VAM so as not to penalize teachers for student’s shortcomings. “If you fall but stay within your category, call it a zero. But if you improve, count it as a plus—give teachers credit for success but not giving negative marks for failures.”

“If we did it within the formula, we could establish some type criteria within a reasonable number,” White replied.

“Tweaking the formula was my initial suggestion,” Seabaugh agreed, “not addressing it legislatively.”

“I didn’t want to open the formula up to such scrutiny (unintelligible),” White said.

“I don’t care how you fix it,” Seabaugh said, adding that teachers had been calling his office and sending him emails and that they were “absolutely livid.”

“I wish I had given the procedure more thought,” White said. “I can get it corrected. I want to make sure it’s possible without publicly (unintelligible). I’ll take the consequences. If there’s any cover I can get you with the teachers, I’m happy to do it. This strikes me as a way out of all these boxes without (unintelligible).”

“That sounds like a good solution,” Seabaugh said as the two ended their conversation.

The recorder was left on after the conversation ended and the staff member, a female employee who White had on a third line to answer questions whispered to a co-worker, “I suggested that we tweak this model and it doesn’t have to be policy and he (White) chewed my ass out. Are you freaking kidding me?”

The conversation between the two staffers was interrupted when White called. “I think he has created an out for us that I’d not totally focused on before,” he told the employee. “I hate to do it, but I need all hands on deck on this. I want minimal impact and an ability to bury it without…yeah, that’s the way to do it.”

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Supreme Court squelches voucher funding; how are those course choice providers gonna ‘sell’ the free classes now?

Posted in BESE, Courts, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Vouchers on May 7, 2013 | 14 Comments »

Tuesday’s ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court that taking money from the state’s Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) is unconstitutional has thrown a monkey wrench into the plans by the Jindal administration to suck state funding from local school districts to pay for vouchers for private and virtual schools.

The ruling, by a convincing 6-1 majority, also may send more than 40 course providers in the proposed Course Choice program scurrying to find new ways to attract students (read dollars) now that the carrot of free admission may have been removed.

Anyone who still believes that the Louisiana Department of Education’s (DOE) Course Choice program is about educating Louisiana’s school children, and not about the money might wish to take a look at three advertisements currently running on Craigslist.

Actually, only one ad is necessary because the three are identical except for the locations of employment—Central Louisiana, Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

Despite a state district court ruling that found the funding method for Course Choice unconstitutional, Gov. Bobby Jindal and Superintendent of Education John White plunged ahead by allowing more than 40 course choice providers to begin marketing campaigns to attract students.

Forty-two course providers were approved to offer some 1500 online, blended and face-to-face courses through the Course Choice program. Providers included K-12, Inc., Florida Virtual School, Sylvan, five public school districts and every public college and university in Louisiana.

That shouldn’t be too difficult considering there is no cost to the student and students get a free iPad, provided White and Jindal can devise some plan to get past that pesky court ruling last Nov. 30 that said Minimum Foundation Program funds could not be taken from local school districts to finance state-approved vouchers.

An online blurb by Evergreen Education Group of Durango, Colo., a private consulting firm, says that as of March 2013, eligible Louisiana students “now have the opportunity to select their own online and face-to-face courses from a wide range of private providers through the Course Choice program.”

“Act 2 (of the 2012 Legislature) presents a shift in direction for virtual schooling in Louisiana, whose Department of Education has offered supplemental online courses through its Louisiana Virtual School (LVS),” the Evergreen posting says.

Another approved provider is SmartStart Virtual Academy (SVA), a division of SmartStart Education of Raleigh, N.C., the organization that placed the Craigslist ads for sales reps for its course choice curriculum.

That’s right; sales reps, not teachers.

You won’t find the word “teachers” anywhere in the ad and the only reference to education is the line that reads: “Help change the landscape of public education in Louisiana.”

Change the landscape. Nothing about improving education. That wasn’t even an afterthought. It’s all about the money.

“…SVA has been authorized to offer FREE (emphasis theirs) courses to high school students in the state of Louisiana for graduation credit.

“SmartStart Virtual Academy is hiring outside sales representatives to sell these FREE courses to high school students and their parents,” it says.

So, how do you sell something that’s free and how does SVA profit from something that’s free?

