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Archive for the ‘Vouchers’ Category

More ruminations on Jindal’s power consolidation, more profitable legal work for Faircloth, Obama Katrina failure

Posted in Courts, Education, Governor's Office, Vouchers on August 28, 2013| 6 Comments »

Consolidation of power or rats deserting sinking ship?

Gov. Bobby Jindal appears to be consolidating his power base as he moves toward his final two years in office by positioning key allies as caretakers to watch the store in his four-year hiatus—a break he will no doubt us to seek higher office of latch on with some right wing think tank.

What Jindal is doing in the placement of former Chief of Staff Steve Waguespack as president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) and Division of Administration spokesman Michael DiResto with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) as senior vice president for economic competitiveness is eerily similar to Huey Long’s lining up all his toadies before moving from the governor’s office to the U.S. Senate.

He earlier had helped get Scott Angelle, who almost certainly would have been replaced as Secretary of Natural Resources by Jindal’s successor, elected to the Public Service Commission and only recently he orchestrated the “retirement” of Congressman Rodney Alexander by placing him in a $130,000-a-year job as head of Veterans Affairs, a job, which if he remains three years, will boost his state retirement from about $7,500 to $82,000 per year.

By convincing Alexander to hang up his congressional spurs, Jindal opened the door (he hopes) for State Sen. Neil Riser to move into Alexander’s former Fifth District slot. That little coup may yet backfire as there has already been considerable pushback to that blatant back room deal.

Though BRAC did not say so, an additional duty for DiResto might be to help identify and sanction “legitimate” news media representatives. Nearly two years ago, DiResto arbitrarily decided that our sister organization, Capitol News Service, was not “legitimate.” That was the reason he gave—before relenting more than an hour later—for denying a copy of Jindal’s executive budget to CNS.

More lucrative work for Faircloth?

Jindal and Superintendent of Education John White’s ill-fated voucher plan has run into another obstacle in the form of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to block vouchers in 22 of 34 parish school systems currently under federal desegregation orders.

It’s not the first time this issue has come up but the filing of the lawsuit adds a new dimension to the voucher controversy and it could be a new opportunity for Jindal’s favorite lawyer Jimmy Faircloth.

Financial windfalls don’t come along very often—unless you are Faircloth, who has already received some $1.1 million in fees while unsuccessfully defending the administration on a number of issues ranging from vouchers to retirement to lack of transparency in the selection of a new LSU president.

Now he has a golden opportunity to once again start the legal meter running.

At this rate, he could retire when Jindal leaves office.

Jindal invests in state retirement system even as he trashes its stability

You may remember all the hoopla about the state’s busted retirement systems. Jindal paraded administrative appointive officials before legislative committees to sound the alarm that the retirement systems were broke, kaput, bankrupt, broken and otherwise unsalvageable—unless the legislature approved Jindal’s radical program for state pension reform. That the “reforms” would have been devastating to state employees and would violate employee contracts was besides the point.

This was one of the dogs that Faircloth was asked to defend in state court. And it was one of several cases in which Faircloth was shot down in flames.

But wait! Even as the retirement systems were circling the drain (according to Jindal), Jindal was surreptitiously buying back his retirement from his prior service with the state in order to increase his own state pension.

Kinda makes you wonder  if he really believed his own Chicken Little falling sky rhetoric, doesn’t it?

Republican indignation over voucher suit

Hayride blog columnist Kevin Kane dutifully parroted the administration line that it was such a shame to trap kids in lousy schools.

Jindal called the lawsuit “shameful,” and said it was imperative to give every child, “no matter their race or their income, the opportunity to get a great education.”

It certainly is interesting to see these elitist types become so concerned with the education of black children so late in the day.

Katrina Obama’s fault, Louisiana GOP poll shows

A recent poll, admittedly conducted by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, is one of those surveys that Jindal has chosen not to trumpet as proof that he’s doing a “heckuva job.”

The poll showed that 29 percent of state Republicans said that President Obama was responsible for the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans eight years ago tomorrow (Aug. 29).

Obama may be many things—indecisive, weak, occasionally confused—but one thing he was not, was president. He was a freshman in the U.S. Senate, still three years away from being elected president.

At least Timmy Teepell didn’t try to saddle Obama with the Katrina debacle in his infamous tweet exchange with Baton Rouge blogger Bob Mann recently.

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House approves DOE reorganization—10 months after John White does it his way: bill goes to Senate for consideration

Posted in BESE, Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, State Agencies, Vouchers on May 28, 2013| 11 Comments »

Our brain-dead legislature just doesn’t get it.

The House earlier this month approved and sent to the Senate HB 650 which calls for reorganization of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE).

