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Archive for the ‘Legislature, Legislators’ Category

Pylant bill would only guarantee constant revenue stream for shady Course Choice providers already circling like vultures

Posted in ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, BESE, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on May 22, 2013| 15 Comments »

There have been ridiculous bills filed in the Louisiana Legislature. In fact, you can just about count on at least two or three each year.

But HB 648 by freshman Rep. Steve Pylant (R-Winnsboro) is the most asinine monument to waste and corruption in decades of wasteful and corrupt legislatures.

Even as LouisianaVoice reveals case after case of more than 1100 bogus registrations for Course Choice courses in three north Louisiana parishes, HB 648 would actually require the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to “adopt rules and regulations that require all public high school students, beginning with those entering ninth grade in the fall of 2014, to successfully complete at least one course offered by a BESE-authorized online or virtual course provider as a prerequisite to graduation.”

In the wake of what has been taking place in Caddo, Bossier and Webster parishes (and more recently in Calcasieu where it has been learned that one student not enrolled in the school listed by the student attempted to sign up for five courses and another signed up for two courses considered inappropriate for the grade level), Pylant ought to do the decent thing and withdraw his bill in the interest of saving himself further embarrassment.

His bill would accomplish precisely one thing: it would encourage even more fraud than has already taken place with course choice providers signing students to courses in those parishes without the knowledge or consent of the students or their parents.

In one case a severe and profound child was signed up for a class and in Bossier Parish, about 40 students did not attend a school in that parish as their applications indicated.

First grade students were signed up for high school Latin and high school English classes and many of the students ostensibly signed up in Bossier were registered for highly technical advanced mathematics classes.

Pylant, the retired sheriff of Franklin Parish, was elected in 2011 to the seat formerly held by Noble Ellington, who retired and was hired at a six-figure salary by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.

Ellington, the former national president of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in fact, contributed $500 of his campaign funds to Pylant in 2011.

Pylant also received more than $13,000 from the Republican Party of Louisiana, the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, and the Republican Legislative Delegation Campaign.

He also received $2500 each from Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign fund and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley’s political action committee, so it’s fairly easy to see where his allegiance lies.

But that is little reason to pass legislation that will only encourage an already serious problem of fly-by-night companies signing up students only for the purpose of qualifying the course provider to receive one-half of its tuition up front—whether or not the student ever turns on his or her computer.

The State of Idaho has already been there, done that, and decided it was a bad idea. Voters in that state easily repealed Idaho’s version of Course Choice—they called it Online Learning—by a whopping 2-1 margin in a statewide referendum last November.

Course Choice easily falls under the heading of “What’s going on here?”

And what’s going on, simply put, is the continued raping of the state treasury—sanctioned by the Jindal administration.

But Pylant’s bill qualifies for “What the heck is he thinking?”

The answer to that question is anyone’s guess.

We only know one thing for certain: it’s a win-win for shady operators and a lose-lose for Louisiana taxpayers.

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White’s release of evaluation data on Shreveport teachers to Advocate reporter was in direct violation of 2010 state law

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on May 14, 2013| 12 Comments »

Superintendent of Education John White may have placed himself and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) in legal jeopardy when he made a confidential report on three teachers at a Shreveport elementary school available to a Baton Rouge Advocate reporter in apparent violation of a 2010 state law.

White, who released the report on the Value Added Model (VAM) scores for the Shreveport school through an intermediary, may also have endangered his $275,000-a-year job by releasing confidential information to reporter Will Sentell last October in direct contravention of Act 54 of 2010.

The sequence of events began when State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) and White collaborated to tweak the VAM in order to improve the evaluations of three teachers at one of Shreveport’s better elementary schools.

Sentell quoted Seabaugh in the Advocate last Oct. 6 as saying, “You literally have the most successful teachers in the state being told that they are highly ineffective. This is nothing short of ridiculous.”

Sentell said the focus was on preliminary data for South Highlands Elementary Magnet School in Shreveport, where, despite the school’s being the top-rated elementary school in the state, three of its fourth-grade teachers were rated as “highly ineffective.”

Sentell’s story followed an interview with White but not before a detailed report on the three teachers was pulled together comparing fourth grade scores of South Highlands to those of “School X,” which in reality, was Westdale Elementary Magnet School in Baton Rouge.

In order to avoid Sentell’s learning that the report came from LDOE at his direction, White called on Rayne Martin, executive director of Stand for Children Louisiana, to serve as an intermediary and to tell Sentell that she had obtained the report through a data request. Martin previously worked in a number of capacities in LDOE, including chief of innovation—whatever that might have entailed.

