Posted in Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables on April 4, 2012| 5 Comments »
“We’re against discrimination, but we don’t believe in special protections or rights.”
–Gov. Bobby Jindal’s press secretary Frank Collins, defending Senate Bill 217 by State Sen. A.G. Crowe (R-Slidell), which would allow charter schools to refuse to admit students on the basis of their ability to speak English, their sexual orientation or other unspecified factors.
Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Charters, Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Louisiana Purchase on April 4, 2012| 11 Comments »
The Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee has approved by a 5-1 vote Senate Bill 217 by State Sen. A.G. Crowe (R-Slidell) which would allow charter schools to refuse to admit students on the basis of their ability to speak English, their sexual orientation or other unspecified factors.
In what must qualify as one of the more asinine comments coming out of the current session, Crowe said the intent of his bill is to prevent bans by executive branch agencies and local governments on discrimination against characteristics not listed in state law as a condition for private companies to do business with their agencies.
Wait. What? Is Sen. A.G. Crowe really advocating a return to Jim Crow?
Apparently so and so are four of the remaining six members. Sen. Dan Martiny (R-Metairie) was not around for the final vote.
Voting in favor, besides committee Chairman Crowe were Sens. Bob Kostelka (R-Monroe), Barrow Peacock (R-Bossier City), Neil Riser (R-Columbia), and Ronnie Johns (R-Lake Charles).
Of the six Republicans on the committee, only Peacock received no significant campaign contributions from either Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign or from corporations affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is an organization which denies it is a lobbyist, but, headed by Koch Industries, it includes dozens of large national and multi-national corporations who meet with state legislators on a regular basis to draft legislation for state lawmakers to take back home with them for enactment.
Invariably those laws favor corporate tax breaks and cuts to state employee benefits. ALEC also promotes widespread privatization of heretofore public services and advocates school vouchers and private and charter schools over traditional public schools.
It’s really amazing what a little largesse in the right places can do.
Crowe, Kostelka, Riser, Johns and Martiny each received $2,500 from Jindal’s campaign fund in 2011 and the same five received numerous campaign contributions from ALEC-affiliated corporations.
Perhaps Jindal and some of those corporations should demand a pro rata rebate from Martiny for his failure to vote on the bill.
The state Department of Education contracts with those seeking charter schools were the chief examples cited during testimony for Senate Bill 217. Gov. Bobby Jindal did not respond to requests for comment about calls to unilaterally strip the anti-discriminatory language from the department’s contract criteria.
Sen. Ed Murray, the only committee member to vote no on the measure, said the possibility of SB217 becoming law and negating the anti-discriminatory prohibitions in charter school contracts is “really scary.”
Is it really true that Sen. Murray is the only member of the committee to understand that?
“I can’t believe that at the same time we as a Legislature are passing bills that .… allow charter schools to deny admission based solely on a child’s ability to speak English well enough or play basketball well enough,” Murray said.
“The focus is really simple,” Crowe said. “It says stick to the law.”
State law currently forbids discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national ancestry, age, sex or disability but the Department of Education has expanded that to include sex ethnicity, sexual orientation, athletic performance and special need proficiency in the English language or in a foreign language.
Leslie Ellison, of New Orleans, testified she refused to sign a charter school contract with the Department of Education because it required her company to not discriminate against gays, as well as other criteria not listed in state law. She said the department does not have the right to insert its own opinions into a state contract.
Louisiana Family Forum head Gene Mills a message was being sent for Jindal to strip the provision from his Education Department’s contract criteria. Louisiana Family Forum is a coalition of religious groups that lobby the legislature on issues such as teen abstinence and other social issues.
Neither Jindal nor State Superintendent of Education John White responded to requests for comment about the policy but Jindal press secretary Frank Collins said, “We’re against discrimination, but we don’t believe in special protections or rights.”
Education Department spokesperson Rene Greer said the charter authorization provision was under review by the department.
Someone whose name is long since forgotten once said you get what you pay for and apparently ALEC and Jindal are getting their money’s worth from Louisiana legislators they bought…er, supported.
Posted in Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Teague, Vouchers on March 14, 2012| 7 Comments »
It was more of the same in Baton Rouge Wednesday: a legislator got Teagued, an attempt by a Republican House member to Teague—or at least out teachers for potential Teague-ing—failed, and new light was shed on the Teague-ing of an administration official by Jindal last week.
State Rep. Harold Ritchie (D-Bogalusa) got his comeuppance on Wednesday one day after he voted against legislation pushed by Jindal. Ritchie, was stripped of his vice chairmanship of the House Committee on Insurance after voting no on a tax rebate for those who donate money for scholarships to private and parochial schools.
He is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee that approved the legislation, HB 969, on Tuesday. Ritchie, during the committee meeting, asked about mechanics of the bill, including how many children might take advantage of it and how many private and parochial schools could accommodate transfer students.
