There have been ridiculous bills filed in the Louisiana Legislature. In fact, you can just about count on at least two or three each year.
But HB 648 by freshman Rep. Steve Pylant (R-Winnsboro) is the most asinine monument to waste and corruption in decades of wasteful and corrupt legislatures.
Even as LouisianaVoice reveals case after case of more than 1100 bogus registrations for Course Choice courses in three north Louisiana parishes, HB 648 would actually require the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to “adopt rules and regulations that require all public high school students, beginning with those entering ninth grade in the fall of 2014, to successfully complete at least one course offered by a BESE-authorized online or virtual course provider as a prerequisite to graduation.”
In the wake of what has been taking place in Caddo, Bossier and Webster parishes (and more recently in Calcasieu where it has been learned that one student not enrolled in the school listed by the student attempted to sign up for five courses and another signed up for two courses considered inappropriate for the grade level), Pylant ought to do the decent thing and withdraw his bill in the interest of saving himself further embarrassment.
His bill would accomplish precisely one thing: it would encourage even more fraud than has already taken place with course choice providers signing students to courses in those parishes without the knowledge or consent of the students or their parents.
In one case a severe and profound child was signed up for a class and in Bossier Parish, about 40 students did not attend a school in that parish as their applications indicated.
First grade students were signed up for high school Latin and high school English classes and many of the students ostensibly signed up in Bossier were registered for highly technical advanced mathematics classes.
Pylant, the retired sheriff of Franklin Parish, was elected in 2011 to the seat formerly held by Noble Ellington, who retired and was hired at a six-figure salary by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.
Ellington, the former national president of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in fact, contributed $500 of his campaign funds to Pylant in 2011.
Pylant also received more than $13,000 from the Republican Party of Louisiana, the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, and the Republican Legislative Delegation Campaign.
He also received $2500 each from Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign fund and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley’s political action committee, so it’s fairly easy to see where his allegiance lies.
But that is little reason to pass legislation that will only encourage an already serious problem of fly-by-night companies signing up students only for the purpose of qualifying the course provider to receive one-half of its tuition up front—whether or not the student ever turns on his or her computer.
The State of Idaho has already been there, done that, and decided it was a bad idea. Voters in that state easily repealed Idaho’s version of Course Choice—they called it Online Learning—by a whopping 2-1 margin in a statewide referendum last November.
Course Choice easily falls under the heading of “What’s going on here?”
And what’s going on, simply put, is the continued raping of the state treasury—sanctioned by the Jindal administration.
But Pylant’s bill qualifies for “What the heck is he thinking?”
The answer to that question is anyone’s guess.
We only know one thing for certain: it’s a win-win for shady operators and a lose-lose for Louisiana taxpayers.
Pishposh doesn’t pay “pissant” to think.
Is there any hope that a few letters to the editor with this information will actually make it into the newspapers in this state? It’s unbelievable that there are no investigative reporters jumping at the chance to verify your information and then plaster it all over the newspaper!!
I wonder if he would answer your question directly if you put it to him. Your readers would be very interested in his response. I can almost guess what it would be, but I’d still like to hear him say it.
I’m sure this bill is to make sure these providers do get “some” business, even if the parish level administrators stop this fraud at their level, which I hope will be done.
Maybe a petition to the Attorney General (if we can get his head out of his contingency fee contracts..).
Please remember that most of the “Reform” education legislation was crafted by ALEC and introduced by ALEC adherents who had never read it. That is why it had to be rushed through without any critical analysis and evaluation. The international “free market” adherents see huge profits by defrauding public education so they can make their money and avoid any semblance of accountability. They started with “tort reform” and now are on to “education reform.” Take from the already underfunded educational system and give to the same group that created the real estate crisis. Follow the money: Murdoch, Klein, White. Knowledgeable educators knew this snake oil business before it was shoved down our throats. Now the public must wake up and hold each legislator who was involved with ALEC accountable for the damage already done to Louisiana.
My school was the one in which a severe profound student was signed up for advanced reading and math. My principal denied it, but it’s such an obvious scam. The local news did cover the story.
that’s at least one news agency. Which one, I’d like to see it and cheer myself up!
