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Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Jindal veto rescues charter schools that opt out of TRSL

Posted in Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on July 4, 2011| 1 Comment »

It’s been a quarter-century and still lawmakers continue to tinker with the Support Education in Louisiana First (SELF) Fund, originally established ostensibly to bolster salary expenses for K-12 and higher education but realistically was only a political shell game.

The most recent attempt was by Rep. Walt Leger (D-New Orleans) whose HB-516 would have diverted the first $1.8 million from the SELF Fund to a new Casino Support Services Fund.

Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed the bill, which was approved in its final form by the House on June 21 by a 78-3 margin with 24 absences. It passed the Senate by a margin of 25-11, with three absences.

Jindal also vetoed SB-6 by Sen. D.A. “Butch” Gautreaux (D-Morgan City) and in doing so, may have tipped his hand on his intentions to continue his push for more charter schools and continued contracting and outsourcing of jobs presently being performed by state employees.

SELF had its origins in September of 1986 with a proposed amendment that would dedicate about $540 million from oil and gas leasing production in the outer continental shelf lands in the Gulf of Mexico.

Known as the 8(g) fund, it has pumped more than $500 million into the state’s general fund since 1986. The money was supposed to have been used to augment state education revenue. Instead, before money from 8(g), the State Lottery, or EduJobs , is added to the $3.1 billion Minimum Foundation Program (MFP), a formula used to determine the appropriation for education, it is first subtracted from the MFP, resulting in a zero net gain for education.

Leger’s bill would have taken an additional $1.8 million from SELF in order to fund the City of New Orleans’ casino support services contract, Jindal said in his veto message. The casino support services appropriation, Jindal said, “has already been achieved through HB-1,” the state’s general appropriation bill.

SB-6 by Gautreaux would have provided that any employing agency that terminates its participating in the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL) be required to remit to the retirement system its share of any unfunded accrued liability (UAL) of the retirement system existing on the June 30 immediately prior to the date of the agency’s termination.

Gautreaux’s bill was apparently targeting charter schools that opt out of the teachers’ retirement system. “If a charter school participates for three years and opts out, I felt they should repay the three years for which they received funding for the retirement system,” he said. “With the veto, they get to participate for three years, pull out, and not have to pay anything back into the system.”

In his veto message, Jindal revealed that his agenda to create even more charter schools and to further privatize the state’s educational system remains unchanged.

He said Gautreaux’s bill “unnecessarily ties the payment of state retirement debt to much-needed reforms such as greater autonomy for public schools through charter conversions and better fiscal management through contracting and outsourcing. In doing so, this bill creates a significant deterrent to educational reform efforts.”

“Jindal wants to expand the charter school system to the benefit of those children who are going to perform well to the detriment of low-income children,” Gautreaux said. “I have no problem with good charter schools, but if a school decides to terminate its participation in the state teachers’ retirement system they should be required to repay the money they received from the state.”

The bill passed the House by a 57-28 margin with 20 members being absent. It passed in the Senate by a 38-0 vote.

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The best political disinfectant is still a little sunshine

Posted in Civil Service, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Prison, Privatization, Taxes, Transparency on June 12, 2011| 9 Comments »

At the risk of being accused of being a one-trick pony because of all or our posts about attempts to privatize the Office of Group Benefits (OGB), we thought we would offer a quick overview of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s policies, of which OGB is but one facet.

Besides OGB, Jindal has already sold off one state agency, the Office of Risk Management. That privatization left many ORM employees years short of retirement age, thus jeopardizing not only their livelihoods, but medical benefits as well.

The sale agreement stipulated that the buyer was required to hire ORM employees for a “minimum” of 12 months. Of course the ORM director was sure to remind his employees who had just had their job security unceremoniously yanked away that he still had his job and, what’s more, would be eligible for retirement in 2012. That must have given everyone there a warm fuzzy.

Jindal tried unsuccessfully to sell several state prisons but was resisted by the legislature. But odds are he will be back next year with another attempt.

