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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

π-yush Gump pens WSJ op-ed contraceptive piece advising National Republican Party that ‘Stupid is as stupid does’

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Campaign Contributions, Courts, Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Recovery School District on December 14, 2012| 9 Comments »

It’s certainly refreshing and reassuring to know that the woes of running a state government laden with the ever-increasing burden of budgetary shortfalls has not distracted Gov. Piyush Jindal from his primary objective of tending to the more pressing needs of advising the national Republican Party on how not to be stupid.

Jindal, in his latest appearance on the national stage, has authored an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he calls for over-the-counter sales of oral contraceptives.

This, by the way, is yet another in a series of instances in which Jindal makes himself available to the national media while ignoring requests for interviews from new media in Louisiana—a somewhat curious pattern of behavior for a man who insists he has the job he wants.

But back to that WSJ piece. Whether or not you agree with him—and on this issue, a case could certainly be made for such a policy—it is puzzling, to say the least, how a devout Catholic such as Jindal can endorse birth control in any form.

The Catholic Church, last time we checked, was unconditionally opposed to birth control and Piyush is such a good Catholic that he once claimed to have performed an exorcism during his student days at Brown University.

“As a conservative Republican,” he says in the piece, “I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptive issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control.”

Well, that’s certainly seizing the high ground. Jindal arbitrarily hijacks the Rodney Dangerfield claim of “no respect” for the national Republican Party. Good move, there Swifty. My grandfather always told me that when I find myself in a hole, quit digging.

Piyush is looking more and more like a politician who was created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) but who now wants to put distance between himself and the right wing Tea Partiers who owe their very existence to ALEC. And he’s still digging.

Yep. Piyush is claiming the middle ground, apparently so as not to appear stupid.

The Boy Blunder has, in the wake of the Mitt Romney loss to President Obama, morphed into the Forrest Gump of political science. Maybe we should henceforth simply refer to him as Piyush Gump: stupid is as stupid does.

He implied that Romney ran a “stupid” campaign—but only after the election. Prior to Nov. 6, Piyush campaigned tirelessly for the Republican nominee with nary a hint of discomfort or embarrassment over any supposed GOP stupidity.

Neither Piyush nor any of his appointees, of course, could ever be accused of doing anything stupid.

After all, it would be stupid to repeatedly hide behind something called the “deliberative process” in an effort to avoid revealing information to the public.

It would be stupid to suggest to subordinates that they use private email accounts for communicating about Medicaid budget cuts.

It would be stupid for Jindal’s education superintendent to approve 315 vouchers for the New Living Word School in Ruston without first learning that the school had no instructors, no desks and no classrooms.

It would be stupid for the education superintendent to send an email to the governor’s office outlining his plans to lie to a legislative committee about New Living Word to “take some air out of the room.”

It would be stupid to attempt implementation of a funding method for school vouchers that is clearly unconstitutional.

It would be stupid to describe the judge who ruled that funding method as unconstitutional as “wrong-headed.”

It would be stupid to ignore a growing hole in Assumption that has swallowed up some eight acres of land while belching toxic gases because campaigning against a judge in Iowa is considered more important.

It would be stupid to close a state prison without at least extending the courtesy of a heads-up to legislators in the area.

It would be stupid to close a state hospital without at least extending the courtesy of a heads-up to legislators in that area.

It would be stupid not to fire—or at least punish—a Recovery School District Superintendent who wrecked a state vehicle on one of his three dozen trips to Chicago on private business, including appearing on a Chicago television station to announce his intention to run for mayor.

It would be stupid to attempt a total takeover of the state’s flagship university by loading up its governing board with campaign contributors—and to coerce that board into firing the president, the university’s legal counsel, and the head of the university’s health care system.

It would be stupid to fire or demote scores of other state employees and elected members of the state legislature whose only sin was to disagree with Pontiff Piyush.

It would be stupid for his commissioner of administration to refuse to release a copy of a consultant’s report on the privatization of the Office of Group Benefits.

It would be stupid for his secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to refuse to divulge to the senate committee considering his confirmation the identity of the winner of a 10-year, $300 million contract—when it was later learned that the winner was a company for whom the secretary had once worked.

