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Reports surface that DOE Superintendent John White is out the door for Washington to further validate Peter Principle

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Recovery School District, RSD, Vouchers on May 22, 2013 | 41 Comments »

In the late ‘60s psychologist Dr. Laurence J. Peter advanced what became known as the Peter Principle which said, in effect, that “In a hierarchically-structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence.”

Put another way: “The cream rises until it sours.”

A good case in point, of course, would be Michael Brown, the notoriously inept head of FEMA, as evidence by his botched effort at coordinating recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Brown had previously served admirably as commissioner of judges for the International Arabian Horse Association but that job hardly prepared him for handling a job of the magnitude of major hurricane recovery efforts.

The same may be said of John White, who despite his abysmal record as Louisiana Superintendent of Education, may soon be promoted to yet a new level of incompetence.

Rumors have persisted for several days now that White would be leaving his post at the end of the current legislative session, which must adjourn by June 6.

Those rumors reached a new pitch on Wednesday with word that White would be headed “for Duncanland” in June.

For those unfamiliar with the Obama cabinet, “Duncanland” would be Washington where Arne Duncan serves as Secretary of Education.

Before joining the Obama administration, Duncan served as chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools whence controversial former Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas came.

White succeeded Vallas as RSD superintendent before being elevated to his current post by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) at the behest of Gov. Bobby Jindal in January of 2012.

BESE President Chas Roemer, contacted about the report that White was headed for Washington, said he had not heard any such report.

In White’s case, the Peter Principle could be traced from White’s minimal classroom experience as a Teach for America alumnus as well as his having attended an academy to train school superintendents whose credentials are questionable at best. That academy, the Eli Broad Academy consists of all of six weekends of classes spread over 10 months.

In recent weeks, White’s tenure has been marred by repeated courtroom setbacks over the funding formula for school vouchers, public records litigation, rejection by the legislature of BESE’s Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) formula for funding public education, and most recently, word of apparent efforts by course providers to fraudulently enroll more than 1100 students in Course Choice online classes that were to be paid for by the state from MFP funds.

It was the use of the MFP funds for that purpose that was ruled unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

BESE member Lottie Beebe of Breaux Bridge, a vocal opponent of both White and Roemer, said she had not heard the latest report though she acknowledged previous rumors of White’s departure.

“He is building a home in Baton Rouge,” she said by email. “If this proves true, he is acknowledging defeat. He will bail before he is fired!”

An email to White went unanswered.

Increasingly, it would appear that the cream may have risen and has now soured.

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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 | 14 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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DOE, already top-heavy with bloated unclassified payroll, to submit layoff plan to Civil Service Commission on Monday

Posted in BESE, Budget, Charters, Civil Service, Education, Governor's Office, Grant, Grants, Layoffs, Recovery School District, RSD on April 28, 2013 | 10 Comments »

The announcement has already gone out in the Department of Education (DOE) and on Monday, an official layoff plan will be presented to the Louisiana Civil Service Commission.

We hope the commissioners will consider the fate of affected employees who have families to support and mortgages, tuition, and car notes to pay before approving the plan in the same routine manner as with recent layoff plans.

That, after all, is the most damning aspect of this entire administration: the fact that human lives are affected adversely in the name of greed, power and ego. They are people who have names and faces. They have human emotions just like the rest of us. They go to work, come home and mow the lawn. They fish on weekends and perhaps coach their kids in softball, baseball and soccer. They sit beside us at church and in the movie theater.

They grew up believing that if they studied hard in school, made good grades, acted as responsible citizens and worked hard at their jobs, they would realize the American dream of a home, a family, and the opportunity for their children to do better than they.

That may be the way it’s turning out for some, but for the most part, state workers today are living with the same fears of insecurity as the rest of us. The administration of Bobby Jindal is doing everything in its power, through a compliant and pitifully weak legislature, to thin the herd, as it were, of the most vulnerable state employees—those with no one to speak on their behalf—by firing thousands of decent, hard-working employees and gutting the retirement of those who remain.

And what about the private citizen, those who do not work for the state? Yes, you have a dog in this hunt, too, whether you know it or not, whether or not you are willing to pull yourself away from Duck Dynasty or American Idol long enough to get involved.

It is your children whose public education is being destroyed before your very eyes. It is their tuition costs that are soaring because Gov. Bobby Jindal, perhaps the weakest—and at the same time, most power hungry and ambitious—governor this state has seen for at least 100 years insists on keeping taxes low for his constituents and corporate entities who contribute heavily to his campaigns. Altogether, tax breaks, exemptions and incentives have been handed to these supporters on a silver platter to the tune of some $5 billion a year in breaks.

It is the state that suffers at Jindal’s bumbling, self-righteous refusals to accept federal Medicaid funds, broadband internet funds, federal funds for a passenger rail line between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and federal funds for early childhood development.

His reason? He doesn’t like to accept federal funds with the strings that are attached. Well, he certainly accepts massive federal funding to pay for hundreds of contracts awarded by DOE when it fits his agenda. He has no problem accepting billions in federal highway funding dollars. And despite his protestations to the contrary, he had no problem accepting federal stimulus money to dole out to local governments at Protestant churches during his first term of office.

By the way, does anyone happen to know the number of churches he has visited since his re-election?

None.

Zero.

Nil.

Nada.

Zilch.