A campaign brochure published by candidate Jindal in 2007 touted his love for state employees and his dedication to hard-working civil servants of which, he reminded us, he was one. Maybe so, if you consider Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals and head of the University of Louisiana System as fitting the description of civil servant.

Nevertheless, in 2010, he tried unsuccessfully to push through legislation to abolish the Department of Civil Service and to dissolve the Civil Service Board, the only protection, such as it is, available to civil service employees.

He was successful in freezing classified (civil service) pay that same year and extended that freeze in 2011. The reasoning was the opposition to the myth of something referred to as “automatic” pay increases. No one bothered to mention that once an employee maxes out at a particular pay level, there are no more raises unless he or she is promoted. Nothing automatic there.

Many of those civil service workers have college-age children and didn’t help when Jindal endorsed an $84 million college tuition increase. Fortunately for them—and for the rest of parents with college kids—that measure died in the legislature.

This year, Jindal, who has taken the ridiculously entrenched position of no new taxes (not even a routine renewal of cigarette taxes, already one of the lowest rates in the nation), nevertheless tried to push a bill down the throats of those civil servants he so loves that would require that they pony up an additional 3 percent of their frozen paychecks to their retirement contributions.

That idea might actually have had some merit if the extra 3 percent would have been dedicated to paying down the state retirement system’s unfunded liability, but it wasn’t. Instead, the money would have gone directly into the State General Fund to help Jindal look like a financial wizard in using the money to close the $1.6 billion gap in the state budget, a situation civil service employees had no part in creating.

But keep in mind the proposals to increase tuition and civil service employees’ retirement contributions weren’t taxes: they were simply fee increases. But when you’re writing the check, the distinction could be difficult to make.

Bear in mind, too, that Jindal did all this while advocating more and more corporate tax incentives (read: exemptions) for well-heeled campaign contributors.

The governor also laments the loss of our best and brightest college and university graduates to other states but when it comes to his own appointees, he doesn’t seem quite as committed to the concept of hiring Louisiana first.

His first Recovery School District Superintendent was Paul Vallas. Vallas came here from Chicago by way of Philadelphia. His replacement, John White, is from New York. [And who could think it was coincidence that two weeks after White was brought in to replace the departing Vallas as head of RSD, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek resigned and Jindal immediately endorsed White for Pastorek’s job? Who could possibly believe the entire sequence of events was not orchestrated from Jindal’s fourth-floor State Capitol office?]

But we digress. Jindal’s Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) is Bruce Greenstein of Washington State by way of Maryland.

His Deputy Commissioner of Administration is Mark Brady of New Hampshire and his own press secretary is Kyle Plotkin of New Jersey.

Certainly, there must have been a sufficient pool of Louisiana talent from which to hire for these positions.

But that should come as no surprise, considering his campaign expenses. Of 670 campaign expenditures in 2008, only 219 were paid to Louisiana companies. It seems the governor prefers companies from Virginia, Texas, Maryland, and elsewhere.

And contracts issued to out of state firms throughout the administration number in the hundreds, many of which were issued to campaign contributors. But that’s another story for another day later this week. We promise.

While boasting at every opportunity of his dedication to transparency, openness, and accountability, he saw to it that ethics legislation passed early in his administration would exempt the governor’s office.

When a legislator introduced a bill that would have forced elected officials to publicly report the names of campaign contributors whom officials subsequently hire or appoint, it appeared to have Jindal’s endorsement.

Key administration officials worked the legislator over a period of five months and helped draft the language of the bill, which easily passed both houses.

Jindal promptly vetoed the bill.

Could that have been because Jindal appointed more than 200 contributors to some of the state’s most influential boards and commissions? Those appointees contributed more than $784,000 to his campaign in 2007 and 2008.

While no governor could be expected to appoint political opponents to these positions, the campaign contributions do tend to raise eyebrows. “Appointments to boards and commissions are based strictly on an individual’s experience, recommendations, and suitability for the position,” sniffed Jersey Boy Plotkin.

Jindal’s “transparency and accountability” mantra takes on something of a hollow ring when official actions are examined more closely.