It would be stupid for that same DHH secretary to swear under oath to that same committee that he had established a fire wall between him and his former company and that he had had no communication with the company during the selection process—when in fact, as was subsequently learned, he had been in constant communication with the company during the entire selection process.

It would be stupid for a governor to refuse to return $55,000 in campaign contributions after learning it had been laundered through a bank into his campaign.

And it would be oh, so very stupid to insist on no new taxes or tax increases in the wake of a budget deficit hole rivaling the one in Assumption Parish.

Piyush is not stupid. That’s why he is offering advice to his fellow Republicans.

That’s why he is writing op-ed pieces for the WSJ about the need to sell contraceptives over the counter.

And if that doesn’t work, he can always reprise his Brown experience and perform an exorcism on Republican stupidity in much the same manner he performed his exorcism on the collective courage of certain legislators.

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Private email caper is just the latest in 5-year campaign of duplicity, deceit and outright lies by π-yush administration

Posted in Education, Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Prison, Public Records, Retirement, Transparency on December 10, 2012| 13 Comments »

Sneaky. Duplicitous. Underhanded. Deceitful. Devious. Dishonest. Fraudulent. Mendacious. Untruthful. Despicable.

Those are just a few words to describe the latest tactic employed by Jindal-Teepell & Co. in the administration’s ongoing almost five-year campaign of deliberate misinformation, distortion and obfuscation in an effort to conceal the state’s business from the public.

We normally attempt to mix in a little humor, sarcasm and snarky comments when we write about Piyush, but his act is beginning to wear a little thin.

Between his flitting about the entire country while ignoring pressing problems at home, lying to the public, making himself inaccessible to state media (while courting Fox Network, CNN, and other national media) and running roughshod over state employees, legislators, and anyone else who appears even slightly hessitant to drink his Kool-Aid, he simply is no longer funny.

His coy response to inquiries about national political aspirations that he “has the job he wants” no longer sells.

His insistence that he has “the most transparent, open and accountable” administration in Louisiana history is nothing more than a blatant lie. And like Joseph Goebbels, he apparently believes that if he tells a lie, makes it big enough and repeats it often enough, people will believe it.

Some do. Many of his adoring followers appear to reside north of Alexandria. But those numbers are growing smaller as more and more the citizens of this state are beginning to peel away the layers of pseudo purity, honesty and sincerity with which he has camouflaged himself so as to hide the real Piyush.

This squeaky clean governor refused to return $55,000 in campaign funds illegally laundered through a bank in St. Tammany Parish. His (or Timmy Teepell’s) explanation was that the money was accepted in good faith, so it is Jindal’s to keep. We suppose if he deposited a campaign check that subsequently bounced, Teepell would also suggest that the bank should not look to the campaign for reimbursement because it was “accepted in good faith.”

The long and short of it is this guy cannot be trusted. He will say or do whatever is politically expedient which makes him no different than any other snake oil salesman. He has, it turns out, no moral compass, no conscience and no soul.

But when a governor—or any of his minions—touting his openness and transparency instructs his staff to use private email accounts when discussing state business so as to avoid disclosure under the state’s public records laws, something is terribly lacking in the overall character makeup of the man with whom we have entrusted the state’s leadership.

That’s the story broken by enterprising AP reporter Melinda Deslatte on Monday.

For those of you who still believe Piyush is straightforward and honest with the voters of this state, let’s recap Deslatte’s story.

The Associated Press, she wrote, received copies of emails not provided in response to public records requests that revealed non-state government email addresses were used literally dozens of times by state officials last summer.

The subject of those emails dealt with a public relations campaign for slashing $523 million from the state Medicaid budget.

Piyush can’t even be original with that practice; former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had initiated the practice during her administration before her 2008 campaign for vice president. So did former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Both got busted.

And now, Mr. Clean is caught with dirty fingers. It is nothing more than a sneaky effort to circumvent state law and Piyush should be held accountable for it.

For 144 state legislators who have shrunk from confronting Piyush, this should serve as a wakeup call; after all, they were also being kept in the dark on this.

One would think closing state prisons without giving area legislators a heads-up would have stirred legislative grumbling.

One would presume that closing hospitals without informing legislators would create some type of legislative backlash.

One would assume that demoting four legislators from committee assignments would bring lawmakers together in a united front.