The vote was 57-39 (with nine not voting), with an assortment of oblivious characters who have their collective heads where only their proctologists can find them.

Why, you ask?

Simple. Superintendent of Education John White has been illegally running DOE since he arbitrarily “reorganized” the department nearly a year ago—months before House approval of the reorganization bill.

Apparently it’s not enough that sweeping educational “reforms” were approved last year that sent the entire department spiraling into the depths of scandal (see Course Choice, FastPath, Fast Start, Rod Paige, etc.), botched teacher evaluations (see Value Added Model), failure (see RSD school grades), potential violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (see InBloom, Agilix, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdock, News Corp., Wireless Generation, etc.), six-figure salaries for out-of-state appointees with little to no educational experience and no willingness to even register their cars in Louisiana or get Louisiana driver’s licenses (see past, present and future John White appointees), and numerous legal setbacks (see voucher funding, public records lawsuits).

White came into office nearly 18 months ago preaching failure and he has certainly illustrated that concept in crystal clear, unmistakable clarity.

Last July 9, White issued a DOE news release in which he announced the appointment of a team of District Support and Network Leaders—a major reorganization implemented a month after adjournment of the legislative session and which put the proverbial cart well ahead of the horse.

And apparently few in the legislature took notice, not even on April 11 of this year when Deputy Superintendent of Policy Erin Bendily told the House Education Committee that the department was still operating under the old structure as approved by previous legislation as Senate bill 80 (Act 302) of 2011.

Among those either blissfully ignorant (as in the case of Ruston Republican Rob Shadoin, who declined to comment on the DOE violation of student and teacher privacy laws or on the fraudulent Course Choice registrations because he did not know enough about the issues) or who simply did not care were 14 members of the House Education Committee.

The only Education Committee members voting against HB 650 were Democrats John Bel Edwards of Amite, Edward Price of Gonzales, Pat Smith and Alfred Williams, both of Baton Rouge.

Among the changes implemented by White sans legislative approval:

• A new organizational chart which has been in place since Sept. 10, 2012;

• Abolishment of the offices of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Literacy, College and Career Readiness, Departmental Support and Innovation;

• Addition of five Network Leaders at salaries of $130,000 and up (not part of the DOE organizational chart approved by the legislature during the administration of former Superintendent Paul Pastorek).

An open letter to state senators written “on behalf of concerned DOE employees” said the department “has recently seen an explosion in the number of unclassified staff.”

The letter said a large number of the new hires have “minimal experience” in the education field and bring little practical experience and seem not to be committed to long-term stays in Louisiana.

“At the same time, DOE is systematically eliminating classified personnel with substantially more experienced, more local knowledge, and more local commitment. This strategy costs the state significant money, as new unclassified hires have frequently been paid substantially more than classified staff that have performed largely the same work,” it said.

“The classified staff (who) have been affected are primarily Louisiana citizens who have served the people of this state competently and are actively registered voters in their respective communities.

“They are being replaced by persons, primarily from out-of-state, with lesser experience, fewer credentials, and less dedication, diligence and competence. We do not believe that this personnel strategy will serve the long-term best interests of Louisiana schools and districts and we urge the (Senate Education) Committee to seek further information on the number and responsibilities of unclassified staff before proceeding with this bill,” the letter said.

The letter also expressed “serious concerns” regarding the number of educational functions and initiatives which are being stricken from the previous legislation and not specifically enumerated in HB 650.

“These include dropout prevention, federal programs, nutritional programs, teacher certification, required subject matter content and professional development.

“The only thing being added is the Office of District Support. Yet, its responsibilities are very vaguely worded and do not seem to explicitly include the programs being removed,” it said.

Moreover, it said, the functions of the Office of District Support are defined as serving districts’ lowest-performing schools. “Is DOE saying that services will be cut to all schools that are not the lowest-performing?” the letter asks. “The responsibility for supervising the quality of all programs in every school district is a duty of the Louisiana Department of Education.

“We urge the committee to look very closely at what DOE is hoping to achieve with this reorganization and that the Legislature hold DOE to strict accountability. DOE has not always acted in good faith during reorganization,” the letter said.