Yea, not one.

He also has had no problem with accepting hurricane relief funds. Of course, he probably would have been ridden out of the state on a rail had he declined those funds at a time they were so desperately needed. But the Road Home Program, run by his appointees, has a less than stellar record in administering hundreds of millions of federal funds as evidenced by a recent audit that found that more than $100 million may have been misspent.

So now we’re looking at a significant layoff at DOE. The notice went out to DOE employees on Friday (that’s when news releases that cast the administration in a bad light are most likely to be issued).

Early word is some three dozen employees will get the axe, to become effective on May 30.

“This layoff is being proposed due to a reduction of state funds of $3.4 million in the Operating Budget for fiscal year 2013-2014.

But wait. They’re trying to save $3.4 million?

A printout of DOE employees reveals a list of fairly hefty salaries of unclassified (appointed) employees in both DOE and the Recovery School District (RSD).

There are 54 employees of DOE and RSD who earn $100,000 or more per year for a total payroll of $6.7 million.

The breakdown shows there are 32 RSD unclassified employees earning a total of $3.66 million and 22 DOE unclassified employees earning $100,000 or more with a total payroll of another $3 million.

And that is just those making more than $100,000. There are 86 who make $90,000 or more in both DOE and RSD and only six of those are classified employees—all in DOE.

Let’s take a look at some of the individuals, their job titles and salaries.

Recovery School District:

• Neeta Boddapati—Administrator, Other Pupil: $95,000;

• Clara Bradford—Clerical Other Special Programs: $95,000;

• Ronald Bordelon—Administrator, Chief Officers: $150,000;

• Edwin Compass—Director: $125,000;

• Nicole Diamantes—Administrator, Other Special Programs: $105,000;

• Patrick Dobard—RSD Superintendent: $225,000;

• Gabriela Fighetti—Administrator, Regular Programs: $117,000;

• James Ford—Administrative Superintendent: $145,000;

• Lona Hankins—Director: $131,000;

• Helen Molpus—Administrative Chief, Officers: $115,000;

• Dana Peterson—Administrative Superintendent: $125,000;

Bear in mind that even with all the high salaries and impressive sounding titles that go with them, the RSD has an abysmal record:

• All 15 direct-run RSD schools were assigned a letter grade of “D” or “F.” compared to only one of the five (20 percent) Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) direct-run schools.

• Of the 42 charter RSD schools, 33 (79 percent) received a “D” or “F” compared to none of the 11 charter schools run by the OPSB.

• Of the 5422 students attending direct-run RSD schools, 100 percent received a “D” or “F.”

• Of the RSD students attending charter schools, 15,040 (76 percent) attend schools with grades of “D” or “F.”

DOE—State Activities:

• Erin Bendily—Deputy Superintendent: $140,000;

• Nicholas Bolt—Fellow: $105,000;

• James Bowman—Director: $148,000;

• Kenneth Bradford—Director: $110,000;

• Hannah Dietsch—Assistant Superintendent: $130,000;

• Howard Drake—Liaison Officer: $160,000;

• Joan Hunt—Executive Counsel: $125,000;

• Gary Jones—Executive Officer: $145,000;

• Kerry Laster—Executive Officer: $155,000;

• David “Lefty” Lefkowith—Director: $146,000;

• Kunjan Narechania—Chief of Staff: $145,000;

• Stephen Osborn—Assistant Superintendent: $125,000;

• Elizabeth Scioneaux—Deputy Superintendent: $132,800;

• Jill Slack—Director: $124,000;

• Gayle Sloan—Liaison Officer: $160,000;

• Melissa Stilley—Liaison Officer: $135,000;

• Francis Touchet—Liaison Officer: $130,000;

• John White—Superintendent: $275,000;

• Heather Cope—Director: $125,000.

If John White sincerely wished to save $3.4 million, he could probably do with fewer liaison officers, directors and “fellows,” whatever that is.

White has deliberately brought in a bevy of highly-paid, appointees whose credentials, like those of Lefkowith, might have little to do with education and more to do with political loyalty.

But then, White was himself brought in by Jindal to do the governor’s bidding—even before his official appointment.

Jindal’s first attempt at installing White was rejected by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and he was not officially appointed superintendent until after a new board took office in January of 2012. But that did not stop White—and Jindal—from moving forward with their agenda.

In December of 2011, with Ollie Tyler ostensibly serving as acting superintendent, personnel changes were in the offing in the department when White announced to the staff members involved in the proposed changes, “Nothing gets done until I say so.”

That’s confidence.

That’s arrogance.

That’s the way things are done in this administration. Disregard of the law has become the order of the day.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Computers, Education, Notable Quotables, Public Records, Recovery School District, RSD, Transparency on April 1, 2013 | 4 Comments »

“The findings relating to RSD’s compliance with applicable laws and regulations should be addressed immediately by management.”

—Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera, in his management letter to Recovery School District (RSD) Superintendent Patrick Dobard in which Purpera noted that a state audit had found that RSD could not account for more than $2.7 million in movable property. It was the sixth consecutive year in which RSD was cited for lax property control and missing or stolen property.

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Six straight years of lousy RSD audits; contracts signed by unauthorized personnel: just another day at White’s DOE

Posted in BESE, Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Recovery School District, RSD on April 1, 2013 | 9 Comments »

Like the muddy waters of the Mississippi River that flow right past the Claiborne Building, operations in the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) just seem to get murkier and murkier and its bureaucracy more and more difficult to navigate.

