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ALEC mantra of small government is huge paradox when weighed against perks of low taxes, big public contracts

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Business, Charters, Contract, Contracts, Prison, Privatization, Taxes, Vouchers on January 30, 2013| 4 Comments »

It’s interesting to note that the very existence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which writes “model legislation” for lawmakers to introduce back in their respective state capitals rests on one ginormous paradox.

For example, consider this mission statement from ALEC’s 4th edition of its state economic competitiveness index entitled Rich States, Poor Stateshttp://www.alec.org/docs/RSPS_4th_Edition.pdf: “ALEC’s mission is to discuss, develop and disseminate public policies which expand free markets, promote economic growth, limit the size of government (emphasis ours), and preserve individual liberty within its nine task forces.”

Yet, for all its breast beating about making government smaller and more accountable, it’s curious and somewhat contrary to that theme that of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500, fully one-half are—or were—corporate members of ALEC http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/.

In fact, 31 of the 50 largest corporations in America helped pay the bills to wine and dine state legislators at seminars, conferences, planning sessions and annual meetings of ALEC delegates, including the 2011 annual meeting held in New Orleans at which Gov. Bobby Jindal was the keynote speaker.

Fallout over the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, last February coupled with ALEC’s endorsement of the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law in that state which was linked to his shooting has resulted in the decision by some two dozen corporations to drop their ALEC memberships.

Among those who have bailed out are Wal-Mart, General Motors, General Electric, Bank of America, Entergy, PepsiCo, Walgreen, Dow Chemical, Marathon Petroleum, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola.

Some of those retaining their memberships, however, include Hunt-Guillot of Ruston, ExxonMobil (the largest corporation in the U.S.), Chevron, AT&T, Verizon, UnitedHealth Group, Archer Daniels Midland, Wells Fargo, Pfizer, Boeing, Microsoft, and FedEx.

ALEC’s “small is better” philosophy for government takes a sharp 180 when its corporate membership is placed under the microscope. While 50 of the 100 largest members of the Fortune 500 are ALEC members, that number drops precipitously in the ensuing blocks of 100.

For example, of the corporations ranked in size from 101 to 200, only 29 are ALEC members and for 201 to 300, the number is 17. For 301 to 400, the membership is 13 and for the final group, 401-500, you will find only seven who are ALEC members.

So while the lobbying group maintains that small is better, it appears that it goes after the larger corporate sponsors first and is increasingly disdainful of the smaller companies.

The 116 Fortune 500 companies who are members of ALEC combined for $4.5 trillion in revenues in 2011 and altogether realized net profits of $484.2 billion. Remember, that does not include the other 384 Fortune 500 companies—just the 116 ALEC members.

Just for the record, here are 50 ALEC members from the Fortune 100 with 2011 rankings, revenue and profits in parentheses http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/full_list/:

• ExxonMobil—(1; $452.9 billion; $41.1 billion);

• Wal-Mart—(2; $446.9 billion; $15.7 billion—terminated membership);

• Chevron—(3; $245.6 billion; $26.9 billion);

• ConocoPhillips—(4; $237.3 billion; $12.4 billion);

• GM—(5; $150.3 billion; $9.2 billion—terminated membership);

• GE—(6; $147.6 billion; $14.2 billion—terminated membership);

• Ford—(9; $136.3 billion; $20.2 billion);

• AT&T—(11; $126.7 billion; $3.9 billion);

• Bank of America—(13; $115.1 billion; $1.4 billion);

• Verizon—(15; $110.9 billion; $2.4 billion);

• CVS—(18; $107.8 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• IBM—(19; $106.9 billion; $15.9 billion);

• UnitedHealth Group—(22; (101.9 billion; $5.1 billion);

• Wells Fargo—(26; $87.6 billion; $15.9 billion—terminated membership);

• Procter & Gamble—(27; $82.6 billion; $11.8 billion—terminated membership);

