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Archive for the ‘Legislature, Legislators’ Category

East Feliciana, other systems sell out academics for sports

Posted in Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on August 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—LouisianaVoice has regularly taken the Recovery School District (RSD) to task for its creative data on school performance that puts RSD in a favorable light compared to public school systems. We have consistently offered the opinion that the Jindal administration’s intent is to make sacrificial lambs of public education in favor of wholesale privatization of education, even if it means cooking the statistics a little.

Nothing has occurred to alter that opinion, but a friend and regular reader recently called attention to the action of a Baton Rouge-area school board that would appear to fly in the face of the professed mission of public education. We had to plead ignorance because we had been so focused on the big picture we lost sight of what went on right under our noses.

So we did some checking of our own.

Sadly, it is impossible to defend the decision of the East Feliciana Parish School Board earlier this month to crater to the interest of interscholastic athletics at the cost of academic standards.

Since Moby Dick was a guppy, anywhere one went in this country, the minimum “C” grade standard has always been a 2.0 on a 4.0 scale.

Not in East Feliciana, however.

In the not-too-distant past, athletes in Louisiana high schools were considered academically eligible with a 1.5 or better.

State Rep. Rickey Hardy (D-Lafayette) has been trying for years to increase the minimum requirement for sports eligibility to 2.0. He even managed to get the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) to consider phasing in tougher standards. At last year’s state convention a proposal was introduced to require at least a 1.75 for the 2011-2012 school year and 2.0 next year.

“I’m certainly satisfied with phasing it in,” Hardy said last year. He first introduced the 2.0 legislation as far back as 2008. He noted that Texas and Mississippi have already raised the minimum GPA to 2.0.

But not in East Feliciana.

Before any bouquets are pinned on the LHSAA, which has been content with the 1.5 status quo for three decades, it should be noted that while passing a compromise minimum “C” average requirement, the association failed to define “C,” leaving that determination to individual school boards. In athletic parlance, LHSAA punted.

With apologies to former president Bill Clinton, it depends on what your definition of “C” is.

The East Feliciana Parish School Board saw its opening. Gotta have a “C” average to play? No problem. We’ll just lower the bar. Instead of a 2.0 that even Mississippi recognizes as the minimum standard for a “C” grade, let’s just make it a 1.5.

Give proper credit to board member Rhonda Mathews who attempted to set 2.0 as the minimum requirement. She was supported by fellow board members Melvin Hollins, Mitch Harrell, Debra Spurlock-Haynes and Broderick Brooks.

Blocking the higher standard, however, were Olivia Harris, Henry Howell V, Ben Cupit, Paul Kent, Michael Bradford, Richard Terrell and Rufus Nesbitt.

Cupit, a former Clinton High School coach, said state officials who criticized the move would better serve public school children in Louisiana if they fully funded school systems instead of passing unfunded mandates to the local school systems.

East Feliciana Superintendent Douglas Beauchamp said the board voted in 2002 to gradually raise the requirement from 1.5 to 2.0 by the 2004-2005 school year but the new requirements apparently did not get passed down to the school level during subsequent changes in coaching staffs and central office and school administrators.

Beauchamp was quoted as saying that the lower requirements would have little effect in East Feliciana since most students in the parish were not college material.

Wait. What? Not college material? Is that really his call?

Beauchamp said 30 school superintendents across the state responded to his survey on grade-point requirements. Of those 30, he said 25 districts also allow participation in athletics and other extracurricular activities with a 1.5 average.

So there you have it. The LHSAA punted, the East Feliciana Parish School Board fumbled. And while LHSAA’s dereliction is shameful, the East Feliciana Parish School Board’s actions are shameless. And it has at least 25 other school districts in its corner to provide moral support for the wisdom–or folly– of its actions.

At least 26 of Louisiana’s local school systems, perhaps more, see fit to look the other way in the interest of allowing underachievers to pursue athletics over academics. These kids will be able to explain a pick or a press in basketball. They will know the difference between a 4-5 and a 5-4 defense in football. They will be able to run fast, hit hard and shoot baskets with deadly accuracy.

But will they ever be able to diagram a sentence? Will they know the difference between an adverb and an adjective? Will they be able to identify the three branches of government? Will they be able to even balance a checkbook after the glory days of high school sports are long since forgotten and no one can remember their uniform number or even what sport they played?

Our friend who told us about this travesty has a low opinion of public education in general and an even lower opinion of local school boards in particular. These kinds of decisions only serve to arm him with deadly accurate ammunition.

It is impossible to defend the indefensible or to excuse the inexcusable.

