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Archive for December, 2011

A challenge to all public officials, especially BESE members

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on December 8, 2011| 7 Comments »

At the risk of great personal embarrassment to myself (as if that would be a precedent), I would like to issue a challenge to Gov. Jindal, each of his cabinet members, every other statewide elected official (including the congressional delegation), each member of the legislature, and especially to each member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, school board members from all 64 parishes, and members of the Louisiana Board of Regents for Higher Education.

I do not make this challenge lightly and the stakes for the participants are quite high.

There is a story making the rounds about Rick Roach, a school board member in Orange County, Florida, and he is the inspiration for this proposal.

Roach holds two master’s degrees—one in education and a second in educational psychology and after learning that only 39 percent of his district’s 10th graders were reading at grade level, he decided to take the Florida standardized test in math and reading for 10th graders.

He bombed, getting 10 of 60 questions correct on the math portion of the test and getting a D in reading.

He took the risk, he said, because thousands of Florida students with grade point averages (GPA) of 3.0 or higher (on a scale of 4.0) are denied high school diplomas because they fail at least one portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Last year, he said, 41,000 kids were denied diplomas across the state, including about 70 in his district.

It wasn’t easy for him to even take the test because Florida law allows the FCAT to be taken only by students—a great way to hold students and teachers accountable while at the same time avoiding any accountability for the contents and effectiveness of the test itself.

Can you say, “level playing field?”

Roach did manage to take the test after first having to overcome the Florida bureaucracy. “I won’t beat around the bush,” he said. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess 10 out of the 60.” He got 62 percent on the reading test. “In our system,” he said, “that’s a ‘D,’ and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.

“I have a bachelor of science degree, two master’s degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate,” he added with more than a little irony.”

Louisiana is in the process of implementing Act 54 of 2010, a complex grading system for one-third of all teachers, principals and schools districts that incorporates language that does more to confuse the issue of teacher evaluation than clarify it. Here is a sample of the act’s verbiage:

“By the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, fifty percent of such evaluations shall be based on evidence of growth in student achievement using a value-added assessment model (standardized test scores) as determined by (BESE) for grade levels and subjects for which value-added data is (sic) available. For grades levels and subjects for which value-added data is (sic) not available and for personnel for whom value-added data is (for crying out loud, at least I can comprehend that much of the reading test: it should be data are!), the board shall establish measures of student growth. The model shall take into account important student factors, including but not limited to, special education, eligibility for free or reduced price meals, student attendance, and student discipline.”

Act 54 goes on to say, “Any teacher or administrator who fails to meet the standard of performance with regard to effectiveness shall be placed in an intensive assistance program designed to address the complexity of the teacher’s deficiencies and shall be formally re-evaluated.”

There’s more of this same gooney-babble but you get the idea: Teachers in Louisiana’s public schools will be evaluated in large part on the basis of students’ standardized test scores.

Can you say, “Oh come let us teach the test?”

After failing his test, Roach said, “If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th-grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.

“It certainly would be nice to see more policymakers taking the tests that they say are so perfect to assess what students are learning and how well teachers are teaching,” he added.

So, with that in mind, and with apologies to my cousin Jeff Foxworthy (actually, it is his wife who is my cousin), I would like to challenge the aforementioned public officials to prove that they are smarter than an eighth-grader. And to put my money where my mouth is, I will also volunteer to take the Louisiana eighth-grade LEAP test in the same room, at the same time, as any public official who will take my dare. I’m certain we can secure a room of sufficient size in the Claiborne Building that houses the Department of Education.

Before this goes any further, however, let’s consider some sample questions on the eighth-grade LEAP test.

English Language Arts:

• Writing—Students write a composition in response to a writing topic. Each composition is scored in two dimensions that address top development: composing and style/audience awareness. The composing dimension measures the degree to which the composition exhibits focus on a central idea, support and elaboration of the idea, organization and unity of purpose. Features of the style/audience awareness include selection of vocabulary (diction or word choice), stylistic techniques, sentence variety and tone and voice (or personality that shows in writing);

• Reading and Responding—composed of four reading passages: excerpts from novels or stories, articles from textbooks, poems and other materials appropriate for grade eight. Each reading passage is the source for four or six multiple-choice items and two short-answer items;

• Using information resources—this includes tables of contents, indexes, bibliographies, other reference sources, graphic organizers and articles;

• Proofreading.

Mathematics (This is where it gets dicey):

• Darla took a trip to her aunt’s house. Her average speed was approximately 45 miles per hour. The one-way trip took 40 minutes. How many miles did Darla drive to get to her aunt’s house? Be sure to show your work.

• On the return trip, there was heavy traffic and Darla could only drive approximately 20 miles per hour for the first 15 minutes of the trip. How fast did she have to drive, in miles per hour, for the remainder of the return trip for her driving time to be equal to 40 minutes? Be sure to show your work.

