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Let’s ask our state leaders: What were you thinking? Have you thought your actions through to a logical conclusion?

Posted in BESE, Boards, Civil Service, Commissions, Contract, Contracts, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, Public Records on October 27, 2012| 17 Comments »

Whenever I see a story about some stupid criminal I find myself wishing I could be alone in a room with the poor sap just so I could ask him three questions:

• What was your thought process?

• Did you think this through to its logical conclusion?

• Did you ever, at any point in time, think this would end well for you?

That’s all. Just those three questions.

Until now, I had always limited this wish to stupid criminals:

• Like the guy who pulls up at the drive-through window of a bank and slips a note in it saying “This is a holdup.” The teller, pulls the drawer in, reads the note, flips it over and writes on the back, “I don’t see a gun,” and sends note back to the guy who obligingly puts his gun in the drawer and sends it in to the teller;

• Like the guy who writes his holdup note on any piece of paper with his name and address on it or who is wearing a work uniform with his name tag fully visible;

• Like the guy who tries to outrun police on the interstate;

• Like any idiot who tries to resist a half-dozen police officers;

You get the picture.

But now I have expanded my sentiments to wishing I could pose the same question to some of our bumbling state politicians—particularly our self-promoting, egocentric, ambitious, absentee governor who insists—with a straight face, no less—that he has the job he wants even as he ignores a multitude of problems at home while auditioning for any job that will promote his shameless career goals.

But there are others:

• Any legislator (like Noble Ellington or Jane Smith) who runs for office on the promise of looking out for the folks back home but then accepts a six-figure salary in some department for which he or she has zero qualifications. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Louisiana Workforce Commission Executive Director Curt Eysink) who sends out an email saying there will be no merit raises for employees because of budgetary constraints while almost simultaneously approving a 41 percent increase for a single employee. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein) who would attempt to withhold the name of the winner of a $300 million contract with DHH from a legislative committee charged with confirming his appointment as secretary. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle) who would resign in the middle of a major crisis involving a potentially toxic sinkhole in order to selfishly run for a public office that he thinks will set him up for a run for governor in 2015? What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Alcohol and Tobacco Control Office Commissioner Troy Hebert) who would send a uniformed agent to inspect bars where she had recently worked undercover and purchased drugs from dealers. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like Superintendent of Education John White) who, on the night before he was to testify before a legislative committee about the New Living Word school in Ruston, sent emails to the governor’s office that he would try to “take some air out of the room” and to “muddy up” the narrative over the his approval of 315 vouchers for the school that had no classrooms, no desks and no teachers. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head (like White) who, within a matter of a few weeks, would hire a $144,000 part-time public relations officer from Florida and a consultant from Los Angeles to serve as a shill for the Department of Education’s (DOE) computer Course Content at a salary of $146,000—both of whom are allowed to commute and/or work from their homes. What were you thinking?

• Any agency head who, while giving no merit increases for three years and while even laying off rank and file employees, continues to give healthy salary increases to employees already earning in excess of $100,000 per year. What were you thinking?

• Any legislator who sees nothing wrong with private Christian schools receiving vouchers but who goes ballistic when it is learned that an Islamic school applied for vouchers under the same program. What were you thinking?

• Any governor who, while busy traveling all over the country promoting his aspirations for a cabinet position should Mitt Romney be elected president, approves closures of and budgetary cutbacks for state hospitals where cutbacks and closures result in the loss of treatment availability for indigent citizens. What were you thinking?

• Any governor who, while spewing outright lies in his many out-of-state visits about how he has the most ethical, most transparent and accountable administration in the country, continues to hide his office behind a veil of secrecy, refusing to provide public records or to grant media interviews. What were you thinking?

• Any inaccessible, unreachable, unavailable, unaccountable governor who, in an attempt to further shroud public agencies from having to answer directly to Louisiana citizens, attempts to force disputes with state agencies to be handled via telephone hearings instead of face-to-face hearings. What were you thinking?

• Any legislator who allows this governor and these bureaucrats to snub their collective noses at the citizens of this state with their arrogant actions and their attitude of defiance and mockery.