When DHH selected a winner for a 10-year, $34 million-per-year technology contract, DHH Secretary Greenstein did everything possible to resist divulging the name of that contractor to the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee that was considering his confirmation as secretary of the agency. Only after 90 minutes of back and forth bantering, did Greenstein finally admit that the winner was CNSI of Gaithersburg, Maryland, a firm for whom he once worked and one that outsources much of its work to its Technology Development Center—in India.

During his repeated refusals to name the contract, he was asked by senators who his boss was, to whom does he answer.

His answer: “The governor.”

Jindal’s Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Economic Development flatly refused to provide documents to the Legislative Auditor’s office during a routine state audit. This, even though state law clearly directs all agencies to provide all requested materials to state auditors so as not to restrict them in their duties.

Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater also attempted to deny auditors access to a report by Chaffe & Associates of New Orleans on the financial assets of OGB.

Rainwater went even further in first approving release of the report to the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee member Karen Peterson and then doing an about-face and to instruct OGB CEO Scott Kipper to not release the report to anyone.

Kipper subsequently resigned, effective, June 24, which will give him tenure of a little more than two months after replacing former CEO Tommy Teague, who was fired on April 15.

Rainwater has repeatedly made the claim of “deliberative process” in denying access to the report. The deliberative process term emanates from that same State Capitol fourth floor.

Only one question needs to be asked about the Chaffe report that should put everything in perspective as regards Jindal’s efforts to privatize OGB:

If Chaffe & Associates said in that report things that the governor wanted to hear, that supported his unrelenting efforts to sell an agency with a $500 million surplus, is it even remotely possible that the administration would be attempting to withhold the document?

Put another way, if the report supported Jindal’s desire to sell OGB, what possible reason would he have to keep the report secret?

Put still another way, who among you believes Gov. Bobby Jindal has the best interest of state employees at heart? Indeed, who even believes he has the best interest of Louisiana at heart?

Who believes that all those out-of-state trips to support congressional and gubernatorial candidates in Florida, Missouri, Wisconsin, and other states were for the benefit of Louisiana? Why would he support a Florida gubernatorial candidate who headed a company hit with the largest Medicare fraud fine in history?

That candidate, Rick Scott, incidentally, won election.

Who can stretch credulity to the point of believing his frequent trips to other states to promote his book was for the benefit of Louisiana and its citizens?

Who can believe all those out-of-state campaign fundraising trips were for the overall benefit of Louisiana?

All these, the campaigning, the book tours, the fundraisers, occurred during a time of unprecedented financial crisis at home. And security details and aides who travel with him must be fed and housed on those trips—all on the state dime.

If you are a Louisiana public employee or simply a Louisiana citizen and you don’t stand up right now and defend this state from the encroachments and abuses of this governor, then you are part of the problem.

It should be clear by now that Gov. Jindal is oblivious to the plight of this state’s citizenry. This is your future. This is your government. This is your state. It does not belong to the Jindals, the Pastoreks, the Rainwaters.

It certainly does not belong to those who have been brought in from other states like Mark Brady, Bruce Greenstein, Kyle Plotkin, and Goldman Sachs.

Our governor has no right to operate behind a curtain of secrecy, to push his agenda with no input from the governed. He is answerable to the Legislature and he is certainly answerable to the citizens of this state.

His first responsibility is not to the big dollar contributors.

That distinction rightly belongs to you.

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Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek learns a lesson in humility

Posted in Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on April 22, 2011| 3 Comments »

State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek recently got a lesson in humility, in timing, and, most important, in how not to B.S. a legislator when testifying in committee hearings.

It all occurred on Thursday, April 7, in an otherwise routine testimony before the House Appropriations Committee and Pastorek came away with proverbial egg all over his lawyerly face.

Near the end of his testimony, committee Chairman Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro), in an otherwise cordial exchange about Recovery School District (RSD) business, asked, “Are you waiting for a new RSD superintendent to help?”

Pastorek answered in the affirmative.