Science:

• Accompanying an illustration of nine phases of the moon are these questions: How long does it take for all the phases shown to take place? Explain why the moon looks different at different times.

• Accompanying a drawing of a light bulb and a battery are the questions: How does the form of energy change when energy moves from the battery through the wire to the light bulb? What two forms of energy are produced by the light bulb?

Finally, there is the Social Studies section and this could be really embarrassing:

• Write the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States;

• Explain why the delegates felt that it was necessary to write a constitution in 1787;

• Describe one important issue that caused disagreement at the convention;

• Explain in detail how the delegates reached a compromise to resolve this issue;

• A requirement for becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen is: (A) having been born in the U.S. (B) taking an oath of allegiance to the U.S. (C) singing the national anthem, or (D) reciting the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

With that in mind, here is my proposition:

• Any member of BESE or any parish school board who takes and fails to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test must resign immediately.

• Any legislator who fails to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test will be given a second chance—at the fourth-grade LEAP test. Should they fail to score 75 percent on that, they, too, must resign.

• All statewide elected officials who take and fails to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test must appear on statewide television to apologize to Louisiana voters for being as dumb as a can of hair.

• If I take and fail to score 75 percent on the eighth-grade LEAP test, I will buy lunch at a restaurant of my choosing that does not have a drive-through window for every statewide elected official and/or state cabinet head who takes and scores 75 percent or higher on the eighth-grade LEAP test.

Any takers?

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Ethics, Notable Quotables on December 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

“I raise about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

–Texas Gov. Rick Perry responding to Michelle Bachmann’s charge that he received a $5,000 contribution from drug manufacturer Merck and that Perry mandated that a Merck-made drug be used to vaccine every Texas schoolgirl against cervical cancer.

“I think Rick has got a great record to run on, a great story to tell.”

–Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, in voicing his endorsement of Perry’s run for the Republican presidential nomination.

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Jindal on fool’s mission riding Perry’s frayed coattails

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office on December 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—In light of all the claims of political savvy bestowed upon Gov. Bobby Jindal, one has to wonder at his continued devotion to Texas Gov. Rick (“I only open my mouth to change feet”) Perry.

Jindal’s office announced on Tuesday that Jindal was off and running on yet another out-of-state fundraiser. This one, however, was not for his own re-election but for the presidential campaign of Perry whose numbers, to borrow a phrase from Dan Rather (who probably stole it from someone else), have sunk “lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.”

Jindal made the tactical error of throwing his support to Perry far too early and now he is stuck with his decision. Of course it could be just plain old loyalty, a commodity so rare in politics. Perhaps that is why he traveled this week to Houston and Corpus Christi and pledged to go on to Iowa with Perry.

But when Jindal made his commitment to Perry, the Texas governor was riding high in the polls. He had just formally announced his candidacy and was the early odds-on favorite in an unimpressive Republican field that grows more unimpressive with each passing day. The problem for Jindal at that stage was that Perry had yet to participate in one of the endless succession of Republican debates.

Perry has shown himself to be the lightest of lightweights among all the GOP candidates, trailing Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul and barely edging out Michele Bachmann (remember her giving a shout out “Happy Birthday” to Elvis in South Carolina on the Aug. 16 anniversary of his death?)

To illustrate just how bad it really is for Perry, consider this: On Tuesday, a Rasmussen poll indicated that a “generic Republican candidate” holds an eight-point advantage over President Obama. That same poll, however, shows that Obama would beat Perry head-to-head by a 46-34 percent margin.

Jindal, nevertheless, doggedly sticks to his guns. “Bottom line is, I think Rick has got a great record to run on, a great story to tell,” he said, adding, “We’re not going to have the best debater, the most polished speaker.”

Well, he should know about that. Remember his GOP response to Obama’s State of the Union speech in February of 2009? Republicans and Democrats alike panned that performance, calling it “amateurish” and “laughable.” His performance even prompted one viewer, admittedly a Democrat, to say he’d pay a lot of money “to be back watching a (Sarah) Palin speech.”

Bachmann once pointed out that Perry’s former chief of staff was a lobbyist for the drug maker Merck at the time that Perry signed an executive order in 2007 mandating that Texas schoolgirls receive a vaccine against HPV, the virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. The vaccine that Perry ordered used was one that only Merck produced.

Bachmann’s charge prompted an indignant response from Perry: “…it was a $5,000 contribution that I received from them. I raise about $30 million and if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.”

That ill-advised outburst seemed to imply that Perry, who has presided over a well-oiled pay-to-play system in Texas and, like our own Gov. Jindal, has shrouded his office in a cloak of secrecy, has a much higher price tag on his influence.