• Archer Daniels Midland—(28; $80.7 billion; $2 billion);

• Marathon Petroleum—(31; $73.6 billion; $2.4 billion);

• Walgreen—(32; $72.2 billion; $2.7 billion—terminated membership);

• Medco Health Solutions—(36; $70.1 billion; $17.8 billion—terminated membership);

• Microsoft—(37; $69.9 billion; $23.2 billion);

• Boeing—(39); $68.7 billion; $4 billion);

• Pfizer—(40; $67.9 billion; $10 billion);

• PepsiCo—(41; $66.5 billion; $6.4 billion—terminated membership);

• Johnson & Johnson—(42; $65 billion; $9.7 billion—terminated membership);

• State Farm Insurance—(43; $64.3 billion; $845 million);

• Dell—(44; $62.1 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• WellPoint—(45; $60.7 billion; $2.6 billion);

• Caterpillar—(46; $60.1 billion; $4.9 billion);

• Dow Chemical—(47; $60 billion; $2.7 billion);

• Comcast—(49; $55.8 billion; $4.2 billion);

• Kraft Foods—(50; $54.4 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• Intel—(51; $54 billion; $12.9 billion);

• UPS—(52; $53.1 billion; $3.8 billion);

• Best Buy—(53; $50.3 billion; $1.3 billion—terminated membership);

• Prudential—(55; $49 billion; $3.7 billion;

• Amazon.com—(56; $48.1 billion; $631 million—terminated membership);

• Merck—(57; $48 billion; $6.3 billion—terminated membership);

• Coca-Cola—(59; $46.5 billion; $8.6 billion—terminated membership);

• Express Scripts Holding—(60; $46.1 billion; $8.6 billion);

• FedEx—(70; $39.3 billion; $1.5 billion);

• DuPont—(72; $38.7 billion; $3.5 billion—terminated membership);

• Honeywell International—(77; $37.1 billion; $2.1 billion);

• Humana—(79; $36.8 billion; $1.4 billion);

• Liberty Mutual Insurance Group—(84; $34.7 billion; $365 million);

• Sprint Nextel—(90; $33.7 billion; –$2.9 billion);

• News Corp.—(91; $33.4 billion; $2.7 billion);

• American Express—(95; $32.3 billion; $4.9 billion);

• John Deere—(97; $32 billion; $2.8 billion—terminated membership);

• Philip Morris—(99; $31.1 billion; $8.6 billion);

• Nationwide Insurance—(100; $30.7 billion; -$793 million).

Of course, ALEC also pushes its agenda of lower taxes very strongly (who do you think helped write Gov. Jindal’s proposal to eliminate the state individual and corporate income taxes in favor of increase sales taxes? Surely, one would not believe he came up with that all by himself).

It’s no coincidence that Louisiana is pushing to ditch the state income tax at the same time as several other states, including Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Carolina. Each state has read the ALEC playbook.

“Money is spent more efficiently by the private sector than by governments, so it is reasonable to expect that states with lower overall taxes have better economic environments than states with high taxes and more government spending,” the Rich States, Poor States report says.

Apparently the authors of that statement did not bother to review the histories of the subprime mortgage crisis, junk bonds, Enron, Bernard Madoff, Stanford Financial Group, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), Tyco, WorldCom, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and the bursting of the dotcom bubble.

Be that as it may, let us go back to ALEC’s mantra of lower taxes and see how that might apply to its corporate membership.

General Electric is the poster child for tax dodges. With $19.6 billion in net profits for the years 2008-2011, GE managed not only to pay no taxes, but got $3.7 billion in tax refunds.