Because (drum roll, please)…it’s not free. You, the taxpayers of Louisiana were in line to pay for the courses. Local school boards were in line to take a financial hit of $1200 per student that was to have been taken from the local MFP allocation. That’s your tax money, folks.

It was to be a win-win situation, of course, for all those course choice providers because they were to get one-half their tuition up front, no matter whether the student finished or not (and most do not). The remaining 50 percent would be paid upon the student’s successful completion of the course.

And the determination of “successful completion” would have been left entirely to the discretion of the providers, who are not required to keep attendance records.

Until Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling, that is.

“A motivated candidate (sales rep) could easily make $75,000 (or more) within the next six months,” the pie-in-the-sky ad says. “This is not an exaggeration, but rather a realistic target for the right candidate.”

The “right candidates” must have a tablet (iPad, Kindle Fire, etc.) with a data plan (which would be reimbursed after sales quotas are met).

The “right candidates” must be 18 years of age or older and must have reliable transportation so that they might be able to go door-to-door in high-poverty areas and sell parents on the concept of free courses, free internet, and a free iPad for their children.

And, oh yes, the “right candidates” must be able to pass a background check (no felonies within the past seven years). Felony convictions of eight or more years before apparently will be disregarded when hiring such highly skilled professionals.

But now, with Tuesday’s State Supreme Court ruling, Jindal, White, et al, are going to have to find another way to fund these vouchers for virtual schools, etc.

And it’s going to be interesting to see how many “course providers” become “ex-course providers” when they cut and run after seeing the Golden Goose slain by the state high court.

White, ever the loyal Broad Academy and Teach for America alumnus, kept a stiff upper lip in the wake of the ruling which in reality is a devastating setback for the administration.

“On the most important aspect of the law, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of families,” he said in a prepared statement. “The Scholarship Program will continue, and thousands of Louisiana families will continue to have the final say in where to send their children to school.”

“Nearly 93 percent of Scholarship families report that they love their school.”

We can only hope that 93 percent is not representative of the supporters who turned out at one recent rally in support of vouchers. One of the supporters who identified herself as the mother of a voucher student and who was holding a sign of support for the vouchers was in reality a DOE student worker recruited for the purpose of drumming up support for the department.

Yes, Mr. White, the voucher program may well continue. The Supreme Court, after all, did not address the constitutionality of vouchers. That was never the issue; robbing local school districts to pay for the vouchers was the only issue in question and the Supreme Court certainly made its position clear on that.

“We will work with the legislature to find another funding source to keep parents and kids in these schools.”

“Work with the legislature?”

Right now, the legislature does not appear to be in the mood to work with the administration. As one legislator said to Department of Revenue executive counsel Tim Barfield when he complained on Monday that lawmakers left the administration “out of the loop” after coming up with its own tax reform package: “Now you know how we’ve been feeling.”

“Another funding source?”

We know you’re from New York, Mr. White, so we’ll assume that you may not know that down here in the Deep South, we refer to such pseudo-bravado as whistling past the graveyard.

Oh, and by the way, don’t bother trying to blow smoke up our togas. We still remember the brash statements of this administration after the state district court ruling of last November: “A wrong-headed decision.” “We will prevail on appeal.”

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Did John White lean on LPB to get reporter terminated? Follow the money to Course Choice and Iberville Parish

Posted in BESE, Contract, Contracts, Education, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Teague, Vouchers on May 5, 2013 | 13 Comments »

Blind, unquestioning loyalty has long been a prerequisite for serving in the administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Any administrator, of course, expects his appointees to be loyal, and rightfully so. There’s no argument at any level with that basic principle of employment, whether one works for a bicycle shop or the President.

Generally, though, an intelligent CEO will seek candid input from subordinates—even if that input differs from his management philosophy. The free exchange of ideas is, after all, the foundation for growth and progress in any organization.

Except with the Jindal administration.

At least a dozen firings/demotions have documented the belief that if you don’t drink the Jindal Kool-Aid, if you so much as give a flickering thought to dissent, you will be teagued.

Teagued, of course, is the term born of Jindal’s firing of state employees from rank and file workers to state board members to university presidents and cabinet officials and of the demotions of at least four legislators from their committee assignments.

To this point, the firings and demotions have been limited to state employees and legislators.

No longer.

Now there may reason to believe the Jindal retaliation team has reached into the private sector and the perpetrator is none other than Superintendent of Education John White.

