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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Another day in the Piyush Jindal administration and another prevarication; is anyone here capable of telling the truth?

Posted in BESE, Education, Exemptions, Incentives, Governor's Office, Public Records, Revenue, Taxes, Vouchers on July 6, 2012| 1 Comment »

Another day in the administration of Gov. Piyush Jindal and another prevarication.

And another.

It seems these days anything that comes out of the present administration in Baton Rouge is subject to instant skepticism and ridicule.

There’s Emailgate, the now infamous emails that State Superintendent of Education sent to members of the governor’s staff in which he outlined a deliberate plan to obfuscate the growing discontent over the approval of 315 vouchers to a school in Ruston that had no facilities, books or teachers to accommodate the additional students.

Now Emailgate has been expanded to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) which somehow has become embroiled in the controversy over that alternative fuel tax rebate that shortened former Revenue Secretary Cynthia Bridges’s career with the state.

A ruling by Bridges on House Bill 110 of 2009 was signed into law by Jindal as Act 469 to give tax credits to purchasers of vehicles which used alternative fuels such as propane, butane and electricity.

At the time, the tax credit was projected to cost the state about $900,000 over five years but when flex fuel vehicles began hitting the market and Bridges issued her ruling as required by the act, that five-year cost suddenly mushroomed to $100 million.

Administration officials said the governor did not know about the ramifications of the credit until mid-June when he rescinded the rule that he had signed into law three years earlier.

Emails obtained by the Associated Press through a public records request, however, indicate that DNR Secretary Scott Angelle and chief legislative lobbyist for the Jindal administration was told about Bridges’s ruling on May 1, the day after she issued it.

Bridges resigned almost immediately after Jindal rescinded the ruling and was replaced by Jane Smith, leading to speculation that she was pressured to resign to make room for Smith. Smith, it might be remembered, originally authored HB 110 and when she lost her bid to move up to the Senate last October, she was recruited by the administration to take the second-in-command post at Revenue even though, in her own words, she “didn’t know nothing about revenue.”

Adding to the growing lack of credibility in utterances by this administration was an indication that the actual cost of the alternative fuel credits had not been determined, according to the internal emails.

Or instead of a lack of credibility on the part of Piyush and his minions, perhaps it was simply a lack of competence.

Apparently the administration did not bother to ask the right people the right questions.

We did.

A routine public records request to the Department of Revenue by LouisianaVoice revealed that 5,456 returns had been received by the department claiming total tax credits of $18,046,454.

That’s 5,456 returns filed and total tax credits of $18 million, Governor, just in case you still haven’t been told.

Those credits were retroactive to the date that Jindal signed the bill into law in 2009—just in case he forgot.

Or in case he wants Communications Director Kyle Plotkin to put his spin on what he says he didn’t know.

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Timmy Teepell neglected to close out his state email account when he left the governor’s office 11 months ago–or did he?

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Governor's Office, Public Records, Transparency, tagged , on July 6, 2012| 1 Comment »

State Education Superintendent John White has Emailgate, that embarrassing communication with the governor’s office in which he laid out his plot to shroud legislators and the public with a cloud of B.S.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser apparently accesses parish emails kept for use only in emergencies like hurricanes, floods and tornadoes but used by him to solicit contributions to his political fundraiser—to be attended by Piyush Jindal, no less.

And Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Gray) uses state letterhead to solicit contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) so his pals in the House and Senate can get expense-paid trips to ALEC’s Salt Lake City conference later this month.

Things just can’t get any better.

Or can they?

Timmy Teepell ostensibly departed his $165,000-per-year position as Gov. Piyush Jindal Chief of Staff last October to head up the Baton Rouge Southern office of OnMessage, Inc., a political consulting firm out of Virginia—but he apparently forgot to close out his state email account.

Yet, more than eight months after his announced departure and 11 months after he officially terminated his employment, Teepell not only continues to maintain a high-profile presence in and around the State Capitol and the governor’s mansion (his Jeep Wrangler remains a fixture in both locations and he was seen on almost a daily basis on the floors of the House and Senate during the recently completed legislative session), but he also retains an active state email account in the governor’s office.