When Sentell told White in the interview that he had a copy of a report that indicated the teachers had students whose average scores showed a significant drop from third to fourth grade, White, feigning innocence, asked Sentell where he obtained the report. White subsequently confided to Sentell in an off-the-record remark that the three teachers were ineffective and that Seabaugh was pushing hard to “fix it” for them.

One of the provisions of Act 54 says, “Copies of evaluation results and any documentation related thereto of any school employee may be retained by the local (school) board, the board (Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education), or the department and, if retained, are confidential, do not constitute a public record” and shall not be released or shown to any individual except:

• To the evaluated school employee or his designated representative;

• To authorized school system officers and employees for all personnel matter, including employment, application, and for any hearing, which relates to personnel matters, which includes the authorized representative of any school or school system, public or private, to which employee has made application for employment.

The act says the superintendent of education “shall make available to the public the data specified by law as may be useful for conducting statistical analyses and evaluations of educational personnel but shall not reveal information pertaining to the evaluation report of a particular employee” (Emphasis ours).

By releasing the data comparing the fourth-grade results of South Highlands with those of Westdale, White inadvertently revealed information “pertaining to the evaluation report of a particular employee” since South Highlands had only three fourth grade teachers and the detailed report provided comparisons on average scaled scores from 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years for each content that the three teachers instructed in fourth grade.

Emails received by LouisianaVoice from a former LDOE employee contained dozens of documents pertaining to VAM, Seabaugh and inter-departmental emails contained a copy of a file labeled, “Document for Rayne,” which was the report given to Sentell by Martin.

It was that report that through the process of elimination necessarily identified the three South Highlands teachers.

Act 54 lays out no criminal or civil penalties for violations of the sections that prohibit the public release of information to anyone other than authorized personnel.

But by violating that provision of the act, White may have invited litigation for damages from the three South Highlands teachers who could claim that their professional reputations have been damaged not only by a flawed evaluation system but by the subsequent actions by White that made their identities public.

Such litigation would be extremely difficult to defend. The only option for White now is to man up and take responsibility for his reckless, inconsiderate actions.

He must resign.

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Break out the hip waders: Rep. Seabaugh’s surreptitious involvement in VAM ‘fix’ scheme gets deeper and deeper

Posted in BESE, Education, Ethics, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on May 13, 2013| 25 Comments »

More information about the 14-minute telephone conversation between Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White and State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) is emerging that reveals a concerted but complicated effort by White to placate Seabaugh’s demand that evaluation scores be adjusted upward for three teachers at South Highlands Elementary School.

Even as he was attempting to surreptitiously help three teachers in his House district, Seabaugh was trying unsuccessfully to push a bill through this year’s legislature that would have prohibited the payroll deduction of union dues for public employees.

HB-552 was aimed at teachers unions like the Louisiana Federation of Teachers for successfully challenging Gov. Bobby Jindal’s education reform bills of 2012. It was defeated by a single vote with Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I-Thibodaux) casting the deciding vote.

The information, provided by a source with intimate knowledge of the details of the events, shows that Seabaugh took an active part in trying to implement changes on behalf of the three teachers through repeated contacts with White.

White, in order to appease the lawmaker, soon began talking and messaging within DOE about a “Seabaugh Solution” so openly that Seabaugh apparently felt compelled to tell White that he did not want his named associated with the solution.

The chronology of events was detailed in a two-page document provided LouisianaVoice by the confidential source.

Last Wednesday, LouisianaVoice reported on the 14-minute conversation between Seabaugh and White that was recorded by an employee who White had apparently asked to participate on a speaker phone to answer any questions that Seabaugh might have that White could not address.

Seabaugh is said to have initiated the conversation with White after he was contacted by three of his constituents—teachers at South Highlands Elementary in his Shreveport district. The teachers were unhappy with poor evaluations and Seabaugh attempted to persuade White to try to help those specific individuals. White apparently attempted to accommodate the lawmaker even as he complained to him in that telephone conversation that he felt like a “ping pong ball” being bounced between the governor’s office, Seabaugh and Chas Roemer, President of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Because LouisianaVoice obtained several emails about the Value Added Model (VAM, also known within DOE as Compass) that were written around October of 2012, it was estimated that the telephone conversation between Seabaugh and White occurred around that time. The sequence of events outlined in the latest document reinforces the accuracy of that estimation.

