Gov. Bobby Jindal’s education reform package has some interesting bedfellows, including a national organization that writes legislation which it spoon feeds to state lawmakers throughout the U.S. and a local organization with ties to Jindal political campaigns past and present.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which boasts that its membership comprises about a third of all state legislators in the U.S., regularly holds conferences and seminars at which it unveils proposed legislation for its members to take home for enactment.
Believe in Louisiana, a Baton Rouge Political 527 non-profit corporation, has been running television ads throughout the state in support of Jindal’s education reform legislation.
Believe in Louisiana is headed by Rolfe McCollister, publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report and former chairman of Jindal’s 2007 transition team and treasurer of his most recent campaign for governor. McCollister also made five separate contributions to Jindal’s first two gubernatorial campaigns totaling $17,000.
Also making five contributions totaling $8,500 was Business Report President Julio Melara. Melara also is president of two other Baton Rouge publications, 1012 Magazine (for Interstates 10 and 12 that run through Baton Rouge) and 225 Magazine (Baton Rouge is in telephone Area Code 225).
Before entering the publishing business Melara worked as an advertising salesman for a New Orleans radio station.
Within weeks of becoming governor in January 2008, Jindal appointed Melara to the Louisiana Superdome Commission.
At the same time, Jindal appointed six other members to the Superdome Commission. They included Chairman Ron Forman of New Orleans, David Chosen of Lake Charles, Bill Windham of Bossier City, J.E. Brignac of Prairieville, Tim Coulon of Harvey and Robert Bruno of New Orleans.
Most of those contributed to various Jindal gubernatorial campaigns. Forman gave $2,000 in 2011; Bruno, his wife, and law firm gave $28,500 between 2007 and 2010; Windham and his wife made six contributions between 2003 and 2011 totaling $30,000; Brignac, his wife and business gave $22,200 between 2007 and 2011, and Coulon’s own political campaign for Jefferson Parish President and his consulting company gave Jindal $7,500 in 2007 and 2009, records show.
Coulon, as an agent of Lagniappe Industries, was implicated in 2010 in the federal investigation into the parish’s $160 million contract with the River Birch Land Fill, owned by Fred Heebe and his stepfather Albert Ward. Heebe also made a $2,500 in-kind contribution to Jindal in 2008.
Coulon, while serving as parish president, appointed Ward to the board of West Jefferson Hospital. Ward subsequently voted to replace the hospital’s insurance carrier with Lagniappe.
Though there is nothing to link Melara directly to the land fill or insurance deals, Jindal never returned any of the donations from those individuals.
Former State Rep. Noble Ellington of Winnsboro is the immediate past national president of ALEC and hosted the organization’s annual convention in New Orleans last August.
Ellington, who did not run for re-election following a 24-year career in the Louisiana Legislature, was recently appointed to the number two position at the Louisiana Department of Insurance at a salary of $150,000 per year.
Besides Ellington, at least 52 current and former House members and 18 current or former members of the Senate are affiliated with ALEC, either as members or attendees at ALEC events.
As recently as last month, ALEC hosted a secretive “education academy” on Amelia Island off the coast of Florida. The meeting was “invitation only” and closed to the pubic and the media—especially the media.
That meeting followed closely on the heels of the release of ALEC’s 17th annual Report Card on American Education.
The report was authored by Matthew Lardner and Dan Lips, both of whom are affiliated with the right-wing Republican organizations the Goldwater Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The two gave overall grades to every state’s public schools based on how they rated in 14 categories.
ALEC has been drafting and promoting education bills for more than two decades in its effort to privatize public education through a growing network of school voucher systems that divert taxpayer dollars away from public schools. Those public dollars are used to create new private charter schools in the name of reform.
The ALEC 130-page report card is sorely lacking in any real evidence that school choice, charters, or firing teachers improves student performance.
The National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP) exam is the largest and most accepted national, standardized assessment of student knowledge in several subject areas.
Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire and New York are listed as the top 10 states in NAEP performance.