Moreover, there is no physical addressed listed for a Baton Rouge office of OnMessage, nor is there a local telephone listing. Nor is OnMessage, Inc. registered in Louisiana, according to corporate records on file with the Louisiana Secretary of State.

Last Oct. 24, OnMessage posted a news release on its web page announcing that Teepell had joined the firm “as a partner and head of our new Southern office.”

The news release went on to say that Teepell “will open and manage our new OnMessage Southern office in Baton Rouge and will work on campaigns throughout the country.”

When Jindal announced that Teepell was leaving to join OnMessage, he said the move was “effective immediately,” even though the last official date of employment with the governor’s office was July 1.

Yet, when Teepell left the state payroll on July 1, 2011, he was quickly placed on the payroll of Jindal’s campaign which paid him more than $91,300 between July 15 and Dec. 30.

In the months immediately following the October announcement of Teepell’s departure, Jindal’s campaign was also making payments to OnMessage of $46,000 in November and another $55,000 in December—time during which Teepell was supposed to have been employed by OnMessage, leaving unexplained why the governor’s campaign would be making simultaneous payments to both Teepell and OnMessage for those two months.

Jindal’s ties to OnMessage go back at least to the 2007 governor’s race. OnMessage was used extensively in that race by Jindal’s campaign which shelled out approximately $1.3 million for consulting work by the firm. Additionally, Curt Anderson, another OnMessage partner, ghost-wrote Jindal’s book Leadership and Crisis.

In February, it was announced that Teepell’s OnMessage office in Baton Rouge had signed on to work for Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy’s 2012 re-election campaign. A check of Cassidy’s campaign expenditures, however, revealed no payments to either Teepell or OnMessage through the end of June.

An email to Teepell at Timmy.Teepell@la.gov from Capitol News Service was not answered. Likewise, emails to Jindal Executive Counsel Elizabeth Murrill and Communications Director Kyle Plotkin asking why Teepell still had an active state government email address did not receive responses.

Perhaps that was because OnMessage’s Baton Rouge Southern office took a long weekend for the July 4th holiday.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, Notable Quotables, Public Records, Transparency on July 4, 2012| 3 Comments »

“I think that John White is still lying. He is in full CYA mode and assumes that he will simply be able to BS his way out of the contradiction the Monroe News-Star has caught him in. After all, it’s a method that has worked perfectly well for him ever since he arrived in Louisiana.”

–Comment by a Times-Picayune reader in response to State Education Superintendent John White’s contention that there was “nothing inappropriate” about his email to members of Gov. Piyush Jindal’s staff in which he outlined his plan for “muddying up the narrative” of reporters who exposed a Ruston school with no accommodations but which was approved for 315 voucher/scholarships.

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White shifts into Emailgate damage control mode; ‘Nothing inappropriate,’ and Loch Ness monster proves Creationism

Posted in BESE, Charters, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records on July 4, 2012| 6 Comments »

As State Education Superintendent John White shifts into a damage control mode, his explanations of Emailgate have taken on a bizarre tone reminiscent of the man, who when his wife catches him cheating with another woman, asks, “Are you going to believe your eyes or what I tell you?”

Or perhaps the attorney who is sued because his dog, allowed to run loose, bites a neighbor: “He must have been provoked because my dog doesn’t bite. Besides, he is never allowed out of my fenced yard. Anyway, I don’t own a dog.”

White’s explanations are about that plausible.

White, in emails to the obviously complicit strategists for Gov. Piyush Jindal on the eve of his confirmation hearing in the final days of the recently completed legislative session, laid out his plan to diffuse criticism of his department’s lack of oversight in awarding voucher/scholarships. No one in Jindal’s office attempted to rein him in.

At the center of the controversy was the approval of 315 vouchers for New Living Word in Ruston, a facility lacking in classrooms, textbooks and teaching staff.

School principal, the Rev. Jerry Baldwin, said the school teaches primarily by DVDs and even though he lacked accommodations for the 315 students, he was moving ahead “on faith.”