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Hide the women and children! ALEC invades N.O. Monday to offer ‘Solutions for the States’ during 38th annual meeting

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Campaign Contributions, Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Vouchers on July 29, 2011| 10 Comments »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—One of the primary forces behind the systematic elimination of public schools, the privatization of government, and the widespread implementation of the Milton Friedman school of economic principles is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The organization, founded in 1973 by conservative activists, ALEC has drafted a list of radical legislation it plans to propose in Republican-controlled states in an apparent effort to duplicate the so-called “shock doctrine” forced on countries in South and Central America in the 1980s and 1990s with disastrous results.

Louisiana Legislator Rep. Noble Ellington (R-Winnsboro) last December said, “Never has the time been so right” to plan the radical reshaping of policies in the states. His remarks were made at a gathering of conservative legislators in Washington on the heels of the midterm elections that saw Republicans seize majorities in both legislative chambers and governorships in 21 states.

The event was the “States and Nation Policy Summit” and it featured such heavy hitters as Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Calling itself “the nation’s largest non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators, ALEC will hold its 2011 annual meeting, “Solutions for the States,” in New Orleans for six days, beginning Monday at the Marriott.

Charter schools are one of the organization’s main showcases, so the timing of the annual meeting couldn’t be worse, given the ongoing investigations of two charter schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge into allegations of abuse, mistreatment, neglect, and cheating.

The highlight for attendees, of course, will be the appearance of free market wunderkind Gov. Bobby Jindal who will be the featured speaker at the organization’s plenary lunch on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m.

ALEC’s proposed legislation must first meet the approval of corporate donors who have veto power over language contained in the legislation which in turn, is developed by secretive task forces out of the view and scrutiny of the public.

The task forces cover every imaginable issue from education to health policy, from union-busting to privatization of schools and government, from global warming to industry deregulation.

ALEC’s agenda tracks the agenda of the late economist Milton Friedman who sent his disciples into Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Poland, Russia, China, Indonesia, and several other countries in the wake of natural or man-made disasters to institute privatization of government programs and industries before the citizens could recoup their senses.

Friedman specialized in earthquakes, revolutions, and tsunamis, moving in and instituting radical change in economic and political policies. That pattern was followed with the public school system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans with many formerly public schools now being operated by corporate-run charters.

Invariably, when Friedman’s economists moved in, the chasm between the super rich and the super poor grew ever wider as unemployment soared when jobs disappeared, people lost their homes, and inflation made local currency worthless. It was then that U.S. corporations moved in and purchased state-owned mines and manufacturing plants for pennies on the dollar.

In 2007, ALEC made its most ambitious and strategic push for privatization of education with its publication, School Choice and State Constitutions, which proposed a list of programs tailored to each state.

ALEC’s 2010 Report Card on American Education challenged members to “transform the system, don’t tweak it.”

After what has occurred with the Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in New Orleans earlier this month and now the ongoing revelations at Kenilworth Science and Technology School in Baton Rouge, someone needs to tweak something. The State Department of Education has already pulled Abramson’s charter and now Kenilworth is under investigation.

Both schools are operated by Pelican Educational Foundation which has ties to a Turkish-run, Houston-based firm, Atlas Texas Construction and Trading and Atlas vice president Inci Akpinar.

Louisiana Department of Education investigator Folwell Dunbar, who investigated complaints against Abramson last year, reported that Akpinar attempted to bribe him in an effort to smooth over problems at the school but nothing was done until a year later when the state auditor began an investigation.

Only then did the Department of Education take decisive action by revoking Abramson’s charter—and firing both Dunbar and his supervisor, Jacob Landry.

Apparently ALEC’s 2010 Report Card on American Education has its own definition of transformation: shoot the messenger.

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Jindal, like Diogenes, needs lamp to find common sense in his absurd decision to sign bill into law at Baptist church

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Economy, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Transparency on July 11, 2011| 1 Comment »

BATON ROUGE (CNS)—A few random notes worth sharing in the wake of the most recent legislative session and Gov. Jindal’s ongoing love affair with north Louisiana:

Because Jindal and the legislature have seen fit to play fiscal shell games with education in Louisiana, considerable but unnecessary—and certainly unfair—financial strain has been placed on local school boards around the state.

Even as Jindal, when he was not drumming up campaign contributions in other states by telling Republican supporters in Wisconsin, Illinois and elsewhere what a fine job he has done in Louisiana, was telling actual constituents and state workers they would have to “do more with less.”

Except when it came to golf courses.

Ah, yes, the golf courses, that old bugaboo we talked about last year.