• Any citizen of Louisiana who would rather watch Dancing with the Stars than hold these sorry excuses for public servants accountable.

What the hell are any of you thinking?

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Defunct Abramson sister school continues operations; Kenilworth exec solicits funds with old business card

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Privatization, Recovery School District, Transparency, Uncategorized, Vouchers on October 14, 2012| 6 Comments »

LouisianaVoice has learned that despite serious deficiencies that included widespread cheating that closed the Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in New Orleans last year, its sister school in Baton Rouge continues to operate with the blessings of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE).

At the same time Abramson’s problems were surfacing more than a year ago, reports of wrongful firing of teachers and student mistreatment at Kenilworth Science & Technology School in Baton Rouge finally came to light when it was learned that DOE had launched an investigation of Abramson.

Both schools are run by a Texas company affiliated with the Gulen movement, a Turkish offshoot of the Islamic faith.

The problems at Abramson were first reported by state education employee Folwell Dunbar. Dunbar and his supervisor, Jacob Landry, who was director of the DOE charter office, were promptly fired after reporting the abuses that included sexual misconduct, neglect and missing files.

In a cover-up that has become indicative of the manner in which DOE is run under the Piyush Jindal-John White administration, a 72-page report on an investigation conducted by DOE was generated. That report included a five-page cover letter by then-acting Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler to Board of Elementary and Secondary Education President Penny Dastugue that claimed DOE first learned of the allegations surrounding Abramson on July 14, 2011, even though Dunbar and Landry had warned of problems at the school more than a year before.

To be fair, the report was compiled and released prior to White’s being named superintendent but he has taken no apparent steps to alter the situation at Kenilworth subsequent to his takeover of the department.

The claim that the department had no knowledge of wrongdoing at the school only served to discredit the entire report.

Dunbar, in a memo to department colleagues in 2010, said that Inci Akpinar, vice president of Atlas Texas Construction & Trading, the Texas company with ties to the Gulen movement, told Dunbar during a discussion of the school’s problems, “I have $25,000 to fix this problem: $20,000 for you and five for me.

A state audit conducted well in advance of the report’s publication also cited the school for having classrooms without instructors for weeks or even months at a time and of students who claimed their science fair projects had been done by their teachers.

Abramson’s charter was subsequently revoked but Kenilworth has continued to operate and last week, the school’ superintendent was calling on businesses in Baton Rouge in an attempt to raise funds for a science fair at the school.

Dr. Tevfik Eski, chief executive officer of Pelican Education Foundation in New Orleans which ran Abramson until its charter was revoked, was handing out business cards that contained the names of both Abramson and Kenilworth Science & Technology Charter Schools, only the word “Abramson” had been scratched through with blue ink and the letters “CMO” scribbled in over the word “Technology.”

CMO stands for “Charter Management Organization” and Pelican Education Foundation contracts with Cosmos Foundation, the CMO that runs the Harmony School Network in Texas, with which Abramson and Kenilworth were affiliated through Atlas Construction.

Click on image to enlarge:

If all that sounds terribly convoluted, it’s for a reason. Because of its organizational structure the Texas Education Authority (TEA) reported last year it had no knowledge of the problems with Abramson and Kenilworth even though the Cosmos Foundation operates more than 30 such schools in Texas.

In addition to his Baton Rouge address, Eski’s business card also contained the telephone and fax numbers of Pelican Education Foundation, his email address at Kenilworth and the web address of Pelican Education Foundation. In addition, he had written (also in blue ink) his Baton Rouge cell number.

One would think that a year after Abramson had its charter yanked, Eski would spring for new business cards but give him points for austerity.

In addition to the deficiencies already mentioned, the 72-page report by DOE also noted that Abramson students who were failing in English and math and who would not graduate from Abramson on time were being accepted en masse to North American College in Houston.

Then-Abramson principal Cuneyt Dokmen cited the acceptances as proof that Abramson was successful but the DOE report noted that Dokmen was scheduled to work at North American College in the fall of 2011.

North American College is a private, non-profit, four-year institution founded in 2010 that offers only three bachelor degree programs—education, computer science and business administration.