White’s misdirection ploy began with the emails to Jindal Communications Director Kyle Plotkin and the governor’s policy adviser Stafford Palmieri and continued several weeks later with a Department of Education (DOE) response to a public records request from LouisianaVoice. That response was sent by DOE public information officer Sarah Mulhearn:

“In your email dated June 25, 2012, you asked, ‘Do you have a date when the Department of Education originally approved New Living Word in Ruston for 315 vouchers?’ The specific information you requested is not available, because final seat numbers have not yet been decided. No school, including New Living Word, has been approved for any definite number of vouchers/scholarships. The 315 is only the number requested by the school.”

A form letter sent out by the department to schools dated May 18 (well before White’s confirmation hearing and his email to Plotkin and Palmieri), however, would seem to suggest otherwise:

“Congratulations on being accepted into the Louisiana State Scholarship Program!” the letter began. “We hope that you are excited to be part of this program, and we look forward to working closely with you in service to the students of Louisiana. Now that you are officially (emphasis added) part of the Scholarship program, we’d like to take a few moments to introduce the next steps in this process.

“Before May 22, you may immediately begin to market yourself to potential students! Feel free to get creative and help spread the word about the available scholarship seats at your school. Also, please note that the Department will contact you soon to detail which fees administered by your school will be covered by the scholarship allocation. As a participating school, you will be the primary ‘on the ground’ point of contact for interested students and their families.

“In addition, we would like to post information about your school on our website for interested students and families.

“Starting on May 22, student applications will be made available to you and posted on the Louisiana Department of Education website. Students will have until June 29 to submit an application. We ask that you make physical copies available at your school or in your community for students and families interested in submitting an application to your school.

“On May 21 and 22, the Department of Education will host webinars that will walk you through the process of accepting an application, verifying student eligibility and entering the application into the Department of Education online data system.

“…The Department of Education will run the lottery process for all students in mid-July. We will provide your school with a list of all of the students who will receive an offer to your school, along with their contact information. At that point, we’re requesting that you reach out to these students, confirm their eligibility once again, and enroll them as soon as possible.”

None of this lends evidence to White’s contention during his confirmation hearing that the department was approving only “preliminary” acceptances in its letters to the schools.

Yet, White said in his email to the governor’s office that he planned to “take some air out of the room on the floor tomorrow…” and that he would “like to create (emphasis added) a news story about ‘the next phase’ of determining seats in schools…” He also said his planned strategy “would allow us to talk through the process with the media, muddying up a narrative they’re trying to keep black and white.”

The emails revealed White’s plans for deliberate duplicity, a concerted effort to mislead a legislative committee poised to determine whether or not he would be confirmed for his position, as well as the media and the public. Yet, after news of the email message broke in the Monroe News-Star, he attempted to defend them by saying there was “nothing inappropriate” about the emails.

He insisted that DOE has planned all along to take a closer look at private schools accepting large numbers of voucher students. He said his note to Plotkin and Palmieri referred only to the timing of making public the next step in the process.

The letter, however, which makes no mention of any additional steps in the approval process, went out to 115 schools, most of them church affiliated, that have been approved for nearly 5,000 vouchers.

Besides the New Living Word School in Ruston, there also is the BeauVer Christian School in Beauregard Parish whose owner was sentenced to four years probation and ordered not to conduct any financial transactions on behalf of the school. That school was approved for 119 vouchers.

Then there is Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake in Calcasieu Parish, approved for 135 vouchers. That school, to support its teaching that the earth is only 6,000 years old, uses textbooks that portray the fictional Loch Ness monster as a real, modern-day dinosaur as some sort of convoluted means of debunking evolution.

Such is the nature of Piyush Jindal’s education reform in the only state in the U.S. where florists must be licensed but there are no accountability standards for charter schools and no certification requirements for charter school teachers.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Education, Notable Quotables, Transparency, Vouchers on July 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

“I know that the administration was not prepared to answer questions and the answers they gave were not forthcoming about the voucher program.”

–State Sen. Ed Murray (D-New Orleans), on hearing of State Education Superintendent John White’s emailed plans to baffle the legislature with B.S. over the issue of the department’s approval of 315 vouchers for a Ruston school that has no classroom space, desks, teachers or books to accommodate the additional students.

“Timmy Teepell joins OnMessage as a partner and head of our new Southern Office.”

–Press release last Oct. 24 on the appointment of Timmy Teepell as a partner and head of OnMessage’s non-existent Southern office in Baton Rouge.

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