The latest victim may be Sue Lincoln, formerly a reporter for Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB), and a veteran of 35-years’ reporting experience.

Lincoln, who lives in Baton Rouge, is careful not to say outright that White had her fired, but the evidence is pretty convincing.

The Southern Education Desk, headquartered in Atlanta, GA., is funded by a multi-million dollar grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and reports on education news from five states—Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana. While Lincoln worked for LPB as a reporter for the Southern Education Desk, her salary was paid from the grant.

It is, or was, a two-year grant administered through Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) and involved eight stations—five National Public Radio and three Public Broadcast System television stations. They included WLPB-TV and WRKF Radio, both Baton Rouge stations.

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) President Chas Roemer feigned surprise and/or ignorance of reports of manipulations of student test scores by the Department of Education (DOE) during a Senate Education Committee hearing last week but the truth is Lincoln first reported on the department’s suppression of data as early as February 12.

It was that report that most probably ended her reporting tenure with LPB and the Southern Education Desk.

The report cited studies by Mercedes Schneider, Ph.D., a teacher in St. Tammany Parish which called into question dramatic jumps of up to 25 points in high school standardized test scores.

Lincoln noted that Herb Bassett, who holds a master’s degree in mathematics and who teaches in LaSalle Parish, also saw major discrepancies in statistics released by DOE. Bassett is the same one who at last week’s Senate Education Committee accused DOE and White of releasing fraudulent data.

It was that data about which Roemer denied any knowledge but promised he’d “look into it.”

Immediately after we posted Roemer’s denial, Schneider emailed LouisianaVoice to say, “I have a document that proves he (Roemer) is lying.”

She promptly followed that email with a copy of a letter she sent to White and BESE members (including Roemer) on Dec. 1, 2012 in which she called attention to what she said was “scoring bias” in the 2012 school performance scores. (We will elaborate more on the contents to that and other documents in subsequent posts as our coverage of this growing story continues.)

White apparently turned up the heat on Lincoln and her bosses in Atlanta in an effort to kill the story.

He first told Lincoln the story was “too complicated for television” and that “Even the New York Times doesn’t have enough ink and paper to do it justice,” Lincoln said. “He accused me of sucking up to Diane Ravitch.” Ravitch is research professor of education at New York University and a leading opponent of current education reform trends.

“He told me to ‘check with people over you to be sure this is the right thing to do,’” Lincoln said

A series of emails between Lincoln and White is even more revealing.

At 1:28 p.m. on Jan. 23, as White prepared for a weekend in New Orleans with his wife (She has never moved to Louisiana from their New York home, which should say something about White’s long-range plans for remaining in Louisiana), Lincoln emailed him:

“John, thank you for your call and the copy of the letter you sent out. After conferring with my editors here and in Atlanta, they want me to go ahead with the story. Please don’t let it affect your evening with your wife, but I will be coming down to N.O. to interview you at 10 tomorrow morning.

“I’ll give you a statement instead,” White tersely replied six minutes later.

As Lincoln delved further into the questionable data, she sought a comment from White who, instead of addressing the apparent problem, went on the attack.

Two days later, at 8:51 a.m. on Jan. 25, Lincoln emailed White: “Due to an electrical fire at LPB Wednesday night (Jan. 23), we were without video-editing capability for the majority of the day Thursday. As a result, the airing of my story on the 2012 SPS (school performance scores) analysis has been pushed back to Feb. 1.

“Because of this delay, I have to ask again—would you consider going on camera to make a statement?”

Four minutes later, at 8:55 a.m., White, apparently not having read Lincoln’s email asking for an on-camera statement, wrote: “Your source knowingly distorts facts in print, but you are using her as a source on the very issue about which she distorts facts.

“This story is pure innuendo and drama—a fiction—under the guise of investigative reporting.”

Then, 19 minutes later, at 9:14, White, sent another email saying, “Sue, take a look at what your source has written here. First she lies about my experience working in schools. But more than that, she goes out of our (sic) way to assert that my administration created this formula regarding graduation rate bonus points and such.”

Finally, at 9:29 a.m., 38 minutes after Lincoln asked him to appear on camera, White responded: “No thanks. If reported accurately, this is a story of a formula and a calculation by way of that formula. The number and the formula can speak for themselves.”