There is Teach for America (TFA), the cluster of TFA alumni awarded administrative positions in the department and the financial manipulations that go with that program; the controversy over charters and course choice; the ongoing courtroom battles over the funding of vouchers, the questionable appointments of out-of-state commuters, the agreement to feed student personal information into a data bank controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and the ever-daunting challenge of obtaining public records from the department, to name only a few.

Easily the most secretive of any state agency, DOE is supported by a governor who, ironically enough, likes to boast of his administration’s openness and transparency. DOE and Superintendent of Education John White operate with virtual autonomy—mostly because there is no system of checks and balances to ensure that the agency is answerable.

Requests for public records are ignored, The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), with the exception of two members, rubber-stamps anything Jindal and White suggest, be it ripping funding away from local school boards to pay for vouchers to approving applications for course choice (online) programs to burdening the department with costly six-figure positions filled by itinerates with little to no classroom experience.

White recently received his annual performance evaluation from BESE and predictably received high marks from nine of the board’s 11 members. The truth of the matter, however, is that White is woefully ill-qualified to lead even a local school system, much less a statewide system of 700,000 public school students.

Unfortunately, his six-weekend course (spread out over 10 months) at the Eli Broad Superintendents Academy does not qualify him to lead a Cub Scout troop. Yet, Gov. Bobby Jindal considered him more qualified than any other candidate to preside over the demolition of public education in Louisiana.

The Eli Broad Academy, by the way, has come under criticism for turning out superintendents who use corporate-management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of the decision-making process and introduce unproven reform measures.

The latest audit of the Recovery School District is evidence enough of White’s inability to run a statewide system.

The audit, released on March 27, revealed that for the sixth consecutive year, RSD continued to experience problems keeping track of millions of dollars in movable property.

Why does that reflect on White when Patrick Dobard is the RSD superintendent?

Well, for openers, the latest audit is for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012 and White did not become state superintendent until January of 2012.

Prior to that, he was superintendent of the Recovery School District.

The audit says, “For the sixth consecutive year, RSD did not ensure that movable property was safeguarded against loss, including loss arising from unauthorized use and misappropriation. Our review of RSD’s movable property activity disclosed the following:”

• RSD’s annual certification of property inventory, which the Louisiana Property Assistance Agency did not approve, disclosed $26,664,976 in total movable property, which included 1,633 items with a total acquisition cost of $2,738,016 that have been identified as unlocated during the past four-year period. Of the 1,633 unlocated items, 1,380 items were computers or computer-related equipment. The 2012 annual certification also identified 908 items with a total acquisition cost of $1,482,060 (54 percent) as unlocated for the current period.

• RSD reported 10 incidents at six separate schools involving 97 movable property items with an acquisition cost of $73,667 as missing/stolen to the legislative auditor and the local district attorney. Of the 97 movable property items, 70 were computers. Management has represented that seven items with an acquisition cost of $6,118 have been recovered.

• The 10 reported incidents involved computers being stolen from four RSD direct-run schools and one charter school. There was no sign of forced entry in three instances that resulted in a loss of 48 items with an acquisition cost of $20,064. In one instance, 26 Dell laptop computers and 20 Apple I-Pod Nano media devices with an acquisition cost of $17,031 were stolen from an RSD direct-run school’s storage room.

• RSD’s movable property function is hampered by the decentralization of movable property at the various custodians (schools) and a lack of accountability and training of the custodians for RSD property. Failure to safeguard movable property increases the risk that assets may be misreported, lost or stolen. In addition, the year-to-year cost of replacing lost or stolen movable items could reduce the availability of funds (federal or state) for other educational objectives.

• During FY 2012, RSD did not ensure that employee separation dates were accurate or timely. Not recording separation dates accurately and timely could result in overpayments for terminated employees. This is the sixth consecutive year that we have cited RSD for inadequate controls over its payroll process.

White apparently is far more focused on insulating himself with fellow Teach for America (TFA) and Eli Broad Academy alumni by appointing them to top administrative positions.

Take Chief of Staff Kunjan Narechania and Deputy Superintendent Michael Rounds, for instance.

Rounds, like White, is a 2010 alumnus of Eli Broad and was brought in by White as Deputy Superintendent at $170,000 per year.

Rounds resigned his position as Chief Operating Officer for Kansas City Public Schools a year ago following an investigation into bid irregularities involving a $32 million renovation project for Kansas City schools and a month later the contract was cancelled by Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Green (can you say Bruce Greenstein and CNSI?).

And then there is Narechania, a TFA alumnus who, while officially serving as White’s chief of staff, in reality performed functions normally handled only by a deputy or assistant superintendent.

Narechania oversaw all expenditures in the department; no one purchased anything—not a computer, not even a ball point pen without first obtaining authority from Narechania. All assistant superintendents and directors were required to report to her. No one was hired by the department without her stamp of approval—even when no one was quite sure what the new hire would actually be doing. That was evidenced only days before David Lefkowith was hired last June when she emailed White that there needed to be a decision about what to do about Lefkowith. As late as September and December of 2012, she was still signing off on contract amendments, a duty that did not fall within the job description of a chief of staff.