Like maybe $28,500. That is the actual amount of contributions from Merck’s political action committee to Perry between 2002 and 2010.

Records show that Merck made contributions to Jindal’s congressional campaign of $1,500 on June 29, 2005, and $1,000 on June 27; 2006, and contributions of $3,000 on Nov. 1, 2007, and $1,000 on Oct. 8, 2008, to his gubernatorial campaign.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Business, Economy, Governor's Office, Jobs, Notable Quotables, Transparency on December 6, 2011| 1 Comment »

“The bottom line is that Louisiana has become one of the best places in the country for businesses to create jobs…but we will not rest until Louisiana is the number-one place in the world for businesses to create jobs for our people.”

–Gov. Bobby Jindal, announcing new rating for Louisiana business climate on November 1, 2011.

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A business climate survey that Jindal won’t be talking about

Posted in Business, Economy, Governor's Office, Health Care, Transparency on December 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It’s no big secret that Gov. Bobby Jindal is not above skewing statistics in order to achieve the results he needs to put him and his administration in the most favorable light.

To that end, he is a gifted spinmeister. For evidence of that, one need look no further than his recent campaign ads that so inflated the number of jobs created by his administration that the numbers became laughable.

If you are prone to listening to his self-promoting braying, you would swear that Louisiana is some kind of utopia for education, bond ratings, accountability, ethics, transparency, and business rankings. Maybe even for curing the heartbreak of psoriasis.

For the correct answer, however, you would need to check the box marked None of the Above.

While it is true that the state’s bond rating was upgraded from AA- to AA back in May, all it did was move the state into a tie for 26th place—a position shared by 19 other states. Because of the cluster of 19 states tied for 26th, the next spot on the rankings ladder was 46th—or in a 19-way tie for fifth-lowest rating. (Jindal’s PR machine would no doubt insist that the state improved its bond rating 20 places in one quantum leap but in reality, it was an advancement of only one place.)

Eleven states were tied for first with AAA ratings. Among those eleven were four southern states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

An internet research company, 24/7 Wall Street, has published its survey of the “Best and Worst Run States in America,” and Louisiana was listed as the fifth-worst state, ranking ahead of only Michigan, Arizona, California and Kentucky.

Among the factors considered in ranking the states, 24/7 Wall Street took into account the state’s $7,098 debt per capita (24th), its unemployment rate of 7.6 percent (31st) and median household income of $42,492 (41st).

The report noted that Louisiana ranks in the bottom 20 percent for most categories considered, including the violent crime rate, percentage of people below the poverty rate and percentage of people 25 years and older who have completed high school.

It ranked Louisiana the second most miserable state, right behind Michigan, largely because of the state’s poor physical health (an obesity rate of 30.3 percent tied for sixth highest and nearly four percentage points higher than the national average of 26.6 percent).
The report noted that Louisiana not only has the eighth highest level of diabetes (13.2 percent) and the fifth lowest “frequent consumption of produce” on average with only 54.1 percent of the population regularly eating vegetables, but also has the third highest percentage of people without health insurance (23.7 percent).

Finally, the report by 24/7 Wall Street ranks Louisiana with the sixth lowest ranking in the all-important area of environmental issues. The report puts the state at 45th, just ahead of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, New Jersey and Ohio.

Louisiana, the report indicated, generated 3.8 million tons of toxic waste, third highest in the nation. Hawaii, with only 987 tons, had the lowest amount of toxic waste while West Virginia, noted for its coal mining industry, had only 92,000 tons.

With the sixth-smallest alternative energy budget in the nation, Louisiana ranks 46th among the states in energy-saving policies and programs, the report said.

“The state ranks horribly in water pollution, falling into the bottom five for releasing carcinogenic toxins, total water pollution, and chemicals which can cause birth defects,” the report said. At 3.8 million tons, “Louisiana also produces the third-most toxic waste each year,” it said.

If Jindal holds true to form, he will in all probability not attempt to address the state’s poor rankings in these areas. Instead, if he even acknowledges the report, look for him to attempt to put some type of positive spin on the statistics.

After all, he has already told us that “The business world is taking note of our work to expand and diversify the state’s economy while pursuing reforms to make government more fiscally responsible.”

If that’s not enough to convince you, Jindal, speaking just last month, said of the state’s robust business climate, “Since day one, we have made economic development our top priority by cutting taxes, revamping workforce training, and reforming our ethics code. These changes have helped transform the way businesses view Louisiana and that’s why our economy is out-performing the South and the nation. The bottom line is that Louisiana has become one of the best places in the country for businesses to create jobs…but we will not rest until Louisiana is the number-one place in the world for businesses to create jobs for our people.”

Chew on that for awhile, 24/7 Wall Street.

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