“I can’t say for certain that the story is the reason I’m no longer reporting for the Southern Education Desk,” Lincoln said. The grant is currently under consideration for renewal but LPB informed Lincoln they were “going in a different direction” should the renewal be approved.

WRKF was not a partner in the initial grant, but has asked to become a partner if there is a third year of funding.

“The Southern Education Desk managing editor at GPB was unfailingly supportive of doing investigative stories,” Lincoln says. “And he was insistent that there needed to be a ‘firewall’ between the financial and political concerns of LPB management and what Southern Education Desk reporters covered.”

So why would LPB crater to White’s demands?

First, there is the factor of Course Choice providers. Described by DOE as “an innovative educational program that provides Louisiana students with access to thousands of high-quality academic and career-oriented courses,” the program simply allows practically any provider to offer online courses to students—on the state’s tab. Not only may just about anyone, private or public sector, offer courses, but they also are free to charge just about whatever they want.

Bottom line: there’s big money for Course Choice providers.

One of the approved providers is Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

Follow the money.

Second, LPB has a contract with the Iberville Parish School Board to provide certain curriculum and instruction to the parish system. Elvis Cavalier is the Iberville curriculum director, or Chief Academic Officer. He also serves as Director of Academies, also known as principal of the little-known Math, Science and Arts (MSA) Academy.

Little is known about the school because it flies under the radar. It does not exist for all practical purposes. It is not listed among Louisiana public schools and its student scores are not reported to DOE or to the federal government.

Known informally as a “shadow school,” scores for its 1200 students are spread out among the other public schools in Iberville Parish. This allows Iberville School Superintendent Ed Cancienne to boast—and he does—that Iberville’s performance score “has grown.” He neglects to add that that growth is primarily the result of infused scores from the “non-existent” MSA Academy.

Lincoln said she began investigating that story and her editors at LPB kept telling her to get additional information. “When I’d get that, they’d want more. It kept on that way until I was finally informed there would be no story,” she said.

Follow the money.

“I can’t prove that I was terminated because of pressure or implied threats from White regarding the Course Choice program or because of the shadow school story,” Lincoln said.

“All I can do is connect the dots.”

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Senate Education Committee vote was a foregone conclusion; charges of DOE test data fraud was huge political bombshell

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Recovery School District, RFP, Request for Proposals, RSD, Transparency, Vouchers on May 1, 2013 | 12 Comments »

The vote was a foregone conclusion; the minds were made up long before the Senate Education Committee members cast their votes to kill SB 41 by Sen. Bob Kostelka (R-Monroe).

The vote that killed the bill was anti-climactic at best. The testimony of a band director and self-proclaimed “highly qualified” math teacher, however, provided the bombshell that Superintendent John White and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) would rather you not know.

His testimony evoked memories of Michelle Rhee’s tumultuous reign in Washington, D.C. and of more recent events in Atlanta.

It was purely academic that only two of the eight committee members would vote in favor of sending the bill to make the Louisiana Superintendent of Education position elective again after nearly two decades of having an appointive superintendent.

And one of those two votes in favor—that of Sen. Mike Walsworth (R-West Monroe) was purely for show because (a) he knew the result well in advance, so his vote would not affect the outcome and (b) about 75 percent of those attending the committee meeting were from Ouachita Parish—and they all supported the bill. Walsworth, if nothing else, is at least capable of reading a room.

Walsworth, you may remember, was the senator who last year made a complete ass of himself during a committee hearing on science vs. creationism. A teacher was testifying about how her science students were growing cultures in her classroom when Walsworth asked the stupefyingly inane question of whether the cultures could produce humans.

This is your senator, Ouachita Parish. Be proud.

But enough of Walworth’s political pandering and asinine questions; Herb Bassett of nearby Grayson was the real story because his testimony placed charges on the table that heretofore have only been whispered about in the halls of the Claiborne Building.

Where others within the Department of Education (DOE) have alluded privately to data suppression and manipulation of school performance scores that artificially inflated graduation rates, Bassett, a band director who said he was “highly qualified” to teach math, publicly charged White, BESE and DOE of misrepresenting test scores and then covering up the lie by removing the data from the Louisiana Believes website. “This is data suppression,” Bassett said.

He said he was asked by his principal last October to look into his school’s score so that it could be improved in the future. “My subsequent research revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data suppression,” he said.

