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BESE defies court ruling, okays 45 Course Choice applicants but issues news release on election of new officers for 2013

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Campaign Contributions, Charters, Computers, Education, Governor's Office on December 5, 2012| 3 Comments »

Maybe the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) needs that high-priced public relations type to match Superintendent John White’s part time $144,000 telecommuting PR hack after all.

One might think that any news release by BESE would be Tuesday’s approval of 45 course choice providers despite a judge’s ruling last week that the method of funding course choice and vouchers is unconstitutional.

One would be wrong.

The only news release by BESE was the announcement that Chas Roemer (R-Baton Rouge) was elected President of the board and James Garvey (R-Metairie), Vice President and Holly Boffy (R-Youngsville), Secretary-Treasurer.

“Penny Dastugue, BESE’s current President, congratulated the Board’s new officers,” the news release said.

“I’m honored to have been chosen, and I look forward to living up to the confidence the other Board members have placed in us to continue our work in making Louisiana’s education system among the best in the nation,” it quoted Roemer as saying.

Garvey agreed, it said. “It is a privilege to be selected by our fellow representatives as a leader in this effort,” he was quoted as saying.

“It is a tremendous responsibility, and we look forward to meeting that responsibility,” Boffy added.

Now that, folks, is heavy-duty reporting.

Never mind that BESE, by an 8-2 vote, completely ignored the ruling of Baton Rouge District Judge Tim Kelley that said the diversion of constitutionally-mandated funding for public schools under the state’s Minimum Foundation Program in favor of private, for-profit firms and online companies was unconstitutional.

Gov. Piyush “The Petulant” Jindal responded to the legal ruling in equally legal terminology, saying the “ruling is wrong-headed and a travesty for parents across Louisiana who want nothing more than for their children to have an equal opportunity at receiving a great education.”

State Education Superintendent John White, in a typically verbose statement released after the ruling said, “We strongly disagree with the ruling. We are optimistic this decision will be reversed on appeal.”
The court ruling aside, BESE members allied with Piyush practically gushed over their newfound independence from the courts.

“I’m so excited about the opportunities that the courses will provide to our students,” Boffy said.

Outgoing board President Dastugue added, “We don’t have an option to delay.”

Board members Lottie Beebe (R-Breaux Bridge) and Carolyn Hill (D-Baton Rouge) voted against the course choice providers and even suggested that some of their fellow board members should recuse themselves because they were recipients of campaign contributions from organizations and individuals applying for the tax dollars to offer the online courses.

Beebe, in an email, said, “I pointed out that I would be remiss if I did not point out that at least five BESE members should consider recusing themselves…particularly if they received political contributions from any (applicants).”

That recommendation, she said, produced “fireworks.”

“I received an earful from Chas Roemer and Ms. Boffy defending their campaign contributions and the perceived conflict of interests. I wonder why this would be such a sensitive issue.
“Despite my attempt to encourage them to do the honorable thing, they voted favorably regarding the choice providers,” she said.

“For the record, one approved entity’s PAC (political action committee) contributed approximately $50,000 to five BESE members.”

She did not identify the PAC but CNS did identify one PAC that contributed a total of $41,000 to five BESE members. Some of the contributions were difficult to track because in at least three cases, an applicant contributed to a PAC which in turned contributed to a board member. In one instance, an applicant contributed to a PAC which contributed to a second PAC, which then contributed to the board member.

“And to think,” she said, “public school employees are mandated by law to participate in one hour of ethics training annually.”

Here are the approved applicants and their contributions to the campaigns of BESE members:

Pelican Chapter, Associated Builders and Contractors PAC:

• Jay Guillot (R-Ruston)—$5,000;
• James Garvey—$5,000;
• Holly Boffy—$5,000;
• Chas Roemer—$10,000;
• Kira Orange Jones (D-New Orleans)—$10,000

K12 Management:

• Holly Boffy—$1,000;
• Kira Orange Jones—$5,000;

Richard Zuschlag (CEO of Acadian Ambulance and Acadian Companies/National EMS Academy:

• Holly Boffy—$500.

Additionally, several successful applicants contributed to Jindal’s campaign. They included:

• PEC/Premier Safety Management—$5,000;
• Zuschlag and Acadian Ambulance—$36,000;
• Craig Spohn, executive director of the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City and appointed as a member of the Higher Education Group of the Gov.-elect Jindal’s Economic Growth Transition Advisory Council—$10,000;

A myriad of complaints about online course choice schools was uncovered in an investigative report by the New York Times last year.

Some of those problems included a high turnover rate among teaching staff, poor academic results and insufficient state oversight.