Yet, from those 10, only Colorado was among the 13 states the ALEC report card gives a B or better. Vermont, which scored number two on the NAEP, tied for dead last for policy with a D+ on the ALEC report card. Conversely, Missouri, ALEC’s standard-bearer with an A- grade, scored 47th on NAEP.
John Underwood, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin, said the ALEC agenda has nothing to do with educating students. He said tables ranking states according to the NAEP performance of low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities, potentially the most interesting, revealing and useful data in the ALEC report, was not factored into ALEC’s final grade.
“Why is that not part of the states’ A to F grades?” Underwood asked. Missouri, he said, ranked 43rd in low-income students’ fourth grade reading score improvement and 34th in math improvement, but still got ALEC’s top grade. Maryland was number one in reading improvement and number two in math improvement, but got a C- from ALEC.
The answer is quite simple: someone is skewing the numbers—and NAEP’s testing procedures have been around a lot longer than ALEC’s.
But then, numbers can be tweaked to advance just about any theory. Someone once said, “There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics.” At this juncture, ALEC appears to be the one playing with the statistics and tweaking the numbers.
For that “Education Academy” on Amelia Island, Florida, last month, ALEC’s invitation said the organization’s goal was “to ensure the successful and productive education for all American students.”
The invitation even offered to pick up the tab for attendees: “You are cordially invited to attend ALEC’s K-12 Education Reform Academy, February 3-4, 2012 at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. For invited legislators like you, ALEC will cover your room for up to two nights at the host hotel. ALEC will also reimburse up to $500 for travel expenses, which includes coach airfare, cab fare, and a reimbursement of 55.5 cents per mile driven.
“This event will address the top reforms in K-12 education that ALEC believes each state must have to ensure the successful and productive education for all American students. We will discuss what you as a state legislator can do to address a variety of issues surrounding K-12 education reform, including charter schools accessibility, accountability and transparency standards for teacher excellence, open enrollment, vouchers, tax credits and blended learning options.”
It’s ironic how ALEC—and Jindal—toss around those two words accountability and transparency in their rhetoric to reinforce their respective public images, yet run and hide when asked to deliver. It would seem they want those principles applied to others, but not themselves.
With apologies to The Wizard of Oz author Frank Baum, they’d rather remain behind the curtain where they can pull the levers and push the buttons while luring the metaphoric Dorothy (voters) down the Yellow Brick Road.
There you have it. Jindal’s education reform package is not his own any more than prison privatization or the overhaul of state employee retirement can be claimed by him as original ideas.
He has his marching orders and ALEC is calling the shots.
And you may be assured that any member of the Louisiana Legislature who goes along with these “reforms” is likewise listening to the corporate powers behind the curtain that shields ALEC from public view.
Does anyone remember the economic collapse and political chaos that came about when we allowed Wall Street to write the rules?
Does anyone see the damages already done by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision?
Louisiana Voice 
The state has a finite number of teachers and a finite number of students. Jindal’s education “reforms” amount to so much chair shuffling. As the public education system get dismantled, so goes equal access to education.
Real reform would occur with the dismantling of the PRIVATE school system, forcing ALL citizens to have a vested interest in the success of public education. When everyone in a community has a stake in an institution, the institution will succeed. Vouchers, economic segregation, “free market” divide and conquer answers to public education will serve only a limited few at the expense of the many.
In the words of Benjamin Franklin in an entirely different context, “We either hang together, or hang separately.”
If you have a hemorrhoid, do you go to the dentist?? Jindal does, that is why he does exactly what ALEC and the Republicans dictate. Play to the ignorant and prejudices and line up the $ for corporate america, not to mention plenty of SuperPac money for future elections. Jindal has yet to mention any impact on the students for his plan, but notice his helpmates LABI’s Dan Juneau, Stephen Moret, Lane Grisby,et al, all agree it would improve the business climate. Jindal is arrogant and incompetent, and we are stuck with him for 1397 hemorrhoid days. rrt
I’m trying to figure out the grift; it’s kind of subtle. I suppose it’s a combination of shuffling state education money to private players and de-fanging the hated teachers’ unions.
