Louisiana Voice

Editor’s Note: Carl Czervik is the new publisher of LouisianaVoice, having taken control from founder Tom Aswell. Czervik is a native of Poughkeepsie, New York, but has resided in Baton Rouge for the past 42 years. This the first of what is anticipated to be many columns on Louisiana and national politics and the occasional observations on social and legal issues.

By Carl Czervik

If you haven’t been paying attention, you may want to begin watching public education in Louisiana for a tendency to cater to the right-wing extremists.

Said another way, we may be seeing the first indications of Louisiana public education following in the footsteps of Florida, which many will agree, has recently gone off the rails.

First came the maniac push to censor books in school and public libraries by an organization calling itself Citizens for a New Louisiana, but believed by some to be financed by ultra-conservative Republicans in the Washington, D.C.-Virginia area. (It’s the same group that has crashed the Livingston Parish party by first injecting itself into the created crisis du jour of “inappropriate library books” and most recently the race for State Senate by slamming State Rep. Buddy Mincey, most likely on behalf of his opponent, State Rep. Valerie Hodge — regardless, a classic example of misleading, dirty politics of half-truths and outright distortions. Noticably nothing positive about Hodges, just negatives about Mincey. That’s because campaign contribution limitations prohibit these clowns from endorsing a candidate; they can only sling hog excrement because that’s where they live.)

Next came news that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education had approved an outfit calling itself Third Future was taking over operations of the former PRESCOTT MIDDLE SCHOOL in Baton Rouge for the next three school years.

Then, on July 24, Louisiana Superintendent of Education CADE BRUMLEY gave an address at the regular meeting of the Baton Rouge chapter of Moms for Liberty.

So, what’s the big deal about Third Future taking over a single school – a failing school at that?

And what’s so bad about giving a speech to a group with the benign-sounding name Moms for Liberty?

Maybe nothing and maybe a lot.  More recently, on July 27 to be exact it was announced that the Houston Independent School District (HISD), Texas’s largest school district, has given the axe to 28 ACHOOL LIBRARIANS and will convert the libraries to behavior centers.

And what’s so bad about giving a speech to a group with the benign-sounding name Moms for Liberty?

Nothing…except that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has classified the national organization as a hate group with the sole intent of creating chaos and disrupting public education with the rewriting of history to fit a conservative agenda (read: book censorship, eliminating any mention of slavery, civil rights, or the massacre of Native-Americans.

Again, what’s the big deal?

Well, the superintendent of the HISD is one Mike Miles, founder of Third Future.

Of course, since becoming the HISD superintendent, Miles went through the motions of separating himself from Third Future….by appointing his sister, SHIRLEY MILES, to succeed him as Executive Director of Schools.

That’s the same Shirley Miles who while in her previous job as Director of the Department of Defense Education Activity, was accused of MISCONDUCT in a 75-page report that alleged that she flim-flammed her employer i.e. taxpayers, out of payments to which she was not entitled. In other words, financial improprieties involving travel reimbursements.

So, by connecting the dots, I’ve come up with my own wholly viable conspiracy theory: there are evil forces flying under our radar that would undermine education and basic human rights while reinvigorating the dark days of Jim Crow.

Cade Brumley, as head of Louisiana public schools, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Moms for Liberty, Citizens for a New Louisiana, and Third Future are all working in concert to totally revamp public education in Louisiana – and not for the overall improvement of education itself, but for the advancement of a political agenda that censors textbooks and library books while completely rewriting American History.

Florida, thanks to Ron DeSantis and a pliant Florida legislature, has already made education in that state a laughingstock. And it’s not just on the elementary and secondary school levels, but higher education as well. As a result, professors and public school teachers in that state are exiting the profession in staggering numbers.

The same fate awaits Louisiana if we allow this silent – but insidious – movement to flourish here.