On Sept. 21, she signed off on an amendment to the department’s 15-year, $65.6 million contract with Data Recognition Corp. for administration of the statewide iLEAP testing program. The amendment added three additional years (to June 30, 2015) and $20.96 million to the existing contract.

Beneath her signature was the crossed through printed title “Assistant Superintendent.”

The other contract amendment had the proper title of Chief of Staff beneath her signature that approved a $3.5 million amendment to a $17.5 million contract with Pacific Metrics Corp. for the replenishing of materials for science, social studies and math.

So why didn’t White simply have Narechania confirmed as deputy or assistant superintendent?

One source within the department said it was because when White appeared before the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee for approval of the appointments of several other administrators last June, he knew he could not obtain Narechania’s confirmation because she was already acting as his number two, sighing all personnel paperwork, contracts, etc., on his behalf.

It would have been awkward to explain that to the committee.

That could be the reason he asked BESE to petition the legislature to approve a reorganization of DOE and has proceeded with that reorganization—without either BESE or legislative approval.

The problem, however, is that he has been operating outside the law for more than a year now by allowing her to sign off on personnel matters and on DOE contracts.

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DHH contracts notwithstanding, many Department of Education contracts seem to be flying under the radar

Posted in BESE, Contract, Contracts, Education, Public Records, RSD on March 31, 2013 | 7 Comments »

When it comes to finding ways to waste taxpayer money, the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) appears to own franchise rights.

It’s not enough that Superintendent of Education John White has loaded down the department with top-heavy, six-figure administrative positions filled largely by out-of-state modern-day carpetbaggers—some of whom had to be compelled by state law enforcement authorities to purchase Louisiana license plates for their vehicles.

But a peek at the three contracts totaling nearly $1.6 million awarded to Teach for America (TFA) reveals built-in hidden costs about which White most probably would just as soon the paying public did not know.

A few weeks ago we did a story about TFA’s request for a state allocation of $5 million this year. In that story we revealed that local school districts are required to pay TFA a negotiated fee that ranges from $2,000 to $5,000—and then pay the TFA teachers’ salaries over and above those fees. Louisiana school districts, in addition to the salaries, pay a fee of $3,000 per teacher recruited—unless they are recruited by the Recovery School District (RSD).

Because the RSD is overseen by White and a compliant Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), it is able to be more generous with its fees to TFA—a lot more generous.

Contract No. 718050, a $382,500 TFA contract that began on June 1, 2012 and continues through June 30, 2014, calls for TFA to recruit 40 new first-year teachers for RSD at a fee of $4,500 per teacher, or 50 percent higher than the rate paid by other Louisiana school districts.

But wait. The contract requires the $4,500 per teacher payment not only for the first year, but for the second year as well, or $9,000 per teacher—three times that paid by other school districts.

Moreover, the contract calls for a $4,500 per teacher fee for five second-year teachers, bringing the total fee payment to $382,500

That represents a healthy bump from the fees paid under contract no. 718049, which runs from July 1, 2012, to June 30, 2014 for a contract amount of $234,500. That contract calls for the recruitment fee payment of $3,000 each for 25 first-year teachers and $3,000 each for 26 second-year teachers. Additionally, it calls for a fee of $3,250 each for the second year of those 25 teachers.

And then there is contract no. 717968 in the amount of $968,468 that calls for the recruitment of 520 TFA teachers to work in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, St. James. St. John the Baptist, St. Bernard, Orleans, Plaquemines, East Feliciana, Pointe Coupee, Ascension, Avoyelles, East Carroll, Madison, Tensas, Concordia, St. Helena and RSD.

Besides the potential violation of federal equal employment opportunity laws by giving stated preference to TFA teachers over more qualified applicants holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Plus-30s and Ph.Ds., the contract, which runs from Sept. 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013, contains a rather unusual clause which says:

• “If the contract is 8(g) funded, all provisions of this ownership clause apply except that upon termination or at the completion of 8(g) funding for a project/program, (BESE) may approve a contractor’s (TFA) request to retain equipment purchased with 8(g) funds based on the contractor’s assurance that the equipment will be used for educational enhancement.”

In 1953, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act was passed to regulate offshore leasing and to determine state/federal participation. The act was amended in the late 1970s to give states greater control over offshore activities.

The amendment, numbered 8(g), is what gives coastal states a “fair and equitable” share of the money from offshore development. The 1986 settlement gives Louisiana 27 percent of the money made from the 8(g) area of the continental shelf.

Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment to establish a trust fund for education from the 8(g) funds. The Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund requires that the money be spent for educational purposes.

BESE is constitutionally mandated to allocate funds for any of the following purposes:

• To provide compensation to city or parish school board professional instructional employees;

• To ensure an adequate supply of superior textbooks, library books, equipment and other instructional materials;

• To fund exemplary programs in elementary or secondary schools designed to improve elementary or secondary student academic achievement or vocational-technical skills;

• To fund carefully defined research efforts, including pilot programs, designed to improve elementary or secondary student academic achievement;

• To fund school remediation programs and preschool programs;

• To fund the teaching of foreign languages in elementary and secondary schools;

• To fund an adequate supply of teachers by providing scholarships or stipends to prospective teachers in academic or vocational-technical areas where there is a critical teacher shortage.

Nowhere in those stipulations does it say that BESE or DOE may arbitrarily give contractors educational equipment purchased with 8(g) (read: public) funds. But then, the wording is sufficiently ambiguous. Maybe they can.