House members voting for HB 650, largely regarded as a power grab attempt by White and Gov. Jindal, were:

Speaker Chuck Kleckley (R-Lake Charles); Bryan Adams (R-Gretna); John Anders (D-Vidalia); Jeff Arnold (D-New Orleans); Taylor Barras (R-New Iberia); John Berthelot (R-Gonzales); Robert Billiot (D-Westwego); Stuart Bishop (R-Lafayette); Wesley Bishop (D-New Orleans); Chris Broadwater (R-Hammond); Richard Burford (R-Stonewall); Henry Burns (R-Haughton); Timothy Burns (R-Mandeville); Thomas Carmody (R-Shreveport); Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge); Simone Champagne (R-Erath); Charles Chaney (R-Rayville); Patrick Connick (R-Marrero); Gregory Cromer (R-Slidell); Michael Danahay (D-Sulphur); Gordon Dove (R-Houma); Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro); Franklin Foil (R-Baton Rouge); Raymond Garofalo Jr. (R-Chalmette); Jerry Gisclair (D-Larose); Hunter Greene (R-Baton Rouge); Lance Harris (R-Alexandria); Lowell Hazel (R-Pineville); Cameron Henry (R-Metairie); Frank Hoffman (R-West Monroe); Paul Hollis (R-Covington); Mike Huval (R-Breaux Bridge); Barry Ivey (R-Baton Rouge); Patrick Jefferson (D-homer); Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette, who likes to know if teachers take annual or sick leave to come to Baton Rouge); Christopher Leonard (R-Belle Chasse); Joseph Lopinto III (R-Metairie); Nick Lorusso (R-New Orleans); Jay Morris (R-Monroe); Stephen Ortego (D-Carencro); Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell); Erich Ponti (R-Baton Rouge); Stephen Pugh (R-Ponchatoula); Steve Pylant (R-Winnsboro, who wants to force high school seniors to take at least one Course Choice course as a prerequisite to graduation—30,000 graduating seniors at $700 to $1200 tuition per course; do the math); Eugene Reynolds (D-Minden); Jerome Richard (I-Thibodaux); Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette); Clay Schexnayder (R-Gonzales); John Schroder (R-Covington); Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport); Rob Shadoin (R-Ruston); Karen St. Germain (D-Plaquemine); Julie Stokes (R-Metairie); Kirk Talbot (R-River Ridge); Major Thibaut (D-New Roads); Jeff Thompson (R-Bossier City), and Lenar Whitney (R-Houma).

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Reports surface that DOE Superintendent John White is out the door for Washington to further validate Peter Principle

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Recovery School District, RSD, Vouchers on May 22, 2013| 41 Comments »

In the late ‘60s psychologist Dr. Laurence J. Peter advanced what became known as the Peter Principle which said, in effect, that “In a hierarchically-structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence.”

Put another way: “The cream rises until it sours.”

A good case in point, of course, would be Michael Brown, the notoriously inept head of FEMA, as evidence by his botched effort at coordinating recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Brown had previously served admirably as commissioner of judges for the International Arabian Horse Association but that job hardly prepared him for handling a job of the magnitude of major hurricane recovery efforts.

The same may be said of John White, who despite his abysmal record as Louisiana Superintendent of Education, may soon be promoted to yet a new level of incompetence.

Rumors have persisted for several days now that White would be leaving his post at the end of the current legislative session, which must adjourn by June 6.

Those rumors reached a new pitch on Wednesday with word that White would be headed “for Duncanland” in June.

For those unfamiliar with the Obama cabinet, “Duncanland” would be Washington where Arne Duncan serves as Secretary of Education.

Before joining the Obama administration, Duncan served as chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools whence controversial former Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas came.

White succeeded Vallas as RSD superintendent before being elevated to his current post by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) at the behest of Gov. Bobby Jindal in January of 2012.

BESE President Chas Roemer, contacted about the report that White was headed for Washington, said he had not heard any such report.

In White’s case, the Peter Principle could be traced from White’s minimal classroom experience as a Teach for America alumnus as well as his having attended an academy to train school superintendents whose credentials are questionable at best. That academy, the Eli Broad Academy consists of all of six weekends of classes spread over 10 months.

In recent weeks, White’s tenure has been marred by repeated courtroom setbacks over the funding formula for school vouchers, public records litigation, rejection by the legislature of BESE’s Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) formula for funding public education, and most recently, word of apparent efforts by course providers to fraudulently enroll more than 1100 students in Course Choice online classes that were to be paid for by the state from MFP funds.

It was the use of the MFP funds for that purpose that was ruled unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

BESE member Lottie Beebe of Breaux Bridge, a vocal opponent of both White and Roemer, said she had not heard the latest report though she acknowledged previous rumors of White’s departure.

“He is building a home in Baton Rouge,” she said by email. “If this proves true, he is acknowledging defeat. He will bail before he is fired!”

An email to White went unanswered.

Increasingly, it would appear that the cream may have risen and has now soured.

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DOE run like a snow cone stand, but Course Choice fraudulent enrollments looking like a major scandal

Posted in BESE, Education, Layoffs, Public Records, Transparency, Vouchers on May 16, 2013| 11 Comments »

Could it possibly get any worse for Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White?