One would think that firing a university president, agency heads, rank and file employees, and physicians would provoke a public outcry.

One would be wrong on all counts; this, apparently, is a state of sheeple who either have their heads where only their proctologists can find them or just don’t give a damn.

Apparently the only ones who bother to keep informed and who care about what is happening are those directly affected: teachers who are constantly denigrated by an absentee governor who chose as his chief of staff/right-hand man one Timmy Teepell, a man who was home schooled and knows not one whit about what public school teachers go through in dealing with discipline problems, apathetic parents or inadequate classroom resources (that have to be made up out of the teachers’ pockets). Nor do Jindal-Teepell realize—or care—that many teachers remain at school long after the last student has gone home and who work far into the night on lesson plans and grading papers. In short, they don’t have a clue.

There also are college administrators and professors who see their budgets being chopped in half and students who see their tuition costs rising by 40 percent against already prohibitive student loans. And to think, this governor chose as his campaign manager/right-hand man one Timmy Teepell who never set foot in a college classroom and who names to the board of supervisors of the state’s flagship university a man who has one semester of college.

And there are those state employees who have been privatized out of their careers and who faced the very real possibility earlier this year of seeing their retirement benefits slashed by as much as 85 percent (and remember, state employees are not eligible for social security benefits).

And to think, this governor announced that Teepell was leaving his administration in November of 2011 to head up the Baton Rouge office of OnMessage, a Virginia political consulting firm. Only problem is, OnMessage, a year later still has no local address or local telephone number and Teepell’s vehicle is parked on practically a daily basis in the rear parking lot of the State Capitol. Could he be running his private Baton Rouge OnMessage office out of the governor’s office? Hard to say because no one in the governor’s office is talking. But Jindal’s non-profit propaganda organization, Believe in Louisiana, has paid Teepell, through OnMessage, hundreds of thousands of dollars since Teepell supposedly left the governor’s office.

The emails were provided to AP by an administration official who, for obvious reasons, asked not to be identified. That makes us wonder if it could have been the same administration official who once told LouisianaVoice that Jindal was “dysfunctional.”

Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols, apparently backed into a transparent corner said, “Certainly we believe that conducting public business, even when using personal means of communication, is subject to public records law.”

How disingenuous can one be, given the fact that this administration has hidden behind something called the “deliberative process” since Day One?

The emails obtained by AP, however, were not included in the 3,800 documents and emails provided by the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) in response to a request for information on discussions surrounding the health care cuts. So where was the public records law on that occasion, Kristy?

In one email exchange, Calder Lynch, a health policy adviser to DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein, instructed a communications employee to send certain types of items to Lynch’s personal Gmail account instead of his state government email address.

That should come as no surprise to anyone. It was Greenstein, after all, who at his Senate confirmation hearing in June of 2011 refused to divulge the name of the winner of a 10-year, $300 million state Medicaid contract.

It turned out that the winner was a company called CNSI, a company for whom Greenstein had previously been employed. Once the name of the company was released—and then only after senators all but threatened Greenstein with thumbscrews—Greenstein insisted that he had built a “firewall” between him and the selection process and that he had had no contact with the company during that process.

Emails—state emails, no less—however, revealed that Greenstein had been in constant communication with his former employer prior to and during the selection of the contract winner.

Such is the definition of transparency and accountability in this administration.

The question that remains now is just how much longer will the state’s citizens—and a mostly compliant legislature, complete with a lapdog House Speaker (neutered, of course) and equally ambitious Senate President—continue to let Piyush Jindal make a laughingstock of the state and a cruel joke of the strictly theoretical definition of the separation of powers, checks and balances and three branches of government?

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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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After three legal setbacks, the next logical step for π-yush is to follow the lead of Egypt’s Morsi: suspend the court system

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Education, Ethics, Golf Courses, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, Judges, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Prison, Privatization, Retirement, Teague, Toledo Bend, Water Sale on December 6, 2012| 7 Comments »

First it was a federal judge who threw out Piyush Jindal’s voucher plan in Tangipahoa Parish because it posed a major setback to the parish’s current desegregation consent decree.

Then, last Friday, a state district judge, Tim Kelley, whose wife once worked for Piyush, said the method of appropriations to fund the statewide voucher program is unconstitutional.