So what we have here is a dysfunctional DOE that shoots the messenger when it hears bad news from its own, generates lengthy investigative reports that deny knowledge of information that in fact the department had for more than a year, and allows one of the charter schools to continue operations with no accountability required.

Bottom line: can we believe anything that comes out of the Louisiana Department of Education’s administrative offices?

No wonder John White thinks he needs that $144,000 public relations mouthpiece.

The inmates are truly running the asylum.

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Dave ‘Lefty’ Lefkowith more than a motivational speaker; he’s a political operative looking for privatization dollars

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Privatization, Water Sales on October 10, 2012| 14 Comments »

LouisianaVoice has learned that the Department of Education may have an understandable, if not altogether legitimate reason for refusing to release information to the public: a candid response to one request for information might well lead to additional requests and subsequent release of information that the department simply does not want on the street. In short, things could get out of hand in a hurry. That’s called the domino effect.

Accordingly, DOE is following the lead of Gov. Piyush Jindal, who hides behind the “deliberative process” in not releasing information, by likewise clamping down on all information flowing from the department.

That, if nothing else, should be sufficient for Louisiana citizens to demand a more open administration from their absentee governor.

It turns out that Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith, DOE’s new Director of the Office of Portfolio, has quite a past, with strong connections to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the infamous Enron Corp. and a spinoff company called Azurix. More about that later.

Our initial request for public records resulted in the disclosure that Lefty was an employee of DOE. The obligatory follow up request for information revealed that the Louisiana taxpayers got him for a mere $144,999.88 a year, with a “free” Youtube video to boot, albeit a largely amateurish effort to hype DOE’s computer Course Content.

It might also be worth noting that on that video, Lefkowith gives himself a promotion—from being Director of the Office of Portfolio to Deputy Superintendent.

That, of course, prompted a more thorough background search and what we found was a real eye-opener and should be a red flag to state legislators and Louisiana taxpayers alike. If, after all, the past is really prelude, then his appointment does not bode well for education in this state. This could well be a train wreck waiting to happen and it begs the question: just how much tolerance will the citizens of Louisiana have for this administration’s shenanigans before enough is enough?

The information that follows comes from investigative reports by Michael Pollock and Chris Davis of the Sarasota (FLA) Herald-Tribune. Davis is now leader of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team at the Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg, FLA.

In 1998, when Jeb Bush was running for governor of Florida, Enron, then a fast-rising Houston energy broker, was in the process of diversifying into the potentially profitable new field of water supply privatization through a subsidiary called Azurix Corp.

Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) David Struhs, a Bush appointee, was simultaneously promoting two concepts on behalf of Azurix: auctioning off blocks of water to the highest bidders and obtaining underground water and storing it for later withdrawal through a process called aquifer storage and recovery (ASR).

Enron sank $900 million in Azurix, hoping to duplicate the proposed action in two other states, California and Enron’s home state of Texas, as well as in South America. Ultimately, however, Enron lost $500 million when the project failed to materialize, eventually selling what was left of the company in 2001 to American Water Works as a precursor to the eventual collapse of Enron.

Struhs also pushed another project to deregulate energy in Florida and to open the state to competition by allowing companies to build power plants, using existing power lines for the purpose of selling electricity to the highest bidding utility or other customers.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Struhs was his good friend, David “Lefty” Lefkowith, president of Canyon Group, Inc., of Los Angeles.

First, a little background:

Back in 1991, President George H. Bush named 23 industrialists and environmentalists to the President’s Commission on Environmental Quality and named Struhs to run the commission. One of the 23 commission appointees was then-Enron CEO Kenneth Lay.

When Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton in 1992, Struhs went to work for Lefkowith as vice president of Canyon Group. Lefkowith has represented as many as 60 different electric power companies through his company.

By 1998, Struhs was working for Jeb Bush and Lefkowith was on board with the ill-fated Florida water privatization project. “I don’t think water is so damn special,” he said at the time. “If you let markets take over, you’d find water was cheaper, there would be more of it, and customers would be better served.” He neglected to explain how water quantity would increase.

Fast forward to 2002 and Struhs and Lefkowith were back at the forefront of market manipulation in Florida at the behest of Jeb Bush, but by now, their dealings were with electric power companies. Struhs was DEP Secretary and Jeb Bush had set up Energy 2020 Commission, a group assembled to study deregulation.