“When do you expect to have a new superintendent?” Fannin asked.

“I expect to have one this week if I can possibly have one.”

“So, you indicated earlier that you didn’t have one but you expect to have one?”

“That’s correct,” Pastorek said. I’ve got to get State Board (Board of Elementary and Secondary Education) approval and I’m working to set that up. In fact, I have it on the agenda for Friday.”

The only problem with Pastorek’s answer was that he had already chosen a replacement for RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas and Fannin knew it.

In fact, Pastorek himself had announced the previous day, April 6, that John White, deputy chancellor of the New York City Department of Education would succeed Vallas.

Moreover, at the very time he was testifying on April 7, Pastorek’s Department of Education public information office was issuing a department press release announcing White’s appointment. The press release even quoted Gov. Bobby Jindal, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, her brother, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Dr. Norman Francis, president of Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, and Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund.

The press release, under the heading, “State and local leaders endorse John White as next RSD Superintendent,” read as follows:

BATON ROUGE, La – Less than 24 hours after State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek announced his pick to lead the state-run Recovery School District (RSD), an impressive list of state and local leaders is lining up to express their support for Pastorek’s selection. In making their endorsements, these officials join U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who yesterday praised the selection of John White. White, who began his career in education as an English teacher in a high-poverty school in New Jersey, is currently serving as Deputy Chancellor of Talent, Labor and Innovation for New York City, the nation’s largest school system.

Governor Bobby Jindal: “It’s a testament to Louisiana’s commitment to bold and innovative education reform that we’re able to attract talented public servants like John White to come to Louisiana and help move our education system forward. John is well qualified and we’re eager to work with him and Superintendent Pastorek to advance the Recovery School District and continue to improve educational opportunities for our children.”

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu: “Citizens and groups across New Orleans are actively engaged in creating a model of education that gives every student the opportunity to attend a world-class school. Nothing is more paramount to achieving that vision than identifying a leader who is genuinely committed and capable of partnering with diverse groups inside and outside the education community to improve our schools and support the academic success of our children. I’m convinced wholeheartedly that John White can and will work with us to succeed in meeting these objectives, not only in New Orleans, but in RSD schools across the state.”

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: “John has an impressive record and comes highly recommended. In New Orleans, we have the opportunity and responsibility to create a 21st century system of schools where every child can attain a world-class education that prepares them for college and work. I look forward to working closely with John as we continue building on our recent progress in New Orleans.”

Dr. Norman Francis, President, Xavier University of Louisiana: “Each step towards the future of education in Louisiana must be bold and aggressive if we are to dramatically improve our children’s lot, and move Louisiana from the bottom of academic achievement ratings. John White’s skills are highly regarded, and he will be a valuable asset in helping move the RSD vision forward. He has my support and the support of the entire Xavier University Community.”

Michael Lomax, President and CEO of United Negro College Fund: “The appointment of John White is good news for New Orleans students, parents, and teachers—indeed for everyone who cares about giving children the top quality education they deserve and that the New Orleans community needs them to have. New Orleans has made great strides in the past few years, but challenging work and difficult choices lie ahead. While each city and each school system is unique, the experience and lessons-learned that John White brings from his role in New York’s transformative school reform program is just the preparation he needs to lead New Orleans’ schools.”

Tomorrow, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) will consider whether to authorize the State Superintendent of Education to appoint the next leader of the RSD.

On Friday, a press conference to formally introduce White will be held at 1 p.m. at Andrew Wilson Charter School in New Orleans.

Fannin allowed Pastorek to dig himself a sufficient hole before springing his trap. “It’s all over the news that one’s been selected and….you look surprised.”

“I’ve been working on selecting one for about eight months,” Pastorek said, less confident now.

“And you sit here today, under oath, telling us that you didn’t know that one was hired and that….”

“I haven’t hired anybody,” Pastorek protested. “I can’t hire anybody until the board approves it on Friday.”

“So you weren’t willing to share that you had made the selection? I think those questions were asked,” Fannin said.