Fast on the heels of Kelley’s ruling, fellow Baton Rouge District Judge William Morvant refused to throw out a lawsuit challenging the only part of Piyush’s far-reaching retirement reform proposals that survived the legislative session earlier this year.

In case you’re counting, that’s oh-for-three—not a good batting average for the governor who would be president.

Keep in mind that Piyush is the incoming chairman of the National Republican Governors’ Association.

Remember, too, that he thought he would be moving into that position in the hope that it would be the launching pad for his presidential aspirations. To do so, he needed to bring something substantial to the table.

That something was to be sweeping education reform. That was to be the centerpiece of his list of grand accomplishments, the bold-face type on his curriculum vitae.

Now, the status of both education and retirement reform are suddenly in jeopardy.

Suddenly the star of the errand boy of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) doesn’t shine quite so brightly.

What to do?

The obvious answer would be to teague someone. That practice, after all, has served him well in the past. No college president, attorney, doctor, agency head, legislator or rank-and-file state employee will dare rebuke Piyush lest he or she be shown the door.

There was a time when we would have run a recap of those teagued by this peevish little man, but the list has grown so long that it would take up far too much space.

On reflection, however, one must ask just what are Piyush’s alternatives?

Well, normally he could campaign against the re-election of judges Kelley and Morvant—except he already did the anti-judge campaign thingy in Iowa.

He can’t teague the federal judge; he was appointed by the president.

He can’t teague either of the state judges—Kelley or Morvant—because they were elected by voters of the 19th Judicial District.

He can’t teague Jimmy Faircloth, the attorney who so expertly represented the interests of the state in arguing on behalf of the voucher program because Faircloth was working under a contract that ends when all appeals are exhausted—about $100,000 or so down the road.

He can’t teague Angéle Davis, wife of Judge Kelley because she already resigned her position as Commissioner of Administration.

He can’t teague the legislator who introduced the education bills because they were not written by any Louisiana elected official but by the corporate honchos at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

He might consider teaguing Superintendent of Education John White since there are already unconfirmed rumors floating around that he is leaving soon.

But there is a far better option open to Piyush:

He could take a page from the playbook of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

It’s such a simple solution we’re surprised no one has thought of it before.

All he has to do is first invoke that obscure nullification clause which several states unhappy with last month’s presidential election are bantering about—the one that says states can unilaterally ignore a federal law they don’t like. Or even opt out of the union itself. Some in Texas are talking about splitting off and breaking the state into five separate states (pure lunacy, but a philosophy that dovetails nicely with that of the Tea Party).

Then, like Morsi, Jindal can unilaterally decree greater authority for himself, including issuing a declaration that the wrong-headed courts are henceforth barred from challenging his decisions.

(Come to think of it, such a move is not exactly unprecedented. President Andrew Jackson said of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that the state of Georgia could not impose its laws on Cherokee tribal lands, “(Chief Justice) John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”)

After that, he could even take it a step further and, like North Korea’s late Kim Jong-il, bestow upon himself the title of “Dear Leader,” and, again like Kim Jong-il, commission a song of the same name in his honor.

Think about it. If he were to take that action, he could sell prisons, the old insurance building property, hospitals, roads, universities, the Saints and the Zephyrs, not to mention a few state-owned golf courses and state parks.

That water from Toledo Bend Reservoir? Sold. Gone to Texas and a few select political cronies are even richer than before.

And you only think you’ve seen a lot of corporate tax breaks, incentives and exemptions. Once he issues his decree, corporate taxes would disappear into that sink hole in Assumption Parish.

All state employees who aren’t fired outright (to be replaced by telecommuting administrative types from Florida, California, Alabama and elsewhere) would immediately forfeit all health and retirement benefits—except for friendly former legislators who, of course, would be elevated to six-figure salaries with full benefits.

The Department of Civil Service, public schools and the State Ethics Board would become distant memories for the nostalgic among us.

Of course, were he to take such action, he could always say his decision was predicated “by three things: one, to protect needed reform packages; two, to streamline government so at the end of the day, we can do more with less, and three, I have the job I want.”

Opponents could be expected to condemn his decrees as heavy-handed and dictatorial but what else would you expect from those who represent the coalition of the status quo?

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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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