Other ALEC members, their net profits and taxes/refunds for years 2008-2011 include: http://www.ctj.org/pdf/notax2012.pdf

• PG&E—($6 billion; $1 billion refund);

• CenterPoint Energy—($3.1 billion; $347 million refund);

• Duke Energy—($5.5 billion; $216 million refund);

• Con-way—($422 million; $23 million refund);

• Ryder System—($843 million; $46 million refund);

• DuPont—($3 billion; $325 million paid in taxes—10.8 percent, less than one-third the standard 35 percent tax rate);

• Consolidated Edison—($5.9 billion; $74 million refund);

• Verizon—($19.8 billion; $758 million refund);

• Boeing—($14.8 billion; $812 million refund);

• Wells Fargo—($69.2 billion; $2.6 billion paid in taxes—3.8 percent, barely 10 percent of the 35 percent standard rate);

• Honeywell International—($5.2 billion; $102 million—2 percent).

Some of the CEOs for ALEC member corporations received more in compensation in 2010 than their companies paid in taxes. Here are a few with salaries first, followed by taxes paid: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/31/ceo-pay-vs-corporate-taxes/

• International Paper: $249 million refund; CEO John Faraci received $12.3 million;

• Prudential: $722 million refund; CEO John Strangfeld received $16.2 million;

• Verizon: $705 million refund; CEO Ivan Seidenberg paid $18.1 million;

• Chesapeake Energy: paid no taxes; CEO Aubrey McClendon paid $21 million;

• eBay: $131 million refund; CEO John Donahoe paid $12.4 million;

• Coca-Cola: paid $8 million taxes; CEO John Brock paid $19.1 million;

• Dow Chemical: $576 million refund; CEO Andrew Liveris paid $17.8 million;

• Ford: $69 million refund: CEO Alan Mulally paid $26.5 million.

If you still believe that ALEC favors smaller government over, say, being able to exercise control over government taxation and spending, then consider the General Services Administration’s list of $69 billion in federal contracts held by these ALEC members in fiscal year 2011: https://www.fpds.gov/fpdsng/index.php/reports

• Boeing: $21.6 billion;

• Northrop Grumman: $15 billion;

• Raytheon Co.: $14.8 billion;

• Humana: $3.4 billion;

• General Electric: $2.8 billion;

• Honeywell International: $2.2 billion;

• Dell: $1.4 billion;

• IBM: $1.7 billion;

• FedEx: $1.6 billion;

• Merck: $1.3 billion;

• Shell: $913 million;

• Pfizer: $1.2 billion;

• UPS: $701 million;

• AT&T: $743 million;

It’s easy to preach small government and lower taxes but to achieve this, a lot of ALEC members would stand to lose a chunk of business with Uncle Sam.

And that doesn’t even include state and local contracts like the $18.3 million in state contracts currently held by ALEC member Hunt, Guillot & Associates of Ruston and the $11.4 million state contract awarded to Northrop Grumman.

Smaller, more streamlined and accountable government sound great, most would agree. But the implementation of changes across the board may well affect one’s bottom line and that, as they say, is when the cheese gets binding. It is then that we simply must follow the money.

Charter schools and vouchers, for example, would benefit investors who see a fortune to be made in private education—especially when most of that money would be paid by the state.

The continued growth in the number of private prisons (along with more laws that send more people to prison) would be quite a windfall for those operators who contract with state and local governments to incarcerate lawbreakers.

Elimination of personal and corporate income taxes in favor of sales tax increases would further lighten the financial burden of business and industry—and shift that burden onto the backs of low- and middle-income citizens.

The rejection of a federal grant to build a broadband internet system for rural Louisiana certainly benefitted commercial cable companies like AT&T which contributed $250,000 to the Supriya Jindal Foundation.

Likewise, relaxed environmental regulations endorsed by ALEC certainly aided member Dow Chemical which coincidentally kicked in $100,000 for the Supriya Jindal Foundation. Soon after that donation, proposed fines of subsidiary Union Carbide for allowing the release of a toxic pollutant and failing to notify authorities of the leak were dropped.

Or Marathon Oil, whose $250,000 donation to the foundation may have greased the skids for the awarding of $5.2 million in state funds to a Marathon subsidiary.