He also posed questions about whether or not accountability standards would be required at the schools offer the scholarships created through the tax rebates.
HB 969 is one of the bills Jindal wants passed as a means of providing subsidized opportunities for children to attend private or parochial schools. Another bill would use taxpayer dollars for the same purpose.
True to form for Jindal, Ritchie was removed the next day by House Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles). Also true to form, Jindal never does the firing personally, leaving that task to subordinates. In this case, Kleckley is the only one who could have demoted Ritchie.
Rep. Ledricka Thierry (D-Opelousas) was named by Kleckley to replace Ritchie.
Also on Wednesday, State Rep. Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette), whose district includes Vermilion Parish, opened proceedings at the House Education Committee by introducing a new rule that has never existed in House committee hearings.
The committee was hearing testimony on HB 976 by committee Chairman Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge) that would impose sweeping changes, including providing student scholarships for Jindal’s Educational Excellence Program, allow for parent petitions for certain schools to be transferred to the Recovery School District (RSD) and charter school authorization criteria.
Before debate began on the bill, Landry said she had received calls from “concerned constituents” to the effect that some teachers from districts that did not close schools for the day had taken a sick day in order to attend a rally of teachers opposed to Jindal’s education reform.
She made a motion that in addition to the customary practice of witnesses providing their names, where they are from and whom they represent, they be required to state if they were appearing before the committee in a “professional capacity or if they were on annual or sick leave.”
Democrats on the committee were livid. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) said he had never in his tenure in the House seen such a rule imposed on witnesses.
“This house (the Capitol) belongs to the people,” said Rep. Pat Smith (D-Baton Rouge) “and now we’re going to put them in a compromising position? This is an atrocity!”
Committee member Wesley Bishop (D-New Orleans) said, “I have one question: if we approve this motion and if a witness declines to provide that information, will that witness be prohibited from testifying?”
Carter, momentarily taken aback, held a hastily whispered conference before turning back to the microphone to say, “We cannot refuse anyone the opportunity to testify.”
That appeared to make Landry’s motion a moot point but she persisted and the committee ended up approving her motion by a 10-8 vote that was reflective of the 11-6 Republican-Democrat (with one Independent) makeup of the committee.
Edwards lost no time in getting in a parting shot on the passage of the new rule.
Gov. Bobby Jindal was the first to testify and upon completion of his testimony, Edwards observed that no one on the committee appeared overly concerned of whether or not the governor was on annual or sick leave.
Jindal, who had entered the committee room late and knew nothing of the debate and subsequent vote on Landry’s motion, bristled at Edwards, saying, “I’m here as governor.”
The committee, which convened around 9 a.m. Wednesday, was still considering Carter’s bill at midnight.
New Information on Manuel firing
Martha Manuel, former executive director of the Office of Elderly Affairs and who was Teagued last week after criticizing the administration’s decision to transfer her agency from the governor’s office to the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), shed new light on her testimony this week.
Following her dismissal, some said Jindal had no choice since Manual was appointed to the position by Jindal as an unclassified employee at $88,000 per year. One critic said that Tammy Woods, director of Community Programs, who fired Manual by telephone, was correct in justifying the firing because Manuel “was not in line with the governor’s thinking.”
But in a recent radio interview, Manuel said she only testified because she was asked to do so by State Rep. John Berthelot (R-Gonzales) because, Berthelot said, he had been getting a lot of calls to his office about the transfer of the agency.
At that point, her options were somewhat limited. She could have refused, in which case she could have been subpoenaed. Once she testified, she was compelled to testify truthfully or commit perjury.
For his part, Berthelot has nothing to say about the matter.
Posted in Charters, Education, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Transparency, Vouchers on February 3, 2012| 2 Comments »
“We are going to create a system that pays teachers for doing a good job instead of for the length of time they have been breathing.”
—Gov. Bobby Jindal, unveiling his education reform package before the annual meeting of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry on Jan. 17.
“It’s a Biblical principle: if you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach.”
–Alabama State Senator Shadrack McGill (R-Woodville), speaking at a prayer breakfast in Fort Payne, Alabama, earlier this week. At the same time, he defended a 62 percent legislative pay increase as a deterrent to lobbyist influence.
Posted in Charters, Education, Governor's Office, Transparency, Vouchers on January 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »
“The idea that creating ‘competition’ for low performing schools (that in fact are serving high poverty communities) will somehow force improvement is wrong. It has not been shown to work anywhere in this country. Such a scheme is based on the assumption that low performance is caused by lazy or incompetent teachers and administrators. The reason for low performance is, to paraphrase Carville; It’s the poverty, stupid!”
–Michael Deshotels, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Educators, commenting on Gov. Jindal’s education reform proposals.
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