In October of 2012, the source said, a teacher at South Highlands made a data request of DOE in which she wanted to know why she had received an ineffective rating. “A report was produced that showed that her 2011-2012 students’ average scaled score for the content that she teaches declined when compared to those same students’ average scaled score for the previous year.” The document added that “Her students performed worse than other students in the same grade and content in Caddo Parish or the state (as a whole).”

The document said White “began talking (and) messaging about a ‘Seabaugh Solution’ when he was asked about the fix for these teachers.” When people found out about the fix that would accommodate those three teachers, they became angry at Seabaugh and contacted his office (to) make sure he was aware of their ire. “Seabaugh told John White that he did not want his name associated with the solution,” the source said. “White made it clear to his staff that they should not use the term ‘Seabaugh Solution’ anymore.”

The document said many fixes were tried, “but none of them captured all the three South Highlands teachers. “For one teacher, one of her students who was in Mastery in third grade was now in Approaching Basic in her fourth grade class.”

Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Will Sentell apparently heard rumors of the attempt and requested an interview with White, according to the letter to LouisianaVoice. This created the problem for White of how to provide the report to Sentell without it being seen as coming directly from DOE.

“A meeting was held in which (DOE general counsel) Joan Hunt was present,” the document said. “Others at the meeting had copies of the report…and it was obvious to those who read (it) that these three teachers are ineffective teachers.” Those in the meeting “agreed unanimously that these teachers were ineffective but (they) could not come out and say it openly (because of Seabaugh’s involvement in the attempts to adjust their evaluations). Hunt said that her child is gifted and she would not want her child to be in that school with those teachers,” the source said.

As a solution, it was decided to use an intermediary to provide Sentell with the requested report. The intermediary was instructed to say she had obtained the information through a data request from DOE—apparently so that it could not be traced directly back to White. During the interview, White even asked Sentell where he got the report, the document said.

During the course of his interview with Sentell, White confided “in an off-the-record remark” that the three teachers were ineffective and that Seabaugh was “pushing hard” to fix it.

“At the start of the new year (supposedly January 2013), the focus was on finding a fix for these teachers because White had gone around saying that there would be a fix for teachers instructing high achieving students,” the source said. “Several of the fixes (attempted) could not be used because (they) would not cover all three teachers. This indicates how bad those teachers really are.”

“Other fixes were discarded because Hannah Dietsch (Assistant Superintendent overseeing teacher evaluations at $130,000 per year) was afraid they would have ‘messaging’ problems,” the document said, adding that the criteria for the fixes were:

• It had to capture all three teachers;

• It had to be done at the ‘back end’ of the model (in the calculations);

• It had to be simple to message.

The original model has a ceiling built into it that prevents students from being predicted to achieve a score that is higher than the test itself. The highest a student can score in the LEAP/iLEAP is 500. The ceiling is different for each content area. It may be around 485 for English Language Arts (ELA). That would give a teacher a plus-15 for every student who scores a perfect score of 500 on the test.

When coming up with the numerous fixes, the letter said it was suggested to White that if a student scored 485, that teacher would automatically get a plus-15 instead of a zero. If a student scored 490, that teacher would automatically get a plus-15 for that student instead of a plus-10.

“White did not like that suggestion and ‘chewed off the ass’ of the person who suggested it,” the source said. That was the part in the (recording) where one employee whispered to another about a suggested fix that White did not like—but later agreed to in his telephone conversation with Seabaugh.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables on May 8, 2013| 6 Comments »

“I think we can get it past BESE (the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education). I may ask your help on that but I think we can get it past BESE.”

“The assumption on the board (BESE) is that I’m just doing the governor’s bidding on some favor that he’s cashing in on.”

“I didn’t want to open the formula up to such scrutiny…”

“I can get it corrected. I want to make sure it’s possible without publicly (unintelligible).”

—Comments made by Superintendent of Education John White in a 14-minute telephone conversation with State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport). White, in the course of that conversation, acquiesced to Seabaugh’s wishes that the Department of Education’s (DOE) Value Added Model (VAM) for teacher evaluation should be “tweaked” after White admitted that he “should have given the (VAM) procedure more thought.”

“I want minimal impact and an ability to bury it…”

—White, giving instructions to begin the “tweaking” process to a DOE employee immediately following the phone call with Seabaugh.

“I suggested (to White) that we tweak this model and it doesn’t have to be policy and he chewed my ass out.”

—The employee, to a co-worker following the telephone conversation between White and Seabaugh.