Instead of listening to the rhetoric of ALEC’s membership, one would do well to watch how certain specific proposals might affect that membership.

In other words, don’t listen to what they say; watch instead for what they do.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Attorney General, BESE, Charters, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lobbyist on January 20, 2013| 9 Comments »

“Thomas Ratliff’s presence on the State Board of Education is not legal because of his being a registered lobbyist.”

—Opinion by the Texas Attorney General’s Office on the legality of a Texas registered lobbyist’s serving on the State Board of Education. Louisiana lobbyist Steve Waguespack was appointed by Gov. Piyush Jindal on Friday to membership on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education even though his law firm advertises on the web of its expertise in working with charter schools and school reform advocates. Louisiana has no such ethics laws prohibiting such appointments despite Jindal’s claim to having the most ethical administration in Louisiana history.

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New round of budget cuts to be announced Friday as π-yush administration grapples with declining state tax revenues

Posted in Charters, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Jobs, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Revenue, State Agencies, Taxes, Vouchers on December 12, 2012| 12 Comments »

Fiscal Year 2012-13 is just half over but more deep budget cuts will be announced on Friday and, in the words of one state official, “It ain’t gonna be pretty.”

And the latest fiscal problems haven’t even encountered a looming tax rebate program being offered to encourage financial viability of state charter schools, a centerpiece of the Jindal administration.

With health care and higher education already devastated by previous cuts, it’s anyone’s guess who will suffer in the new round of belt tightening.

Higher education has already been hit with more than $426 million in cuts since 2009—$25 million since June—and Gov. Piyush Jindal has been conducting a fire sale to unload state hospitals and prisons, so it’s difficult to pinpoint where other cuts can be implemented.

The Revenue Estimating Conference will meet on Thursday and the Joint Committee on the Budget will meet on Friday to officially hear the bad news.

Without specifics (because they weren’t available when this was written), that bad news is:

• Personal income tax revenue is below projections;

• Corporate income tax revenue is below projections;

• Severance tax revenue is below projections (because of an unexpected drop in the price of natural gas);

• Sales tax revenue is below projections.

With the bulk of state revenue coming from income taxes and sales taxes, the news, it seems, couldn’t be much worse.

But it might.

Remember the alternative fuel tax credit?

That’s the bill authored by former Rep. Jane Smith (R-Bossier City) that promised a tax credit of up to $3,000 for vehicles that burn “alternative fuel. It was estimated at the time that the tax credit would cost the state $907,000 over five years.

After losing her bid to move up to the Senate in 2011, Jindal rewarded her loyalty (read: dedication to tax breaks) by appointing her as deputy secretary of the Department of Revenue.

The intent of the bill was to encourage the conversion of vehicles to propane but between the passage of Smith’s tax rebate bill and its implementation, flex-fuel vehicles that run on a blend of up to 85 percent ethanol hit the market.

These vehicles immediately qualified for the rebate and the real cost turned out to be more like $200 million, an increase of almost 1,900 percent after then-Revenue Secretary Cynthia Bridges got around to creating rules for the program.

Caught in a potential fiscal crisis over the tax credits, Jindal promptly fired Bridges, promoted Smith (who authored the bill in the first place) to interim secretary and rescinded the tax credits.

Now, a similar scenario may have arisen in the form of last session’s House Bill 969.

HB 969, by Rep. Kirk Talbot (R-Baton Rouge), which was subsequently signed into law by Piyush as Act 25, offers tax rebates to those making contributions to charter schools.

Piyush vetoed a similar bill by Rep. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) that would have given tax rebates of up to $10 million to those making contributions to public schools because, he said, there was no provision in the state budget for the rebates.