This time when Struhs brought him in as a consultant, Lefkowith was given unlimited access to all the emails of Bush’s Energy 2020 Commission members and staffers even though most of the 2020 commissioners never heard of him, never saw him and never knew he access to their correspondence. The Energy 2020 Commission was a group Jeb Bush assembled to study deregulation.

On Feb. 4, 2001, Struh’s deputy chief of staff, Mollie Palmer, ordered a half-dozen top DEP employees to start sending Energy 2020 Commission documents to Lefkowith with emails from Energy 2020 Chairman Walter Revell or from commission executive director Billy Stiles to be “forwarded to Lefty upon receipt.”

After receiving a copy of that memo, Pollock and Davis requested copies of all documents sent to Lefkowith but DEP officials responded that no documents existed. (That sounds much like the responses received by Capitol News Service from the Division of Administration and from the Louisiana governor’s office.)

“Who is this guy to get this information?” asked Florida Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe. “From the tone and tenor of these emails and communications, he is directing energy policy (for the state). What authority does he have to do that? And for what purpose?”

Democratic State Sen. Kip Campbell of Tarmarac was even less forgiving of the practice. “Suppose I was sending letters to Struhs, like ‘here is my thought process on what we are going to do legislatively.’ And Lefkowith knows this ahead of time. Lefkowith might be working for Calpine and all those other companies, and selling that knowledge for profit. I’d be willing to wager he probably was.”

Lefkowith also attended strategy sessions with Gov. Jeb Bush to discuss findings of the Energy 2020 Commission.

In addition, he lobbied Florida utility representatives in private meetings on the issue of building power plants in order to broker power sales.

He would later use the information he had obtained as confidant to Struhs and Jeb Bush to wrangle a consulting job with the Florida PSC.

So now “Lefty” Lefkowith is in the employ of Louisiana Department of Education as Director of the Office of Portfolio, which is over the Office of Parental Options—whatever the function of those offices may be.

Given his past efforts at privatizing water sales and his attempt at forming a consortium to sell electric power to the highest bidder in Florida, it should come as no surprise to see him attempt to implement much the same type of coup with charter schools or the computer Course Choice program in Louisiana.

Whatever the case, one can bet there is money to be made somewhere in the grand scheme of things.

All this from our initial request for the amount he was paid for making a video of embarrassingly amateurish quality.

No wonder news outlets are experiencing difficulty in obtaining information from the “most open, accountable and transparent administration in the history of Louisiana.”

Our mothers always told us one thing leads to another.

There’s another adage that applies here: Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Notable Quotables, Vouchers on October 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

“Dave has three decades of experience bringing innovation into the workplace and Louisiana has tapped his proven skills to bring innovation into the classroom. He has worked with private sector companies and government agencies across the nation to harness the talent of professionals in diverse industries and develop creative solutions to improve results. He is regarded as an expert nationally in these areas, and the skills and experience he brings will be critical in effectively implementing a number of large, complex programs and activities aimed at benefiting Louisiana school children.”

—Department of Education response to a LouisianaVoice public records request into the qualifications of motivational speaker Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith as the department’s Director of the Office of Portfolio at a salary of $145,999.88 per year.

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DOE, John White are masters at obfuscation and baffling with B.S., but are not very good at dazzling with brilliance

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Public Records, State Agencies, Vouchers on October 9, 2012| 5 Comments »

The Monroe News-Star has sued them and the Associated Press keeps pounding out the message that the Louisiana Department of Education has consistently refused to provide public records to the media—even after having first promised to do so.

But after a recent exchange of emails with DOE, LouisianaVoice has arrived at the conclusion that perhaps it is just as well that the media cease its quest for the information and that the department remain non-compliant with such requests. At least it cuts down on the confusion.

A reader recently sent us a Youtube link to a video presentation in which one Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith hyped the department’s computer Course Choice.

Course Choice is Superintendent of Education John White’s brainchild whereby a business, a college or an individual may offer computer courses to students at a fee set by the business, college or individual providing the courses.