“No, I don’t think that question was asked,” Pastorek said. “What I’ve been trying to do, Mr. Chairman, is, I’ve been trying to report to all my principals what my plan is to do. And I’m trying to get buy-in and support, trying to communicate to my people about that.”

“The way to get buy-in is to come to this committee and be forthcoming, forthright, with information about all you know,” Fannin admonished him. “I’m going to look you pretty straight and I have to tell you I don’t think that’s been (done)…. today.”

Another way to get buy-in is to not issue premature press releases. It’s just tacky.

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Got promised? Weighing the words of candidate Jindal vs. actions of governor Jindal: a study in deliberate deceit

Posted in Civil Service, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Layoffs, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Teague, Transparency on April 22, 2011| 7 Comments »

Perhaps this should be filed under “How Soon We Forget,” or maybe it shouldn’t be remembered at all because of the bitter irony it invokes. Either way, we felt a little reminder of campaign promises past might give you an insight into political realities present and future.

Candidate Bobby Jindal had an interesting campaign flyer in the last gubernatorial election that someone found and sent to LouisianaVoice.

It’s all about how touchy-feely he was about state employees. It’s almost enough to give you a warm fuzzy if it weren’t for the foreboding chills it invokes when one considers that his real motivation is not the welfare of state employees or even the citizenry of this state, but the consolidation of his own political power base.

While state employees are being laid off and in some instances, as in the case of Office of Group Benefits CEO Tommy Teague, fired outright, Jindal continues to campaign weekly outside the borders of Louisiana, adding more and more to a campaign war chest already crammed with more than $10 million.

When he campaigns in California, New York, Texas, and elsewhere, the costs of those trips—including flight costs, hotel accommodations, meals, and security detail (state police who accompany him on each and every trip)—are not reimbursed to the state by the Republican Party. They are borne by Louisiana taxpayers. And lest you thought he travels alone, rest assured he takes staff members with him on those jaunts. When George Bush campaigned for a second term and when Barrack Obama campaigns, the costs were—and are—reimbursed by their respective national parties.

All his hopping from fundraiser to fundraiser at out-of-state venues must surely raise the question: just why is someone in California or Wisconsin or Montana so vitally interested in a governor’s race in Louisiana? That’s the question voters must ask themselves when they enter the polling booth next fall.

It’s a good bet that laid-off state employees or employees of agencies that Jindal has privatized or plans to privatize will be asking.

It’s a certainty that employees with serious health issues would like to know why they stand to lose their health benefits after years of loyal service, some of whom even fell for Jindal’s “love of state employees,” pitch and voted for him—not once, but twice—for governor.

Here, then, are the verbatim contents of that long lost (at least he must wish it was lost) flyer that, with any justification, will bite him in the backside next fall:

As a former state employee, I know firsthand how important it is that we protect state employees and state retirees.

I have served the state as Secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals and as President of the University of Louisiana System.

My mother has been a state employee for three decades. I know that she and the thousands of people who serve our state at every level dedicate themselves on a daily basis to ensuring that Louisiana is moving forward, and I strongly believe that we must support these workers in their efforts.

As my campaign for Governor continues to intensify, I expect that some people will begin to spread false rumors about the future of state employees under my Administration.

I wanted you to hear it from me that I will be a friend and supporter of both state employees and retirees.

Any statements to the contrary are simply false.

I am committed to bringing more jobs and more economic opportunities to Louisiana, and I want to see state workers and retirees supported for the work they do.

In addition, I have been a vocal supporter in Congress of legislation to protect state employees and retirees from unfair Social Security provisions, specifically, the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which lowers the dependent benefits a state employee with a spouse working in the private sector receives through Social Security, and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), which penalizes public school teachers and state workers who have second jobs.

I am a co-sponsor of the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) in the U.S. House of Representatives, which would repeal both the GPO and the WEP.

I do not believe we should punish people for working, and certainly do not believe teachers and state workers in Louisiana should be singled out for penalty.

These men and women work incredibly hard to ensure a bright future for our state and our children, and they deserve to receive adequate Social Security benefits.