The Times report noted that there was a “virtual churn rate” of more than 50 percent in New York online schools. Mid-year transfers numbered at least 1,000 students per year, meaning that at least $6 million per year went to online schools for students who no longer were enrolled.

Moreover, in many instances, when students transferred back into the public system, state funding did not follow them. Jindal has insisted all along that the “money follows the student,” and that local districts were not losing funding.

It will be interesting to revisit BESE’s actions in the months ahead to see how much money can extracted from the state by political insiders and to see if applicants were vetted any better than the infamous New Living Word School in Ruston which was approved for more than 300 vouchers before it was learned the school had no desks, no teachers and no books.

Of course, a repeat of that blunder is not expected considering that White had the foresight to hire Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith of the Canyon Group in Los Angeles at a cool $146,000 per year to hype the course choice program.

Now all he has to do is figure out a way around that pesky court ruling.

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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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Nothing but the best for DOE: John White hires $170,000 deputy central to Kansas City $32 million bid controversy

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Education, Privatization on November 6, 2012| 9 Comments »

First it was Los Angeles resident Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith of the unsuccessful attempt to auction off blocks of water in Florida on behalf of Enron and now State Superintendent of Education John White has hired another out-of-state executive staff member who brings considerable political baggage to his new job.

Lefkowith, you may recall, is being paid $146,000 to commute from his home in Los Angeles to hype the Department of Education’s (DOE) computer Course Content. Oddly, his title keeps changing.

Originally listed as DOE’s Director of the Office of Portfolio, he identified himself as a “deputy superintendent” when he made a video best described as amateurish in which he promoted the department’s Court Content.

But when White announced a reorganization of his staff last month, he listed Lefkowith as an assistant superintendent “overseeing vouchers, charter schools and other areas.”

Included in that same announcement was the appointment of Mike Rounds who is being paid $170,000 a year as deputy superintendent for district support, whatever that title entails.

Rounds, it turns out, comes from Kansas City where he served as Chief Operating Officer for Kansas City Public Schools.

Both he and White are 2010 graduates of the Broad Superintendents Academy of Los Angeles which critics say turns out superintendents who use corporate-management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of decision making and introduce unproven reform measures.

The academy, founded by billionaire businessman Eli Broad, offers a six-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.

Critic Sharon Higgins says she became alarmed when she witnessed her school district in Oakland go through three Broad-trained superintendents in quick succession. She said she saw principals and teachers whom she described as “high-quality, dedicated people,” force out by Broad superintendents trained to aim for “maximum disruption” when they came to a district, with little regard for parent or teacher concerns.

Rounds resigned his Kansas City position last March 16 following an investigation by a local television station into bid irregularities involving a $32 million renovation project for Kansas City schools.

A month after his resignation, the contract was cancelled.

Ryan Kath, a reporter for KSHB-TV in Kansas City, broke the story of a contract awarded to an unpaid consultant who had been brought in by Rounds to help in the selection process on the original request for proposals (RFP) by the school system. After all the bids on the first project were rejected, a new RFP was issued and the consultant founded a company which subsequently bid on and won the contract.

In early 2011, Kath said, the Kansas City Public School system decided to upgrade a number of school buildings after decades of neglect and deferred maintenance. Specifically, much of the work was to upgrade central air conditioning in several of the schools. Initially, the project was to cost about $85 million and many of the area’s leading construction companies spent thousands of dollars assembling bid packages.

School district staff needed outside help to wade through the complex selection process and Rounds retained a pair of paid consultants to oversee the process.

Rounds, who was in charge of selecting a company to manage the project, also brought in a voluntary adviser, Dayton “Buddy” Hahs, an area businessman with an extensive background in energy conservation. Rounds told Kahn he asked Hahs for help because of his expertise in the industry and because Hahs did not charge a fee for his work. “He wanted to make sure than when we selected an energy performance contractor that it went well,” Rounds said.

Hahs reviewed bids, formulated questions for bidders and sat in on interviews.

On Aug. 30, bidders received emails informing them that all bids were being rejected “in the best interest of the district.” No other explanation was provided.

Also on Aug. 30, Rounds emailed Hahs saying, “I would still really like to sit down with you to discuss the way forward on our infrastructure requirements” and a couple of weeks later, Hahs and a business partner attended a meeting with district personnel.

On Oct. 7, the district divided the project into several tiers and issued a second RFP on the first tier of construction along with a fee for acting as project manager. Many of the same companies bid on the revamped project.

The district on Nov. 16 awarded the contract to a “mysterious new company” that no one had ever heard of,” Kath said. The contract was awarded despite the company’s submitting a bid that was $2 million higher than the low bid.