Whatever it is, it certainly has nothing to do with educating kids.
I believe all these “reforms” are part of a national conservative push to decrease the size and scope of government. A recent “This American Life” profile on Colorado Springs is a case in point. Reduced tax revenues led to the city’s cutting off street lights and discontinuing maintenance of the city parks. However, individual citizens who could afford to pay, could have their own street lights turned back on or neighborhoods could raise their own money to get garbage cans put back in the parks (though the citizens had to empty those cans themselves). Then a new mayor was elected and services were privatized. City workers were laid off and rehired by the private company at less pay and fewer benefits. While salary expenses for the city were decreased, the actual cost of providing the services were not reduced, since the private company also has administrative overhead and profit that has to be factored into the price of the city contract.
The former mayor told a story of one man walking in and paying $300 to have his street light turned on. The mayor pointed out to him that had he voted to pay $200 a year in more taxes, he could have had his street light AND his parks maintained as well as the other services that had been cut. The man’s response was that he didn’t care, at least his government had been made smaller.
And this is what all these “reforms” are about: an ideological shift. If you can afford something, pay for it. Otherwise, do without.
The real irony is that by keeping Louisiana tax revenues low, Jindal is exacerbating Louisiana’s situation as a state dependent on federal welfare. That is, Louisiana receives more FEDERAL tax dollars than it contributes, since we keep our citizens poor. FEDERAL tax dollars collected from more well-to-do states such as Massachusetts, wind up re-distributed to Louisiana. As a state, we are all on welfare. According to the Tax Foundation website (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/) in 2005 (last year for which data are available) Louisiana received nearly twice as much from Federal taxes as it paid ($20,563M paid) / ($39,628M received). Lest we attribute this to Katrina, 2004 was ($19M paid / ($32 M received). And we have all seen how Jindal’s budget slights of hand are all about leveraging federal tax dollars.
By point of comparison, Massachusetts in 2005 contributed $63,003M and received only $55,830M back).
Talk about shifting responsibility. “Oh, I never raised taxes. I just propagate policies to assure that the taxes you have to send to Washington, D.C. keep going up. Blame Obama, not me.”
Aack! Please forgive the typos and grammar errors.
Jindal has caused me to seriously consider the
switch from Republican to Democrat.
Bravo Mr. Aswell! Thank you for continuing to bring these issues to light. Actually the little dictator is very transparent – he is transparently on a path to destroy this state-a la Scott Walker and Chris Christie and Rick Scott-for his own political ambitions. Is it apathy or just general stupidity that makes people follow along behind him like lambs to the slaughter? His bought and paid-for legislators are too chicken-$%^& to stand up to him so that leaves teachers and state workers out in the cold. There’s no democratic process left in La. It’s do it my way or I’ll “Teague” you or have my henchmen destroy you in the press. I agree with mpsbses – makes me want to change parties. Even if the dems. are wrong-footed most of the time, at least they are willing to stand up for the non-corporate, non-special interest groups who have no voice.
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Jindal is a wolf in sheep’s clothing…. why not give the millions and millions of dollars to the public school system, for classroom money and such? Then have added bonus money for teachers who have a 100% passing rate with thier students. I think its worth a shot instead of the charter BS talk that’s going on!!!
The KKK, Jindal, and ALEC, share similar ideas on edu-reforms via charter schools:
http://kkk.bz/?p=2460
(Note: wash your hard drive after opening this link.)
(SECOND NOTE: The content of this link in no way reflects the thoughts and ideals of LouisianaVoice. Instead, it more closely adheres to the philosophy of the voucher and charter school advocates.)
When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled “Made In Germany”,it will not even be called fascism; it will be called of course “Americanism”; Professor Haffold E. Luccock of the Divinity School of Yale University.
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