But back to Lefty. Here is the link to his presentation, poor audio and all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfFoeQFoduM

After viewing his stellar performance, we decided to check Lefty’s credentials.

Executive Speakers Bureau, a booking agency for public speakers, described Lefkowith as a resident of California whose speaking fee ranges from $10,000 to $15,000.

“Dave ‘Lefty’ Lefkowith is a dynamic hands-on change agent, successful as an executive, a corporate consultant, an entrepreneur and a speaker/trainer,” the speaker bureau’s bio profile said. “Dave provides leaders and organizations with the practical insights they need to be successful in the 21st Century.”

There was more, of course, but we had seen enough to wonder why, at a fee of $10,000 to $15,000, Lefty’s DEO Course Choice video sounded as if he were speaking from the bottom of an empty metal barrel.

So, naturally we made a public records request of the department as to how much Lefty charged Louisiana taxpayers to make such a poorly-produced video presentation.

The answer surprised us.

Lefty, it seems, charged the department absolutely nothing in the way of fees to make the promo. That’s because, explained DOE public information representative Barry Landry, ol’ Lefty is now a full time employee of the department.

Wait. What?

That news flash, of course prompted yet another public records request:

• What is David “Lefty” Lefkowith’s official title?

• When was he hired by the Louisiana Department of Education?

• What is his official title?

• What are his qualifications for his position?

A few days later we received this response:

“Dave Lefkowith replaced Parker Baxter. Lefkowith’s title is Director, which was the same as Baxter. Lefkowith’s first day with the Department was July 20, 2012. Lefkowith’s salary is $145,999.88, comparable to Baxter’s salary of $140,000. Dave has three decades of experience bringing innovation into the workplace and Louisiana has tapped his proven skills to bring innovation into the classroom. He has worked with private sector companies and government agencies across the nation to harness the talent of professionals in diverse industries and develop creative solutions to improve results. He is regarded as an expert nationally in these areas, and the skills and experience he brings will be critical in effectively implementing a number of large, complex programs and activities aimed at benefiting Louisiana school children.”

Several things came to mind after reading this:

• First of all, director of what? Lefty is simply described as a “Director.”

• Second, does anyone actually understand what the DOE response said? From our reading, it’s what we like to call gooney-babble.

• Third, if Lefty is really as “dynamic” as his bio on the Executive Speakers Bureau web page says he is and at $10,000 to $15,000 a pop, it would appear that as few as 10 to 15 of those “dynamic, hands-on” presentations a year would match what the department is paying him. So, why would he give all that up and leave California to become a hired hand in Louisiana?

We also checked out his predecessor, Parker Baxter. Here is what his DOE bio said about him:

“Parker Baxter is the Executive Director of the Office of Parental Options at the Louisiana Department of Education. He previously served as Senior Legal Analyst at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, working as project manager for the District-Charter Collaboration Compact project. He is an education attorney, consultant, and author with over ten years of experience in the field. Previously, Parker served for three years as Director of Charter Schools for Denver Public Schools (DPS) where he was responsible for authorization, quality assurance, oversight, and performance management of the district’s portfolio of more than 30 charter and contract schools. Prior to joining DPS, Parker was an aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where he worked on issues related to the No Child Left Behind Act and Head Start, and assisted in the formation and passage of the Higher Education Access Act. Parker has a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law and a Masters in Public Management and Policy from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service where he was a Dean’s Scholar. He is also a former special education teacher, an alumnus of Teach for America, and an honors graduate of Colorado College.”

Okay, so Lefty replaced the director of Parental Options (whatever that is) but now is the Director of the Office of Portfolio (whatever that is), which includes Parental Options, according to Landry in his follow-up response.

So our initial request for public records resulted in the following terminology being made available to us:

• Office of Parental Options;

• Center on Reinventing Public Education;

• District Charter Collaboration Compact Project;

• Teach for America;

• Innovation in the classroom;

• Implementing a number of large complex programs;

• Harnessing the talent of professionals;

• Developing creative solutions to improve results.

All for a mere $144,999.88 a year. What a bargain.

And for all that, we get a “free” Youtube video of amateurish quality.

As the old adage goes, be careful what you ask for…

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