Of course, there is that wording that the contractor (TFA) may retain equipment purchased with 8(g) funds in the event its contract with the state is terminated only so long as TFA provides assurances “that the equipment will be used for educational enhancement.” (Emphasis ours.)

But if the TFA contract is cancelled, TFA would no longer be teaching in Louisiana.

So where would equipment purchased with Louisiana funds be used “for educational purposes?”

Mississippi?

Texas?

With this administration and this Superintendent of Education, who knows?

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Louisiana DOE hires top dollar out-of-state appointees who control kids’ education but who’re not registered LA. voters

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Governor's Office, Public Records, RSD, Vouchers on March 13, 2013 | 18 Comments »

Gov. Bobby Jindal was adamant during his campaign for governor about stemming the outflow of Louisiana’s brightest college graduates from the state.

To show his commitment to keeping Louisiana talent at home, he promptly brought in several out-of-staters to fill key roles. Most prominent among those was Paul Vallas of Chicago by way of Philadelphia to head up the Recovery School District (RSD) and then as Vallas’s successor, John White of New York.

Jindal subsequently shoved Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek aside in order to promote White to head up the Department of Education (DOE).

So much for that rosy bit of political rhetoric from Jindal.

Now White himself has brought in a host of non-residents whose job it is to decide how nearly 700,000 public school students in Louisiana will be taught, what they will be taught, where they will be taught, when they will be taught and even who will teach them.

And LouisianaVoice has learned that five of those, including his Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, a Deputy Superintendent, and one who, alternately, has been called “Deputy Superintendent,” “Director,” and “Director of the Office of Portfolio,” are not even registered to vote in Louisiana.

A fifth, Hua T. Liang of New Orleans, is an administrator with the Pride College Preparatory Academy in New Orleans, a former charter taken over by RSD. His salary is $110,000 a year.

Chief of Staff Kunjan Narechania,
http://louisianavoice.com/2013/02/20/doe-emails-reveal-secretive-programs-ties-to-gates-rupert-murdoch-and-fox-news-network-agency-in-general-disarray/
 she of the email to White informing him that Charlotte Danielson of the Danielson Group of Princeton, N.J., was “being a pain again” over DOE’s decision to use only five of 22 components of Danielson’s teacher evaluation system, came to DOE from Chicago but has neither registered to vote here nor has she registered her vehicle, which still carries Illinois plates, in Louisiana, thus depriving the state of vehicle registration fees.

Her qualifications for serving as Chief of Staff to the Louisiana Superintendent of Education at a salary of $145,000 include a stint as Vice President of Design, Teacher Support and Development for Teach for America (TFA), the billion-dollar organization bent on taking over public education nationwide and staffing the nation’s schools with teachers with only five weeks’ summer training.

But, hey! That’s a strong recommendation; John White, after all, came from TFA.

Likewise, Deputy Chief of Staff Nicholas Bolt ($104,000),
http://www.educationpioneers.org/what-we-do/alumnus-bio?cid=0034000000U6gC4AAJ
 an alumnus of Education Pioneers, came from the New York City Department of Education and resides here now, helping to determine the fate of the state’s education system but, like Narechania, has neither registered to vote nor removed his out-of-state tags in favor of a Louisiana plate.

Then there is Michael Rounds, the Deputy Superintendent who is being paid a cool $170,000 a year.
http://louisianavoice.com/2012/11/06/nothing-but-the-best-for-doe-john-white-hires-170000-deputy-central-to-kansas-city-32-million-bid-controversy/
 Like his boss John White, Rounds is a 2010 alumnus of the Eli Broad Superintendents Academy which critics say turns out superintendents who use corporate-management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of the decision-making process and introduce unproven reform measures.

The academy, founded by billionaire businessman Eli Broad, offers a six-weekend (not week, weekend) course spread over 10 months. There are no qualifications that students have any experience in education—just that they have a bachelor’s degree.

Rounds resigned his Kansas City position a year ago following an investigation by a local television station into bid irregularities involving a $32 million renovation project for Kansas City schools—only to turn up as one of the top officials charged with day-to-day decisions impacting our school children. And he doesn’t even vote here.

But Rounds’ prior employment record pales in comparison to the career track our old friend David “Lefty” Lefkowith of Los Angeles.
http://louisianavoice.com/2012/10/10/dave-lefty-lefkowith-more-than-a-motivational-speaker-hes-a-political-operative-looking-for-privatization-dollars/

No one knows precisely what Lefkowith’s actual title is, but he is paid well for whatever it is he does. He is listed as a Director, but also has been identified as a self-proclaimed Deputy Superintendent and Director of the Office of Portfolio. One of his primary responsibilities is to push DOE’s Course Choice program but he has cut a wide swath through the upper tier of political power in the state of Florida.

Working with the now defunct Enron Corp. several years ago, he attempted, along with an associate of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to corner the water marketing rights in the state. Following that, he became a motivational speaker through his company, The Canyon Group.

He went straight from a $35,000 contract with DOE to his new status as employee.

But Lefkowith is not only a non-voter in Louisiana; he doesn’t even choose to live here.