I find it hard to believe that students (parents) can be forced to take an on-line course. I really don’t think you can legislate beyond subject mandates. I have had a couple of gifted students in the past who weren’t allowed to use the Internet (with very strict exceptions) for religious reasons. It would also take time away from school and when some students work, play sports etc., not to mention needing to study and prepare for all the damn tests already imposed on them, it would become an impossible burden. Wish we could get parents in this state to shout out against all this intrusion on the lives of their children.
I make no comment on Rep. Pylant’s motivation for the bill, but I doubt it’s going anywhere this late in the session. House Ed is only meeting 1 more time and HB 648 is not on the schedule.
Our servers and tech support can’t even handle the EOCs which will be increasing and current on line things like research for the ELA papers, science fair and all the myriad other uses of technology most of us barely have enough of. Our computer labs are booked in August for months and there are priorities for ELA and Math that are not negotiable.
How are many high schools going to schedule all these kids for computer time to get a class to graduate? Oh sure, they can do it at home. Just like home work, senior project and science fair.
What happens when a teacher, not the course provider, sees cheating or someone doing a course for someone else as happens in the remedial online courses? What happens when a student fails to pass a course, returns to the high school and it is obvious the child did not do whatever amount of work s/he claims to have completed? Think science fair or senior project. Who do we tell? Perhaps I should ask who will care?
I saw Pylant’s pivot shot somewhere on the docket yesterday and gasped that the servile prophets of the free enterprise system just might get behind such obvious chicanery and that it might be taken seriously instead of being treated as the droll humour that it is. There are questions which we need to be asking in the light of such Machivellian methods of imposing madness upon us all.
Is the free enterprise system the solution to our educational problems or is it the very cause of our present day problems?
We know that slavery existed for several hundred years of American history and for most all of Louisiana history prior to the Civil War. Was slavery a product of governmental failure or was it a solution of the free enterprise system? Does that several hundred years of infamy still impact today’s schools?
Is the return to free enterprise education a return to slavery?
The poverty which abounds here in Louisiana—is it a product of Government or a failure of the free enterprise system to generate the jobs that would give impoverished families financial security and the children of such families greater support to accomplish educational growth?
Is education a business that can generate a profit or is it more like or should it be more like a counseling enterprise to wrest poor performers from the clutches that grip them and impel them to continue to spiral into dismal grasp of poverty? It looks to me that by its nature a successful rescue program would be a loser business, but it would be a winner for the students that John White so ofter cites as the locus of his attention.
The only equivalent of White’s and jindal’s approach to education that I can think of is the nature program where the whale beached in shallow waters was pounded by sharks racing from great distances to smash the corpse and as the blubber exploded into the sky in pieces, the smell stagnated observers according to the cameraman who filmed the spectacle. The smell in Baton Rouge is getting rancid and those ALEC sharks are getting their proper recognition. Swindler Jindal and Muddy Waters must now have one of those signs planted upon their persons which once warned approachers of the contagious malady to which they had succumbed. It is obvious that such warnings are attached watching them become persona non grata to their once bonifide cronies.
How about privatization of the Soviet state, where the government operative nomenklatura became the nouveau riche? We replace a governor with a contractor general–pretty close, except the stakes are much smaller.
I think it’s a product of the Government because of the welfare system. Because of the welfare system, we have generational poverty and little to no desire to seek another way of life. The poverty that is crippling schools and this country is not that which was created by the economic “downturn” (which according to experts is over now); it is the poverty that has existed, festered in the dark corners of this country; it is the generations of children who have never known anything but poverty and see collecting welfare checks from the government as legitimate career plans. This is the poverty that must be addressed; this is the poverty that must be eradicated.
It’s happening all over EBR. Many students showing up as registered at a high school through course choice who are unknown to the high school and in grades 6 and 7. Students are being registered without their knowledge then calling the school to find out how to get out of it. Fast Path is going door to door in low income areas promising free laptops and signing students up. It’s a big mess!!!!!