“In mid-December, I sent you a report documenting the gross inflation of the high school performance scores. The Department covered up the inflation by intentionally mislabeling an important column of data in the initial public release of the scores.”

Bassett clarified that statement later, saying he sent his findings to all 144 state legislators and every school district superintendent and that he received an acknowledgement from the legislative assistant to Sen. Conrad Appel (R-Metairie), chairman of the committee, that Appel had received his report.

“The data, the Transition Baselines, showed that the GEE (Graduation Exit Exam)—which was being phased out—and the new EOC (End of Course) tests were mis-calibrated by 7.5 points. That’s half a letter grade,” Bassett said. “Had it been correctly labeled, the inflation would have been obvious—at least to me.”

Meanwhile, he said, BESE was given a different version of the scores with the Transition Baselines correctly labeled. “This shows intent to deceive,” he said.

LouisianaVoice has received information from several sources inside DOE that corroborate Bassett’s claim but because of DOE’s refusal to provide requested records, little has been written about the claimed deception.

He later provided LouisianaVoice with a copy of the report that he sent to legislators and local school superintendents. We will be expanding on that report in subsequent posts.

Bassett further cited what he claimed was manipulation of scores.

“At Mr. White’s first BESE meeting as State Superintendent, the department recommended a graduation index formula change. The change ensured that scores would only go up or stay the same. This raised the average score another four points.

“Thanks to the Transition Baselines, the switching to the EOC did not affect the growth scores but this (the graduation index formula change) did. There are at least 20 schools that would not have earned top gains status without it. That’s over $160,000 in those big checks passed out in PR campaigns,” he said in reference to recent teacher bonuses passed out by DOE as performance awards.

“And the graduation rate data set that I used to compute this has been removed from the Louisiana Believes website (the DOE website). That is data suppression.”

Bassett said he made a five-minute video explaining the problems with the 2011 and 2012 DOE reports on the Value Added Model (VAM), also known as COMPASS, the department’s teacher evaluation program. He said the problems he found “clearly contradict DOE’s current claim that VAM is stable. “This inconvenient data have been suppressed,” he said.

He said LEAP and iLEAP data files that contain the actual numbers of students at each achievement level have been removed. “Only percentage data are given,” he said. “Meanwhile, the new School Assessment System will award bonus points based on the number or percent—whichever is greater—of non-proficient students who surpass their VAM targets. This biased system more generously awards points to schools with over 100 non-proficient students. Without the (actual) numbers, we will not know which schools disproportionately benefit from it.

“Most of the data I used are gone from the new website,” he said.

He said that White is asking “that we believe that VAM has miraculously become stable since the reports by its creators have disappeared.”

Though Bassett did not elaborate on the latter point, LouisianaVoice also has received information that the creators of VAM later became concerned at the direction the program was taking and sent several emails expressing that apprehension to superiors who ignored the messages.

BESE president Chas Roemer (R-Baton Rouge) was called to the witness table and asked about Bassett’s charges. Roemer said he had heard nothing about Bassett’s claims, but that he would “look into it.”

It would difficult to imagine that the president of BESE would know nothing of claims of manipulation of data by White and DOE in light of cheating scandals in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. In Atlanta, former superintendent Beverly Hall and several public school staff members were recently indicted in an alleged scheme to cheat on Georgia state tests, including the erasure of students’ incorrect answers and replacing them with correct answers.

A similar scandal brought down the administration of former Washington, D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee, once the national poster child of school reform.

With the negative publicity those two cheating scandals have received, one would think that the president of a state education board would be aware of any hint of a similar event on his watch.

Roemer was asked to look into Bassett’s allegations and to report back to the committee.

If anyone reading this cares to wager that Roemer will ever report back to the committee members, that the committee will ever follow up on Bassett’s embarrassing charges, or that White or BESE will ever take corrective measures, we know several skeptics who will cover the bet—and give you odds.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Public Records, Transparency on April 30, 2013 | 3 Comments »

“We rely on you as legislators to serve our public interests.”

—Brad Ott, Director of Advocates for Louisiana Public Health Care, testifying before the House and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday in favor of the passage of HB 19 by Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) and Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston) which would have removed the deliberative process exemption from the governor’s office, thus giving greater access to public records.