For that matter, could the State of Louisiana possibly do any worse than John White as education superintendent?

Good questions both. The answers are, in order:

That remains to be seen, and

Probably not.

There are so many things going on with the Department of Education (DOE), not the least of which is the breaking story of what appears to be the fraudulent enrollment of more than 1,100 students in two north Louisiana parishes in Course Choice classes without their knowledge and the close association of the chairman of the course choice provider company to former President George W. Bush and recent Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Folks, this is a huge story.

More about that later, but first a few others:

• Voucher funding knocked down by the courts;

• Confidential files on teachers evaluations leaked to the media;

• Personal information on Louisiana students provided and then, presumably revoked, to a data base “parking garage” operated by Rupert Murdock and Bill Gates;

• Mass layoffs by DOE even as it advertises for yet another six-figure unclassified appointment;

• Rejection of the Minimum Foundation Program formula by the State Senate;

• A legislative bill to reorganize DOE even as White moves forward with doing just that without benefit of the bill’s passage;

• Attempts to tweak the Value Added Model for teacher evaluations, lending ample evidence that the entire methodology was flawed from the outset;

DOE is the single agency that is responsible for the expenditure of more funds—federal and state—than any other state agency and for the education of hundreds of thousands of Louisiana children.

And it’s being run like a snow cone stand.

And that snow cone stand is being run by a gaggle of highly overpaid, grossly under-qualified preppies who have somehow convinced themselves that six-weeks of Teach for America courses and/or a six-weekend course spread over 10 months translates to solid credentials that qualify them to run roughshod over people who have obtained full-blown college degrees, many of those advanced degrees, and who have dedicated their entire professional lives to educating children.

And on top of everything else, White just can’t seem to be able to resist embellishing facts or simply plucking them out of thin air. He seems to forget that while he is certainly entitled to his own opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts.

Case in point:

Last week, immediately after the Louisiana Supreme Court ruling upholding the lower court’s decision that the funding formula for school vouchers was unconstitutional, White was quoted thusly:

“On the most important aspect of the law, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of families (that, folks, is what is known as spin). The scholarship program will continue and thousands of Louisiana families will continue to have the final say in where to send their children to school. Nearly 93 percent of scholarship families report that they love their school, and we will work with the legislature to find another funding source to keep parents and kids in these schools.

The “93 percent” caught our eye and as we have begun doing with any such utterance by White, we went after documentation. After all, someone once said 87.5 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. Accordingly, we fired off the following public records request:

• Where do the data supporting the 93 percent approval come from? Please be specific and provide all written documentation supporting this claim;

• Are your data from a survey of parents actually conducted in the spring of a particular school year? If so, which year?

• Are students and/or parents who are unhappy and/or who transfer out of a voucher school included in your survey?

• In calculating the 93 percent favorable rate, do you/DOE count all surveys sent out or only those that are returned?

Because of this week’s public records lawsuit settlement that was favorable to LouisianaVoice, DOE actually responded in a timely fashion and with precisely the answer we expected:

“…The Department is not in possession of any public record(s) responsive to the above-written request.”
Go figure.

So, if there are no public records to support his claim, just how did White arrive at that “nearly 93 percent” figure?

Who knows, but hey, it’s not the first time that White has been unable to back up his claims. Remember, he claims that he cancelled the agreement with inBloom to provide personal data on hundreds of thousands of Louisiana students to its data base but when asked for the written communication of cancellation, guess what? “…The Department is not in possession of any public record(s) responsive to the above-written request.”

Anyone detect a trend here?

HB 650 by Jindal old reliable ally Rep. Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge) calls for the reorganization of DOE and would give White broad powers in creating new offices—undoubtedly at exorbitant salaries to more under-qualified appointees—for the department.

But White isn’t waiting. The reorganization has already begun.

White has submitted a layoff plan which, if approved, will put 34 civil service (classified) employees out of work. These are the ones, just as in other agencies, who get things done, who show up day in and day out to process paperwork, answer inquiries and generally keep the department afloat. They are also, unlike their appointive supervisors, qualified.

The layoff plan was submitted ostensibly to save $3.4 million for fiscal year 2013-2014.

Yet, DOE is currently advertising online to fill an unclassified (appointive) position, almost certainly at a six-figure salary, for the position of Chief of Staff, Office of Portfolio.

If the Office of Portfolio rings a bell, that would be our old friend Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith, the $146,000 per year commuter (between Los Angeles and Baton Rouge), the director (or deputy superintendent, depending on which day of the week it is) of the Office of Portfolio. The new hire (or in-house appointee, more likely) would be Lefty’s right hand (yes, we meant to do that).