Unlike Deirdre Finn,
http://louisianavoice.com/2012/09/25/education-loading-up-with-badly-needed-pr-types-at-six-figures-meanwhile-charter-school-vultures-are-circling/
 a former deputy chief of staff for Jeb Bush, who works as public relations hack for the department—but from her home in Tallahassee, Florida—at $12,000 per month, Lefkowith does work in Baton Rouge but resides in Los Angeles and commutes back and forth, making some wonder how he affords to do that because, even at his $146,000 salary, commuting each weekend to and from Los Angeles by air is a far cry from the short interstate drive from Gonzales or Denham Springs or U.S. 61 from St. Francisville.

But except for Lefkowith, one still might expect the others to at least register to vote here.

That doesn’t seem to be asking too much considering the fact that these people have waltzed into Baton Rouge to take over one of the two largest state agencies (DHH being the other) so they can dictate the educational fate of our children—and teachers, many of whom have more years of classroom teaching than these carpetbaggers have been living.

The very fact that they have chosen to ignore this very foundation of democracy reveals their character and their motives. This isn’t about the children or education, never has been; it’s about fortunes to be made from public educaton. Rupert Murdoch said it all when he said public educaton was a $500 billion market waiting to be exploited.
http://www.nationofchange.org/rupert-murdoch-us-education-system-1318783996

Still, one would expect that members of an oligarchy would have the decency to at least pretend to be sufficiently civic minded to register to vote in the state they care nothing for but which they’ve taken over by decree.

Yes, one would expect that.

But one would be wrong.

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TFA: seeking $5 million in NGO funding so that it can knock qualified, certified Louisiana education graduates out of jobs

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Recovery School District, Revenue, RSD on March 3, 2013 | 16 Comments »

Budgetary constraints coupled with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s general reluctance to approve non-government organization (NGO) funding requests have resulted in a declining number of requests in each of the past four years—from almost 450 in 2010 to just 90 last year and 80 this year (not counting the obvious $12 trillion joke request from the prankster in Georgia).

But Teach for America (TFA) apparently is not discouraged by the realities of fiscal austerity.

Among those 80 requests for funding by NGOs this year was one from TFA for a $5 million appropriation.

So, why would TFA need a $5 million appropriation from the state?

According to the project summary submitted with its application, the money would apparently be used to provide 550 to 700 teachers and 1,000 alumni who would serve as teachers, leaders and “positive change agents (whatever that is) in the lowest income schools throughout the greater New Orleans and greater Baton Rouge areas, central Louisiana, Acadiana and the Louisiana Delta.”

But wait. LouisianaVoice has come across three state contracts with TFA totaling almost $1.6 million to recruit, train and place 570 TFA teachers in the Delta region of Louisiana and the Recovery School District.

First, such an appropriation would seem to raise the obvious question of potential violations of federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws by awarding contracts for the hiring of specific applicants to the exclusion of other equally or better qualified applicants.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),
http://www.eeoc.gov/
 for example, recently:

• Settled a disability discrimination lawsuit against Dillard’s, Inc., which had forced employees to disclose personal and confidential medical information in order to be approved for health;

• Sued a discount tire store, claiming that the store does not hire women in management positions and other positions because of their gender;

• Sued Texas Roadhouse restaurants for age discrimination because the restaurant did not hire applicants age 40 and older;

• Sued Bass Pro for racial discrimination because the store does not hire African-Americans or Hispanic applicants and for retaliation against employees who complained about discrimination.

Louisiana’s colleges and universities each year turn out about 600 graduates in elementary education alone. These are students who pay increasingly higher tuition to complete a minimum of four years of education and student teaching (longer, if advanced degrees are pursued) in order to become certified teachers to educate our children.

But the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) apparently is willing to dole out $1.6 million to TFA in order to give preferential treatment to 570 individuals whose only qualification is a five-week crash course with no certification.

So who are these 570 TFA teachers (or if you go by the NGO funding application, 500 teachers and 1,000 alumni) “who serve as teachers, leaders and positive change agents” and where are they employed?

A public records request to DOE by LouisianaVoice produced a list of 529 TFA teachers scattered across Louisiana over a three-year period—and not all of those in the “lowest income schools.” Nor was there any way of know how many names on the list provided by DOE are still employed, given the relative short tenure that has become indicative of TFA.

The largest number of TFA teachers (208) was found in various charter schools, followed by East Baton Rouge Parish (83). Some, however, were found in more affluent areas such as Jefferson Parish (19) Zachary (1), West Feliciana Parish (2).

Other school systems and the number of TFA teachers employed included:

• Acadia (1);

• Ascension (22);

• Avoyelles (16);

• City of Baker (9);

• East Feliciana (29);

• Pointe Coupee (20);

• St. Helena (14);

• St. Landry (3);

• Vermilion (1);

• Madison (10);

• Plaquemines (7);

• St. Bernard (32);

• St. James (5);

• St. John the Baptist (13).

TFA’s NGO application summary said that its historical size of operation was 200 teachers and 100 alumni.

But just as described by Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine,
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
 natural disasters or emergencies have opened the doors for takeovers of local governmental entities by for-profit investors.

“…After Hurricane Katrina and with the incredible opportunities for educational change in Louisiana, Teach for America was asked by the state and private philanthropists to grow larger to provide the necessary human pipeline for schools and districts,” TFA’s application summary says.

Incredible opportunities? Human pipeline? Interesting how education has come to be seen in such terms.