My mother is a state agency employee and I myself have paid into the State Teachers Retirement System, so I know firsthand how unfair these provisions are to state workers. I fully understand the importance of rectifying this problem so state workers and teachers are not unfairly penalized for their service.

I commit to you that I will continue to fight to protect all Louisiana workers as Governor of Louisiana.

There you have it. The words in that flyer certainly take on a hollow ring today. We have only one word for Gov. Jindal and his promises: pandering. By any definition, it’s pandering in the sorriest sense of the word. Does anyone remember Jindal’s uttering a single word as governor about the GPO or WEP? Didn’t think so.

Has anyone heard a single encouraging word from him to state employees. No? Hmm.

Does any remember another campaign promise to block any attempt by legislators to give themselves a pay increase? Probably not, but he certainly did, in another flyer like the one quoted above. Yet, what did he do when they voted for a 123 percent pay raise back in 2008? He said he would not veto the pay hike. Only when he was swamped with public outcry such that his email literally shut down, did he finally acquiesce and veto the action.

Turn your attention away from the NBA playoffs and LSU and Saints football long enough to do your homework. Weigh what he says against what he does. Consider the contracts handed out to donors to his wife’s foundation. Think about the motive behind his interstate campaign trips. Look below the surface for his real reasons for wanting to privatize so many state agencies and find out who is getting the contracts for those agencies. Most of all, try to put yourself in the place of that state employee who, facing grave health issues, finds himself on the street.

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Paul Pastorek’s rant: leadership or vindictiveness?

Posted in BESE, Education on April 21, 2011| 4 Comments »

The following is by guest columnist Don Whittinghill. Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek’s response to the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education follows.

The Voice of a Leader?

The self-styled White Knight of Louisiana education reform accuses the newly formed Coalition for Louisiana Public Education stakeholders of presenting nothing new except for seeking more money.

Apparently he fails to look into the mirror at his own greedy grasping for money for his favored schools. The Recovery School District has been spending at least 30 percent more per student than the average locally-run school system in Louisiana. Over the past five years RSD students have been funded by a combination of special federal grants, state department of education picking up some major expenses like insurance, free use of buildings built by the Orleans Parish School Board, and the largess of national foundations. While RSD per pupil funding has trended downward from in excess of $20,000 per student per year in the early days, to its current level of more than $13,000, RSD funding is still lavish by comparison.

Pastorek preaches that local education stakeholders’ pleas for equitable funding flies in the face of “a nearly $2 billion budget deficit.” It doesn’t take a CPA to challenge his distorted deficit claim. His boss, Gov. Bobby Jindal doesn’t see the same number. It is not likely that the Louisiana legislature will deal with such a number either. He continues to close his eyes to state revenue collections that are increasing above state estimates; and he pretends the error rate of those state estimates historically underestimate state income by hundreds of millions.

Pastorek habitually tends to over-react and to throw numbers largely unconnected to reality into his pronouncements. He still claims the RSD has made “unprecedented gains in student achievement.” His own web site reveals that the RSD schools remain the lowest performing in the state. His own web site reveals that the few RSD schools that seem to be progressing are really special cases whose core student data statistics are manipulated to make their performance look better than is real. And most of the RSD schools which practice selective enrollment and capped enrollment.

The non-educator Superintendent apparently can’t recognize an educator when he sees one. He claims the burgeoning coalition of public education stakeholders is “made up of staff and board members from these various groups”. Does he really assume that leaders of the superintendents association, the school boards association, the teachers and principals associations, and the parent teachers associations are so bold as to take a coalition public without broadly based support and authorization?

It is, perhaps, not so widely recognized that Paul Pastorek often acts first and then tells his hiring directors at the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. His most recent was a totally undercover recruitment of a new RSD superintendent. BESE members openly expressed disappointment that they had to come to Baton Rouge to find the search completed. No mention was made…even now…about his pay grade. One thing was certain it would likely make his new man the second highest paid staffer among the 45 DOE staff members earning in excess of $100,000 per year. Many of those high pay rates were set by Pastorek before BESE was informed.