The only problem is, the provisions of Act 25 contain no dollar cap which, like the alternative fuel tax, could blow a gaping hole in the state’s budget should a sufficient number of people make contributions to the private scholarship program.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Boy Blunder handles the latest financial crisis since the state is running out of one-time money with which to plug budget holes, thousands of state jobs have already been eliminated, there are few remaining assets that can be sold off, and health care and higher education have already been cut just about as much as they can stand and still function.

Perhaps Piyush might actually see the need to jettison a few six-figure appointive positions handed out to former legislators like Smith, Noble Ellington, Troy Hebert, Lane Carson and numerous others.

That would be a start—a show of good faith, at least.

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Guest columnist: Shadow schools, John White, subterfuge, accountability and the best interests of our school children

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Governor's Office, Guest Columnist, Privatization, Public Records, Vouchers on December 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

Editor’s note: Occasionally we post guest commentary and today’s offering contains what we feel is significant information about the existence of so-called “shadow schools.” The author of this essay is a former employee of the Department of Education (DOE) who possesses information not readily available to the public because of the propensity on the part of the Jindal administration and DOE to withhold information from the public that could potentially be detrimental to the administration’s goal of skewing statistics to put charters, vouchers, and course choice in the best light possible. Because the author is now employed in another field, we reluctantly decided to publish this under a pseudonym.

By Laird Bradford

Recently I’ve learned that the LDOE has known for many years about the existence of shadow or phantom schools that were created for the express purpose of evading accountability. (Shadow Schools are sites that go unreported to the State and Federal government for reporting purposes, but exist and function as completely independent schools.) In some cases such as Caddo, Jefferson and EBR these efforts were halted in the past. In other cases such as Iberville, St James, and who knows how many others, these efforts are allowed and perhaps even encouraged. (If you doubt me, feel free to call up Iberville (225-687-4341) and ask them what state site code they’ve had assigned to MSA East and MSA West and when they plan on requesting one.)

Only the LDOE knows why rules were made (and made to be broken for some) but this begs a greater question. Where are the children? I mean really? How do they actually keep track of them? Where did they factor in these decisions? Do they factor at all? School districts get State funding for them by reporting they are enrolled at other existing schools, and those Academy students raise the SPS scores of the schools they are reported at, but those are schools, like East Iberville and White Castle, they never actually set foot in.

I hear our leaders like Bobby Jindal and John White claiming they are doing things “for the children,” and that teachers are only worried about themselves. Maybe that’s true. Maybe we all only worry about ourselves. Maybe teachers just went into the profession for the glamorous lifestyles and exorbitant salaries and don’t care about the kids they teach at all. I know I had a lot of teachers growing up that seemed to care a great deal about me, but that could have been part of an elaborate ruse.

I attended public schools in East Baton Rouge Parish. If I looked sad or down my teachers would ask me how my day was going and sometimes it felt good that someone took the time just to ask (though I know now that was just a cynical ploy on their part). When I was bullied and crying once I remember one of my teachers giving me a hug, and offering to help, but such intervention would have only made things worse and I bet they knew that-–-even if it did seem comforting at the time. When I didn’t do as well on a test they would offer to help me after class or in the mornings to catch up or review the topic again . . . “perhaps I could do some extra credit?” But I know now that was also part of a ruse to keep me dumb to the real game—of getting rich off of teaching.

Sometimes I would see my teachers doing part time gigs at the local library or bookstores or even grocery stores to make ends meet-–-or so they said. But I could tell from their wardrobes of all the latest fashions (from 10 to 20 years prior) that they were rolling in the dough-–-so even those jobs must have been part of a clever cover story. I’m sure one day I’ll figure it out.

I know John White is doing everything he can for our children though. He often tells us that he is, which is really quite bold of him since what meager data put out by DOE consistently say otherwise! I believe that is what’s called blind leadership. Sometimes blind leadership is important when you have a goal like privatization in mind, but inconvenient realities like clear evidence that pursuing your true goal [of privatization at any cost] may create vast educational disparities, make pariahs out of teachers, and sacrificial victims out of students. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a few children, or teachers, when the special interests clamor loud enough and the political aspirations of a megalomaniacal governor are at stake.