“Using millions in national philanthropic dollars, Teach for America grew from 200 teachers and 100 alumni to our current scale.

“This $5 million matches the giving levels of our neighboring state of Mississippi and is in line with the needed funds to continue operating in Louisiana,” it said.

“Teach for America is currently leveraging state funds more than 10 to 1 by raising more than $11 million in private funds for our operations in Louisiana. An increase in state funding allows us to continue this work and allows us to attract even more private donations in the years to come.”

And just how would this $5 million be used?

The proposed budget provided on the application gives the following breakdown of expenditures:

• Contracts: $0;

• Acquisitions: $0;

• Major Repairs: $0;

• Operating Services: $0;

• Other Charges: $0;

• Salaries: $0;

• Professional Services: $5 million.

In describing its public purpose, TFA said it “recruits, selects, trains and supports teachers and leaders for the lowest income schools and school districts in the state of Louisiana and around the country.

“Teach for America is tapping a previously untapped base of talent and attracting America’s top recent graduates to teach in schools that need their support the most,” TFA said in its application. “We are ensuring that these teachers achieve excellent results immediately and are working to channel their energies towards long-term impact within education and within the state of Louisiana.

“Currently our 500 corps members work with nearly 45,000 students in the state of Louisiana. Our 1,000 alumni run schools, continue teaching in classrooms, are setting policy and otherwise influencing the debate for educational change in a positive direction.”

Running schools? Setting policy?

And all this time, we thought the Louisiana Department of Education was doing that

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Notable Quotables

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Charters, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Recovery School District, RSD, Vouchers on November 30, 2012 | 3 Comments »

“There is no question in my mind that this is all part of the ALEC game plan.”

—Bloomfield Hills (Michigan) School Superintendent Ron Glass, discussing four bills now pending before the Michigan Legislature that, if passed, would implement public education “reforms” virtually identical to those now tied up in litigation in Louisiana. Glass said the bills were part of the game plan of the American Legislative Exchange Council which writes “model legislation” for its state lawmaker members to take back home for passage.

“This is not a laissez faire plea to defend the status quo. This is about making sure this tidal wave of untested legislation does not sweep away the valued programs our local community has proudly built into its cherished school system.”

—Glass, in a “call to action” that he sent out to opponents of the four bills.

“The coalition of the status quo have fought reform every step of the way…”

—π-yush Jindal, attempting to be clever in referring to the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education which opposes his education “reform” programs. (Psst! Hey, π-yush: it should be, “The coalition….has fought reform….” Gotta make your subject and verb agree. Didn’t they teach you that at Baton Rouge Magnet and at Brown?)

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Michigan latest to attempt implementation of ALEC-inspired school reform identical to Louisiana’s–even cloning the RSD

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Recovery School District, RSD, Vouchers on November 29, 2012 | 3 Comments »

At the risk of sounding like one of those freaky conspiracists who wear tinfoil hats and insist we never really landed on the moon, recent events in the state of Michigan have a familiar—and ominous—ring.

The creation of the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) in that state is eerily akin to Louisiana’s Recovery School District (RSD) and certainly lends support to the theory that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is behind a national move to turn public schools into for-profit corporate entities with little or no public accountability.

We will return to the Michigan developments presently but first, some background.

The combination of vouchers, charters and computer courses are being promoted by the administration at the expense of public education funding—again, with no accountability built into the so-called “reforms.”

The RSD, which pre-dates the voucher and online courses, for a time was under the leadership void of Paul Vallas, then under equally inept State Superintendent John White and most recently under Patrick Dobard. No matter who heads it up, the RSD has proved a smashing failure and a gaping dark hole into which state revenues seem to vanish.

Vallas, during his tenure, took a state vehicle on personal business to Chicago on more than 30 occasions. On one of those trips, he appeared on a Chicago television station where he announced that he would run for mayor. He never became a candidate and the personal use of the state vehicle for the out-of-state trips was not discovered until he wrecked the vehicle in Chicago.

He also hired cronies from his previous tenures at education departments in Chicago and Philadelphia.

State audits of the RSD have turned up numerous irregularities and there were problems with a private transportation company receiving payment for busing students for the district. The RSD received still another black eye over reports of sexual activity between students at the school, prolonged teacher absences from classrooms (classes reported went unsupervised for weeks at a time) and chargers of attempted bribery. The LDOE official who reported the incidents and his supervisor were summarily fired.

And now comes a report by an outfit called Research on Reforms that reveals that each of the 12 RSD-New Orleans direct-run schools and 38 (79 percent) of the 48 RSD-New Orleans charter schools received 2012 school performance scores (SPS) of “D” or “F.”

The precise definition of a “failing school,” however, has remained in a state of flux since 2005, says the report, entitled Recovery School District in New Orleans: National Model for Reform or District in Academic Crisis.

“The Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) has continuously revised its definition and labels of ‘failing’ schools to the extent that it is difficult to follow the real progress of any school historically,” it said. “It is imperative that the reader visit the historical state legislative actions that resulted in the creation of the RSD-NO and the disenfranchisement of the citizens in New Orleans in order to determine whether or not the RSD has failed in its commitment to public school students in New Orleans.”

And now Jindal’s education reform packages are tied up in state and federal courts.

In Tangipahoa Parish, a federal judge has already ruled against the state in a lawsuit that could be a precursor to legal problems for the entire Jindal education package passed earlier this year by the legislature.