And let’s not forget the other sports venues and pet projects that took priority over education in Priority 1 capital outlay appropriations this year:

• City Park Golf Complex improvements in New Orleans—$6.6 million;

• Junior Golf training facilities for Jerry Tim Brooks Lakeside Golf Course in Caddo Parish—$200,000;

• Golf course development in Calcasieu Parish—$6.1 million;

• Zephyrs baseball facilities in Jefferson Parish—$1.2 million;

• Professional sports facilities and lease hold improvements in Jefferson Parish (provided that $8.5 million is used to improve the New Orleans Hornets’ training center—$17.5 million;

• Recreational complex in Iberia Parish—$1 million;

• Baseball stadium Improvements in Baton Rouge (which has no baseball team)—$1.4 million;

• Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame/Natchitoches State Museum—$7.7 million;

• Bayou Segnette sports complex improvements in Jefferson Parish—$9.2 million;

• West Ouachita Youth Sports Association site renovations—$25,000;

• Poverty Point Reservoir State Park conference center in Richland Parish—$250,000;

• Poverty Point Reservoir (real estate acquisition)—$1.7 million;

• Washington Parish reservoir feasibility study—$2.6 million.

Meanwhile, in Livingston Parish, the local school board has found it necessary to freeze all salaries and to eliminate three work days from the 2011-12 school year in an effort to cut costs.

Three days may not seem like much but why would we want to cheat our kids out of even 10 minutes?

Union Parish schools operated on a four-day week last year and at least one school district, Caldwell Parish, will follow suit this year.

But the state somehow found the money for $50 million in projects for golf courses, reservoirs and recreational facilities.

And we barely scratched the surface. Local projects were down from last year, but they still could be found crammed into this year’s budget.

Jindal, meanwhile, makes use of the tax-supported state web page to post what comes dangerously close to being a political ad for his re-election.

Go to http://www.louisiana.gov and then move your cursor to “Government,” click first on “Executive Branch,” and then on “Governor,” and voila! Up pops a series of photos of Jindal shaking hands with truck drivers, construction workers, National Guardsmen, etc. The accompanying text to the side reads:

“More than 39,500 new direct and indirect jobs will be created from the economic development wins we have announced since taking office in 2008, along with more than $8.5 billion in capital investment in our state. These figures represent thousands of opportunities for generations of Louisianians—Louisianians who will not have to leave our state to secure a great education or find a rewarding career.”

Like plucking chickens in Farmerville, perhaps?

Not that we have anything against chicken pluckers but it seems the really good jobs were handed out by Jindal to folks from out of state—including his Deputy Commissioner of Administration (New Hampshire), his press secretary (New Jersey), the Secretary of Health and Hospitals (Washington State).

Well, you get the picture.

Of course, it’s going to be rather difficult to remain in the state when programs of study at colleges and universities have been cut to the bone, college tuition increased, teacher pay cut, and state agencies privatized, forcing state workers into a virtually non-existent job market.

Our friend Don Whittinghill observed recently that Jindal convinced local school boards that the 2.75 percent growth factor of the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP—the formula used to fund public education in Louisiana)—would not be funded for the third straight year; that the state passed to the local school boards the cost of transporting private and church school students; that the state-promised $5,000 stipend for teachers who achieve the rigorous National Board Certification would have to be absorbed by the already-shrunken MFP, and that local school boards’ state retirement system contributions would jump to 22 percent.

But, hey! We got our golf courses and Baton Rouge has its baseball park improvements, just no team to play on it.

And Jindal continues to commandeer the state helicopter to fly to north Louisiana churches to give testimonials that are really little more than thinly-disguised efforts to raise still more campaign funds.

In something like five months, Whittinghill tells us, Jindal spent more than $45,000 flying to exotic places like Downsville, Dry Prong, and Shongaloo to give witness to adoring Protestant congregations.

As recently as Friday, July 8, he boarded that helicopter and flew north to the First Baptist Church of West Monroe. There, he took the occasion of signing into law HB-636 by Rep. Frank Hoffmann (R-West Monroe).

If something as blatantly political as that single action doesn’t cost the First Baptist Church of West Monroe its IRS tax-exempt status, nothing should.

How the governor could do something so ill-advised as to put the church’s tax-exempt status in jeopardy or why the church officials would allow it is a mystery.

Moreover, it’s another of those mindless laws that is almost certain to be contested in the courts at considerable cost to the taxpayers of Louisiana and it’s just as certain that the state ultimately will lose the case.

What is this bill? It’s a measure that would require women to be informed of their specific legal rights and options before they undergo an abortion procedure.

Whatever your position on this emotional issue, a church is no place to be holding a ceremony signing it—or any other bill, for that matter—into law.

Abortion providers will be required to post signs around their clinics stating that “it is illegal to coerce a woman into getting an abortion, that the child’s father must provide child support, that certain agencies can assist them during and after the pregnancy, and that adoptive parents can pay some of the medical costs.”

The law also creates a Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) website and a mobile platform to deliver information “about public and private pregnancy resources” for avoiding abortions.

The first question that comes to mind is how are fathers going to be forced into providing child support given the current deadbeat dad caseload backlog?

Second, just who is going to be around to enforce the child support laws after Jindal gets through gutting DHH as part of his far-reaching obsession with privatization of state agencies?