That company was HMM Construction Services, founded by Dayton “Buddy” Hahs, the same unpaid consultant who had participated in interviews on the initial RFP. State corporate records were filed on Oct. 11, just four days after the second RFP went out and only a couple of weeks before the deadline for submitting bids.

Moreover, Kath learned that Hahs was never required to sign a non-disclosure agreement which is considered standard protocol for consultants and advisors and despite advice from the district’s legal counsel that a non-disclosure agreement be signed by Hahs.

William Black, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said that the bid “destroys the heart of what it means to have competitive bidding.”

Others called the contract a “monster inside deal.”

On March 13, just over a month after Kath’s initial story, it was announced that Rounds would resign, effective March 16, “to give his full attention to land a superintendent job in an urban school district,” according to a statement from the district.

On April 14, Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Green announced that the district was terminating the contract after it became clear that HMM would not be able to meet its deadline and also would run over budget.

In May of this year, Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich released an audit of the district that was harshly critical of the contract. “Any case where a friend or relative or someone on the inside is getting a contract, you have to really document why they were the best person because there’s going to be immediate suspicion on the part of the public,” Schweich said.

So, after issuing a controversial contract to a contractor with inside knowledge at a cost $2 million more than the low bid, Rounds leaves the Kansas City School system to seek a superintendent’s job “in an urban school district,” only to wind up as Deputy Superintendent for District Support for the Louisiana Department of Education—working with John White, his old classmate from that bastion of educational achievement, the Broad Superintendents Academy.

First there was Lefty Lefkowith commuting to Louisiana from Los Angeles to serve as an assistant superintendent and now we have Mike Rounds of Kansas City as a deputy superintendent—at a combined salary of $316,000.

Apparently all those urban school districts out there did a better job of vetting Rounds than did the Louisiana Department of Education. Aren’t we lucky?

And let’s not forget that this state is broke.

We can’t wait to see White’s next personnel move.

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The π-yush nullification whirlwind tour: is Florida next on his judicial revenge itinerary? LouisianaVoice will follow

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Politicians on September 27, 2012| 7 Comments »

Piyush Jindal is still on his whirlwind tour of New Hampshire to attend a Republican breakfast and Iowa to campaign against a state supreme court judge who had the audacity to help make unanimous a ruling that the state’s one man-one woman marriage law was unconstitutional but now Jindal may already be planning another jaunt—this time to Florida to take on three more state supreme court judges.

Apparently there are simply no more problems in Louisiana that demand his attention so he is free to look elsewhere. Nice to know everything is under control here.

Though nothing official has come from Jindal’s office, the atmosphere appears favorable for him to charge into the state on his noble steed in concert with David Koch to rescue the state and Gov. Rick Scott from the evil judges who were part of a 5-2 majority that blocked an unconstitutional ballot initiative seeking to nullify the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare).

The Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity, chaired by David Koch of Koch Industries, the driving force behind the American Legislative Exchange Council, joined the Florida Republican Party’s effort to remove the three judges, which would give Gov. Scott, a Tea Party member, control over nearly half the court.

“Many states, like Ohio, gave their citizens the right to vote against the Affordable Care Act,” sniffed the Americans for Prosperity, sounding like a true victim, “but not Florida. Our own supreme court denied our right to choose for ourselves. Shouldn’t our courts protect our rights to choose?”

First of all, the Florida Supreme Court’s decision had nothing to do with denying anyone’s “right to choose.” The decision was to remove the unconstitutional ballot initiative after the initiative’s own defenders admitted that the ballot language was misleading so the court’s decision simply said that voters should be able to understand what they are voting for before they cast ballots.

Even more important, however, is that the Koch group, by supporting the ballot initiative, is also endorsing a questionable constitutional theory known as “nullification.” Because the Constitution provides that duly enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land,” states do not have the authority to block or supersede an Act of Congress such as the Affordable Care Act, whether through a ballot initiative or otherwise.

Nullification was last in vogue with the nineteenth century slaveholders and Civil Rights era segregationists. But the Tea Partiers have revived the concept and the Florida judges apparently hurt their feelings.

Tea Party self-appointed historian Tom Woods has published a book defending nullification. Of course he also once published an article describing the Confederacy as “Christendom’s Last Stand.”

So now Americans for Prosperity and Koch desire to punish three judges for putting the law above conservative ideology. They are hellbent on turning over Florida’s highest court to the Tea Party governor. If successful, this campaign will send a chilling message to every elected judge in the country (Louisiana’s judges are elected) that they can adhere to the Constitution at their own peril.

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Piyush. After all, his most recent trips just happen to be in the states where the nation’s first presidential primary and first presidential caucuses are held. And Florida is almost certain to be a swing state in future elections.

Too bad Piyush doesn’t realize that his political fortunes are sinking faster than that big hole in Assumption Parish.

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