U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle ruled that Acts 1 and 2 of the 2012 legislative session were in violation of a desegregation consent decree currently in effect in Tangipahoa and could have implications for other districts in the state under similar orders.

Lemelle said the acts would “impair or impede” the parish’s ability to comply with federal desegregation laws and that more than 40 other school districts across the state that are under similar agreements could also be affected.

Education Department officials indicated the ruling will be appealed.

On Wednesday of this week, trial kicked off in 19th District Court in Baton Rouge in a lawsuit brought against LDOE by the state’s two largest teacher unions and dozens of local school boards.

The plaintiffs are claiming that Act 2, which created the school voucher system and Senate Concurrent Resolution 99, which is the state’s Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) for funding public education, were unconstitutional.

The argue that the voucher system diverts local funds for purposes for which they were never approved by taxpayers and that the MFP resolution, approved on June 4, the last day of the session, failed to obtained the constitutionally-mandated two-thirds vote because the resolution resulted in a “fiscal impact,” which requires a two-thirds vote.

House Speaker Chuck “the Eunuch” Kleckley (R-Lake Charles) and state attorney Jimmy Faircloth maintain there was no fiscal impact, thus allowing for passage by a simple majority of members present and voting. For the full 105-member House, 53 votes are required for a simple majority. A two-thirds majority would require 70 of 105 votes.

The Legislative Fiscal Office, which is charged with reviewing legislative bills for fiscal impact, disagreed, saying there was a fiscal impact, which reinforced plaintiffs’ arguments.

The resolution passed 51-49, a simple majority of the 100 members present and voting. Sixty-seven votes would have been needed for a two-thirds vote.

There are a couple of interesting twists in the voucher lawsuit in state district court. Faircloth, who is representing the state, contributed $1,000 on Oct. 24 to Judge Kelley’s unsuccessful campaign for the State Supreme Court.

Kelley, meanwhile, is married to Angele Davis, who served as Jindal’s commissioner of administration for the first two and one-half years of his administration.

All of which brings us back to our conspiracy involving the state of Michigan specifically and any number of states in general that either have implemented or are attempting to implement similar programs.

Rob Glass, Superintendent of Bloomfield Hills Schools, it not waiting for the axe to fall; he has issued a call to action to fight pending legislation that would put into place programs strikingly similar to those currently the subject of litigation here in Louisiana.

The legislative proposals in Michigan have prompted critics to ask if that state’s EAA is establishing “a statewide school reform district on the fast track?” That same question is now being raised in Louisiana but unlike Michigan, it is being asked here in hindsight.

The observation Glass made to LouisianaVoice on Thursday is even more to the point: “There is no question in my mind that this is all part of the ALEC game plan. What we’re seeing in Michigan either has been played out or is being played out in other states and the proposals in all the states are identical,” he said.

The demographic profile of Bloomfield Hills is in stark contrast to that of New Orleans and most of Louisiana.

Bloomfield Hills is a city located in the heart of metro Detroit’s affluent northern suburbs in Oakland County. Located 20 miles northwest of downtown Detroit, the city, with a population of less than 4,000, has consistently ranked as one of the five wealthiest cities in the U.S. with comparable populations. Its median family income in excess of $200,000 per year is the highest of any city outside California, Florida or Virginia.

“If we do not take immediate action, I believe great damage will be done to public education, including our school system,” Glass said in his Nov. 28 call to action. “We have just three weeks to take action before it’s too late,” he said of four bills pending in the current legislative session in Michigan.

The bills are:

• House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358 would expand the EAA, presently consisting of 15 Detroit schools, to a statewide system overseen by a chancellor appointed by the governor and which would function outside the authority of the State Board of Education of state school superintendent. “These schools are exempt from the same laws and quality measures of community-governed public schools,” Glass said. “The EAA can seize unused school buildings (built and financed by local taxpayers) and force sale or lease to charter, non-public or EAA schools.”

• House Bill 5923 would create several new forms of charter and online schools with no limit on the number, many of which would be created by EAA. “Public schools are not allowed to create these new schools unless they charter them,” Glass said. “Selective enrollment/dis-enrollment policies will likely lead to greater segregation in our public schools. This bill creates new schools without changing the overall funding available, further diluting resources for community-governed public schools.”

• Senate Bill 620 known as the “Parent Trigger” bill, this would allow the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools to be converted to a charter school while allowing parents or teachers to petition for the desired reform model. “This bill…disenfranchises voters, ends their local control and unconstitutionally hands taxpayer-owned property over to for-profit companies,” he said. “Characterized as parent-empowerment, this bill does little to develop deep, community-wide parent engagement and organization.”

Glass said he has never considered himself a conspiracy theorist—until now. “This package of bills is the latest in a year-long barrage of ideologically-driven bills designed to weaken and defund locally-controlled public education, handing scarce taxpayer dollars over to for-profit entities operating under a different set of rules,” he said. “I believe this is fundamentally wrong.”

He said that he, State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan and State Board of Education President John Austin, along with the Detroit Free Press, have expressed various concerns about the bills.

“This is not a laissez faire plea to defend the status quo (a favorite accusation leveled at educators by Jindal). This is about making sure this tidal wave of untested legislation does not sweep away the valued programs our local community has proudly built into its cherished school system,” Glass said.

A familiar and ominous ring indeed…

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