The most bizarre statement yet was uttered by Jindal while signing the bill into law when he compared women who receive abortions to criminals:

“Now if we’re giving criminals their basic rights and they have to be informed of those rights, it seems to me only common sense (that) we would have to do the same thing for women before they make the choice about whether to get an abortion,” he said.

Common sense?

Indeed.

That would seem to be the rarest of commodities with this governor.

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Jindal Orwell uses vetoes of legislative oversight to make strong case for his being more equal than 136 lawmakers

Posted in Governor's Office, Health Care, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Privatization, Transparency, Veto on July 4, 2011| 7 Comments »

George Orwell, writing in Chapter 10 of his literary classic Animal Farm, said, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

Never was that well-worn quote more obvious than when, on July 1, 2011, Gov. Bobby Jindal cast aside the civics class principal of the three equal branches of government by exercising his veto power over legislative oversight of one of his pet projects—privatization.

The vote was 36-0 in the Senate and 100-0 in the House but Jindal still pulled rank on the Louisiana Legislature and vetoed SB-207 by Sen. Willie Mount (D-Lake Charles), as well as three provisions of HB-1 that would have given the legislature some say into the governor’s privatization of the state’s Medicaid program.

The vetoes left no doubt as to the determination of the governor to move forward with his sweeping privatization of several state government programs even though one report said that the proposed privatization of the Office of Group Benefits it dead—at least for this year.

Jindal has already privatized one agency a year ago, the Office of Risk Management, but failed in his efforts to sell three state prisons earlier this year.

He was less than specific in giving his reasons for the vetoes, saying only that the three provisions that he stripped from HB-1would delay implementation of one program while eliminating the flexibility of the Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) to initiate changes in two other.

In one case, he said that legislative involvement could delay implementation of a program that provides care for youth who have behavioral health problems that put them at risk of being institutionalized.

Language in HB-1 would have required DHH to submit a report providing details of the programs structure, service delivery provisions, population served, and estimated costs for budget committee review at least 30 days prior to awarding a contract.

The administration is presently evaluating a dozen private companies that have submitted proposals to establish networks of health-care providers, including physicians and hospitals with which Medicaid recipients would enroll in an effort to cut costs and better coordinate health care. Ten of those companies are insurance companies.

Jindal’s “coordinated care networks” would use state revenue to pay private insurance companies and other private entities to provide the medical needs for two-thirds of the state’s 1.2 million Medicaid recipients.

Mount, chairperson of the Senate Health Committee, said she was disappointed in the governor’s veto.

“This (Jindal’s privatization) is a significant change in the way we are offering health care,” she said, adding that the legislature should be an “active and engaged” partner to ensure that health care outcomes are both improved and cost-effective.

Jindal also cited “contingencies” in vetoing the proposals but legislators earlier this year complained that Jindal himself included “contingencies,” in his original budget proposal, including the proposed sale of three state prisons that would have required legislative approval before the funds could be appropriated.

Rep. Eddie Lambert (R-Prairieville) said Jindal apparently had a different perspective on contingencies when considering vetoes as opposed to drafting his budget.

“I’m somewhat surprised he would veto those things because the more oversight you have in government, the better taxpayer interests are going to be served,” said Lambert, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

“The governor is not too keen on legislative oversight,” said Sen. Lydia Jackson (D-Shreveport), who said she has long been a proponent of the idea that the Legislature should exercise more independence in budgeting. She is vice chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee. “Maybe these vetoes will be the kick in the pants for us to exert ourselves a little more,” she said.

Not only did SB-207 receive unanimous support in both the Senate and House, it also was endorsed by the Louisiana Hospital Association, the Louisiana State Medical society, and the New Orleans Metropolitan Hospital Council.

Jindal, in his veto message, said Mount’s bill “terminates Louisiana’s Medicaid reform initiative, Coordinated Care Networks, as well as the Community Care Program on Dec. 31, 2014.

“Coordinated Care Networks will provide a medical home for 800,000 Medicaid recipients, providing better access to primary and preventative care, improved health outcomes, with an anticipated savings of $24 million in the upcoming fiscal year and $135.9 million in state fiscal year 2013.

“Inserting a termination date for this important reform and preventing Louisiana from improving the performance of outcomes in our current Medicaid system sends the wrong message, that we are incapable of providing better care to our people, and we can do no better than our ranking of 49th in the nation for health outcomes. I am not content with the outcomes of our current Medicaid program and am committed to reforming our Louisiana health care system.”

Now that’s making a case for being more equal than others.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Charters, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Retirement on July 4, 2011| 2 Comments »

“Unabashed power trip without a road map. Where he’ll throw us off the bus, no one knows.”

—State Sen. D.A. “Butch” Gautreaux, on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s veto that protects charter schools that leave the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana from being required to repay the state for their pro rata shares.

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