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White, Seabaugh conversation reveals agreement to ‘tweak’ DOE’s VAM plan; White whines about his ‘ping pong’ status

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on May 8, 2013| 20 Comments »

A 14-minute telephone conversation that was recorded by an employee of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) has revealed a plan hatched between State Superintendent John White and State Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) to “tweak” DOE’s Value Added Model (VAM) teacher evaluation plan in a way to keep changes from being public or necessitating policy change with the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

The date of the recorded conversation is unclear but a flurry of emails within DOE in mid-October of 2012 and again in mid-March of this year centered around changes to the VAM plan so the telephone conversation most probably took place a few days prior to the October interoffice communications.

After White agreed to make changes in the VAM—also known at the DOE as Compass—as suggested by Seabaugh, the employee who recorded the conversation over a speaker phone was heard to whisper to a co-worker that White “chewed my ass out” after she had earlier made similar suggestions to tweak VAM.

White is heard opening the dialog by telling Seabaugh, “I truly made a mistake in the way I communicated it. I owe you an apology.” It was unclear what White has communicated to Seabaugh that warranted an apology.

Seabaugh is heard telling White that Brigitte Nieland a vice president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) sent Seabaugh a lengthy email “telling me how horrible I was because of this whole thing of exempting some teachers and not others.”

Nieland is vice president of Workforce Development and Research for LABI as well as director of the Education and Workforce Development Council.

He told White that LABI had been prepared to go to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and campaign against the proposal. “I don’t love LABI,” he said. “They endorsed my opponent the first two times I ran so I will never change a position I have because LABI is on the other side. But in this particular case I don’t think it’s necessary to fight.”

Seabaugh’s complaint was apparently that if a student’s score dropped from, say a target score of 430 to 420, he should not be given a score of minus 10 but simply a zero so long as his newer score kept him in either Advanced or Mastery classification. That way, said Seabaugh, “It won’t count against the teacher if he went back a little.”

Seabaugh said he was not trying to exempt anyone from the VAM evaluation, “just tweaking the way you calculate the numbers. Why not, if you stay within the top two categories, you just get a zero. You’re not doing away with the system…and you’re not exempting anyone or creating some kind of other category.”

At one point White suggested creating a policy that keeps data but does not always use the data in the evaluation.

“I don’t believe you can get it past BESE, so why not write it in such a way as we can get it passed?” Seabaugh responded.

“I’m going to feel out the board on that,” White said. “I think we can get it past BESE. I may ask your help on that but I think we can get it past BESE.”

Further into the conversation, White expressed exasperation at being a go-between. “There’s a disconnect,” he said. “To be honest, I’m a messenger between you, Chas (BESE President Chas Roemer) and the board. All the while, the governor’s office is saying, ‘Trust me, trust me, trust me. You gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta do this.’ And I get it. But people have a helluva lot harder time believing me that there’s a real issue than they do out of the governor’s office of from you. I’m a little concerned about playing ping pong. The assumption on the board (BESE) is that I’m just doing the governor’s bidding on some favor that he’s cashing in on. I don’t want to be crass about it; I’ll stand up for it and I have. But I think it might take a little bit more than me to try and convince them it’s the right policy because they’re being hit on the other side pretty hard.”

Seabaugh brought the conversation back to tweaking the VAM so as not to penalize teachers for student’s shortcomings. “If you fall but stay within your category, call it a zero. But if you improve, count it as a plus—give teachers credit for success but not giving negative marks for failures.”

“If we did it within the formula, we could establish some type criteria within a reasonable number,” White replied.

“Tweaking the formula was my initial suggestion,” Seabaugh agreed, “not addressing it legislatively.”

“I didn’t want to open the formula up to such scrutiny (unintelligible),” White said.

“I don’t care how you fix it,” Seabaugh said, adding that teachers had been calling his office and sending him emails and that they were “absolutely livid.”

“I wish I had given the procedure more thought,” White said. “I can get it corrected. I want to make sure it’s possible without publicly (unintelligible). I’ll take the consequences. If there’s any cover I can get you with the teachers, I’m happy to do it. This strikes me as a way out of all these boxes without (unintelligible).”

“That sounds like a good solution,” Seabaugh said as the two ended their conversation.

The recorder was left on after the conversation ended and the staff member, a female employee who White had on a third line to answer questions whispered to a co-worker, “I suggested that we tweak this model and it doesn’t have to be policy and he (White) chewed my ass out. Are you freaking kidding me?”

The conversation between the two staffers was interrupted when White called. “I think he has created an out for us that I’d not totally focused on before,” he told the employee. “I hate to do it, but I need all hands on deck on this. I want minimal impact and an ability to bury it without…yeah, that’s the way to do it.”

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