“Deliberative process did not exist before 2009. It has become somewhat of a virus now. We see state agencies marking emails in the subject line as confidential and exempt from public records disclosure due to deliberative process. This is a problem.”

—Robert Travis Scott, President of the Public Affairs Research Council (PAR), speaking in favor of HB 19. The committee killed the bill by a 6-3 vote, a move that will likely encourage even more deliberative process claims by other agencies, thus choking off the public’s access to public records.

“This governor, in an effort at transparency, passed the first real change (in the public records law) in 2009. The deliberative process protects communications between the governor and his staff so that there can be an unfettered, all ideas welcome process.”

—Thomas Enright, executive counsel to Gov. Bobby Jindal, doing what he is paid very well to do: defend his boss.

“The executive counsel’s explanation falls pretty much flat.”

—Sen. Rick Gallot, in response to Enright.

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Sorry Six, the Gutless Gang, (aka House and Governmental Affairs Committee) kills effort to limit deliberative process

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on April 30, 2013 | 20 Comments »

This is going to rankle some folks in the Legislature, but the fact is there are at least six cowards on the House and Governmental Affairs Committee.

That’s how many members of the committee voted against HB 19 by Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) and Sen. Rick Gallot (D-Ruston) on Tuesday.

HB 19 would have removed the deliberative process exemptions from the governor’s office, in effect, ending abuses of the public records privilege that has been extended throughout the executive branch of government and LSU when the original law passed in 2009 specifically limited the privilege to the governor.

But six members of the committee hearing testimony that was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, had feet of clay and did not have the backbone to stand up to a lame duck governor who long ago stopped caring about this state.

The three who voted to send the governor a message included Reps. John Berthelot (R-Gonzales), Jared Brossett (D-New Orleans) and John Schroder (R-Covington).

The six who should bear the stigma of being forced to wear the yellow letter “Y” (with apologies to Nathaniel Hawthorne) emblazoned across the front of their freshly starched shirts are:

• Committee Chair Timothy Burns (R-Mandeville);

• Vice Chair Michael Danahay (D-Sulphur);

• Taylor Barras (R-New Iberia);

• Girod Jackson, III (D-LaPlace);

• Gregory Miller (R-Norco);

• Stephen Pugh (R-Ponchatoula).

Why should we be so upset with the Sorry Six? The Gutless Gang? Because they have just made it even more difficult than ever to obtain public records from state agencies, in effect giving them carte blanche to operate in secrecy as never before. If you thought it difficult to get routine public records in the past, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

One witness testified before the committee that she could not readily obtain something as routine as a copy of state contracts without receiving notification from the Division of Administration (DOA) that a “search” was being conducted for the documents (despite the fact that she requested the contracts by contract number) and that once located they would be reviewed for “privileged and confidential information”—something that does not exist with public contracts; they’re public documents, pure and simple.

Thomas Enright, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive counsel, offered a lame apology for the difficult in obtaining copies of contracts. “I made a note of this,” he said. “There is no reason you should have problems getting a copy of a state contract.”

Really? Wow, what a champion of the people.

But that weak effort at atonement was easily matched by his equally disingenuous attempt at painting his boss as some great emancipator of the public’s right to know. It was easily the most pitiful performance so far this session by a spokesperson for this administration. And that includes Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols’ incredibly naïve utterance that the administration would not tolerate corruption as she was canceling the $184 million CNSI contract with the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH).

As one witness after another cited the administration’s outright contempt for the public’s right—your right—to know what your government is doing with your tax dollars and how those actions might be enriching certain campaign contributors, the committee members went through the motion of pretending to listen and a few even asked perfunctory questions—probably provided them by the governor’s staff, if claims made by at least two other legislators last year are accurate.

But guess what? It didn’t matter. The fix was in from the get-go and HB 19 never had a prayer despite support from the Public Affairs Research Council (PAR), Leaders with Vision, Advocates for Public Health Care, the Baton Rouge Advocate, the Louisiana Press Association, and others.

This is the government you voted for, folks. You send them to Baton Rouge to represent your best interests and they promptly fall in line with the governor’s or some special interest’s agenda, and then legislators and lobbyists adjourn each night to Ruth’s Chris or Sullivan’s steak restaurants. And one way or another, you pick up the tab.

But don’t bother asking for public records on those sojourns. Deliberative process, don’t you know.

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