Unfortunately, despite John White’s catchy and not at all ironic slogan “Louisiana Believes,” Louisiana wasn’t believing fast enough so he was forced to hire a part time PR consultant named Deidre Finn for $144,000 a year (a full time consultant obviously would have been out of his price range.) This must be super important because he certainly wouldn’t do that for purely selfish reasons like spreading glory about himself in preparation for this next gig or to tout a constitutionally-challenged agenda even as children struggle to keep up with their devolutionary lessons (devolution is ok, but evolutionary theory is the devil’s workshop) in ever-increasing class sizes.

And get this folks: John White is only pulling down $275,000 a year! He’s barely getting by. That’s barely what a full time PR consultant makes. It’s no wonder he can’t afford to have any children of his own, or enroll them in our schools. I mean, how could he afford to enroll them in a non-public school (like our new BESE President Chas Roemer does) on such a meager pittance?

But let’s get back to more missing children!

Did you also know that despite record theoretical dropout declines, our graduate counts are relatively unchanged, even as our student enrollment climbs year after year? Despite the touted evidence from DOE that our annual dropout rate has roughly halved by to 9000 fewer dropouts on an annual basis since around 2006, our graduate counts, and all of our completer counts, have remained roughly the same. Every year since Katrina our enrollment has increased by around six thousand students. However, our graduates have increased maybe 1000 or so annually over the same time period. Does anyone know where those students are (because DOE seems to have lost track of them)?

Did you know DOE still hasn’t managed to count the students enrolled on October 1st of 2012? This count was supposed to be completed by the end of October, but it seems they are having serious problems in this department, too. It’s a good thing we don’t rely on that data for anything important, except allocating funding for schools or complying with act 54, that silly thing where students get linked to teachers to determine if teachers get to keep their jobs or tenure or some such. . . nothing really important.

John White also seems to have lost track of the children in his pursuit of creating what he calls “options” for parents. He is adamantly opposed to measuring the success, or failures, of non-public schools receiving vouchers, and in favor of loosening many of the requirements for charters schools, virtual schools, online course providers, and traditional charters in regards to teacher qualifications and class sizes. White believes it is more important to allow parents to make decisions, and market forces to decide success and failures, than to look after the welfare of children we pay him $275,000 a year to care about.

But that’s not his call to make!

For good or ill, John White is the Louisiana Superintendent of Education, not the Patron Saint of Free Enterprise and Anarchy. His job is to ensure all students receive a quality education, not to ensure that a free market, over time, renders a verdict as to who is a winner or loser. A school that is deemed “good” to a parent (maybe because they are close by and offer an afterschool babysitting service) may not be at all good for a child for creating an educated and fully functioning and responsible citizen. Moreover, if John White actually had any experience as a parent, he would realize that parents look at data and read reports, just like everyone else. By depriving parents of any yardstick by which to measure these myriad uncharted education operators he is vastly underserving parents and students. He is acting as a free enterprise messiah, a partisan demagogue, but not as a responsible Superintendent of Education worthy of a $275,000 salary.

John White and the Louisiana Department of education have lost track of dropouts, lost track of schools and the students in those schools, and lost track of the data used to provide funding based on student counts. What he has found is a cadre of political science majors, like his Compass Director Molly Horstman, and PR folks like Dave Lefkowith, and Diedre Finn to foist his political spewings upon us, hoping if he repeats his lies enough, we will “believe” them.

Thanks to Jindal and contributions from privatization forces, BESE (our state board of education) has been hijacked and instead of providing oversight, merely provides a rubber stamp to anything John White or Jindal proposes.

John White has lost some of our children, but his job is not done yet. With his destructive, deluded and dysfunctional policies he has plans to lose them all.

Tell John White it’s time to find the children again. It really is the least he could do.

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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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