The “extraordinary things taking place in K-12 public education” to which Pastorek refers in his news release are most often taking place because of the efforts of people represented in the new coalition. The growing list of national Blue Ribbon schools in Louisiana is largely governed by local school superintendents and school boards. Pastorek brags about the accelerated growth of high-performing/high-poverty schools showing outstanding growth in student achievement. He never acknowledges that none of those schools are RSD operated schools.

With sufficient funding to pay for extended day, extended week, and extended year schedules, Pastorek’s RSD still is incapable of breaking from the bottom of the list of school performance scores. Yet he challenges the 69 local districts right to demand equality of spending for their underperforming schools.

The Superintendent apparently believes that only he, and a small coterie of highly-paid associates, is motivated to “continue doing the right thing for kids.” His vision of the right thing includes bringing in a host of private companies to manage schools and to provide a varied menu of professional services that have one thing in common: They pull money out of the classroom.

The multi-millions in contracts that cause State Treasurer John Kennedy to stump the state, is largely subject to after the fact approval by the whole of BESE. An elite composed of the BESE president, finance chairman, and Pastorek substitute for transparent contract evaluation. But, when one looks at contracts for operation of RSD charter schools one finds that most skim 12.5 percent from all school funds into corporate profits out of state and away from Louisiana classroom use.

Contrived criticism, in Pastorek’s mind, seems to be that which questions his version of “truth.” His claims of progress in the RSD have been clearly challenged by education researchers. Even the Stanford CREDO finding that New Orleans charters did relatively better than charters nationwide was based upon two characteristics that Pastorek does not want discussed: 1. The CREDO results lumped RSD and Orleans Public School Board operated charters together and nine of the OPSB charters are far superior; and 2. The charters in New Orleans are largely selective-enrollment schools that choose students rather than welcome all.

One thing that Pastorek can rationally expect is that the new coalition is sending a message: “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

Don Whittinghill
LSBA Consultant

Here is Pastorek’s diatribe:

STATEMENT FROM STATE SUPERINTENDENT
OF EDUCATION PAUL PASTOREK
Reference: Coalition for Louisiana Public Education

“This Coalition — made up of staff and board members from these various groups — professes to speak for teachers, administrators, local school boards and others in its opposition to these reforms. And they only express dissatisfaction and disapproval — and present us with no alternative solutions to improve our schools – except to request more funding. The reality is that Louisiana is facing a nearly $2 billion budget deficit, and while funding to other programs has been reduced by 26 percent over the last three years, funding for the state’s MFP – the state’s largest allocation of education funding – has increased by 6.2 percent, from $3.12 billion in Fiscal Year 2008 to $3.31 billion in Fiscal Year 2011. Clearly some districts are facing difficult circumstances. But this situation emphasizes the need for all of us to analyze how we’re allocating our education dollars and to make necessary adjustments in policies, programs and expenditures to achieve the best outcomes for our students and provide necessary support to educators.

And these statements of defiance around reform are unfortunate for the thousands of educators, hundreds of local leaders, and the many communities across our state who have not only accepted change – but who are actually leading and pushing for reforms that are in the best interest of students.

We have some extraordinary things taking place in K-12 public education across Louisiana, including the work taking place in the Recovery School District. In the past three or four years, we’ve made unprecedented gains in student achievement in the RSD and statewide. But this kind of dramatic improvement is only possible when individuals and groups work smarter and make better decisions in classrooms, school buildings and board rooms. There is no doubt in my mind that’s happening. And we believe those who are making a difference and matter most in the lives of students are motivated to continue doing the right thing for kids – even in the face of this kind of contrived criticism.

Fortunately, for our students, the majority of our educators, policymakers and citizens recognize that despite our state’s remarkable progress, too many of our students are still behind in school. They know we can do better, and they’re serious about this work. They share our determination to move forward with a compelling sense of urgency and to ignore the grumbling of those who are unwilling to be inspired by our undeniable progress and the promise these changes represent for our children.”

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