Turns out the Office of Portfolio is in charge of filling up all those course choice online courses—even, it seems, if students don’t know they’re enrolled.

Course choice providers get about whatever they wish to charge in “tuition,” some of them setting the bar at $1200. They get half of that upon the successful enrollment of the student, no matter if he or she completes the course. The student can sign up, participate for say, a week, drop out and the provider still gets $600. And it is the provider who decides whether or not the student has successfully completed the course, which would qualify the provider with the other half of the tuition.

Fox, welcome to the henhouse.

Now it turns out that more than 1100 students in the parishes of Caddo and Webster have signed up for course choice programs—but they didn’t know it.

An outfit named FastPath Learning of Austin, Texas, has somehow managed to obtain student information to sign up the students without the knowledge of the student or of their parents.

If true, that’s fraud, pure and simple—and a blatant violation of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

And the chairman of the board for FastPath is Rod Paige, former U.S. Secretary of Education during President George W. Bush’s first term and a member of Mitt Romney’s Education Policy Advisory Group during last year’s presidential campaign.

Paige, it should be noted, also once served as superintendent of Houston’s schools and during his tenure there, he became mired in an ugly scandal when it was learned that the Houston system, seventh largest in the nation, had falsified its dropout statistics.

Fox, henhouse.

The question here, then, is: just where did FastPath get the student information needed to arbitrarily enroll 1,100 students? It would seem highly unlikely that it came from the local school boards.

White, asked about the apparent lack of oversight, said Course Choice providers underwent a “rigorous” four-part approval process before being allowed to offer classes and that checks and balances are in place to insure that students do not end up in an academically unsound course.

Really?

What flavor snow cone would you like?

It should come as no surprise that recent stories like this has prompted a witch hunt at DOE. To even the most casual LouisianaVoice reader, it should be obvious that we have sources within DOE.

The ongoing efforts to find leaks would rival the White House Plumbers of those nostalgic Nixon years. Personal printers have been removed so that documents must be printed at a central location more easily monitored. IT personnel have been called in to review emails.

Seems to us, security would be better served with efforts to attempt to learn who provided FastPath with personal data on 1,100 students.

But our sources are not stupid. Most of them are actually former employees who either retired or quit in disgust but who had the foresight to download incriminating documents on computer flash drives which were then passed on to us.

And then there’s that Joan Hunt email SNAFU:

We recently made a public records request and Hunt, the DOE general counsel, responded by sending an email to DOE attorney Willa LeBlanc and Troy Hebert, director of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. It’s not certain if Hebert was mistakenly copied instead of another DOE attorney named Troy Humphrey, but the message simply said, “Troy, we need to reply and say that.”

But Hunt inadvertently copied us into that reply.

Naturally, we wanted to know what that reply was supposed to say. So we sent a public records request asking for copies of all emails between Hunt, LeBlanc, Hebert and White to which Hunt responded on Wednesday:

“No documents. Attorney-client privilege.”

Well, Troy Hebert is not a client of the DOE legal staff; he works under the Department of Revenue and he’s not an attorney, so attorney-client privilege is out the window and we feel entitled to any communication that has us as a subject that has been discussed with someone other than an attorney.

We fired off a response to Hunt that we may well be back in court seeking a contempt ruling and monetary damages.

Finally, there’s this, suggested by a friend and regular reader:

Inasmuch as White is so frantic to track down the source of the leaks and since those leaks were provided on a few flash drives provided by former DOE employees, perhaps it would be appropriate to show up at the next Board of Elementary and Secondary (BESE) meeting with a few hundred lapel pins to hand out.

The pens would be in the shape of a computer flash drive and would have inscribed on them (again, at the suggestion of a reader), “Louisiana Believes LouisianaVoice,” thus commemorating in our own humble way the DOE web page that now calls itself Louisiana Believes.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in BESE, Courts, Education, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Notable Quotables, Vouchers on May 7, 2013| 13 Comments »

“The Scholarship Program will continue…and we will work with the Legislature to find another funding source to keep parents and kids in these schools.”

—State Superintendent of Education John White, in a prepared statement in response to the Louisiana Supreme Court’s 6-1 decision that using funds from the Minimum Foundation Program to fund vouchers for private and virtual schools is unconstitutional.

“Diverting dollars from our already struggling school districts to private school vouchers for a select few students is wrong.”

—State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson (D-New Orleans), state chairperson of the Louisiana Democratic Party, commenting on the State Supreme Court’s decision that taking MFP funds to finance vouchers is unconstitutional.

“This decision was not only predictable, but it was predicted. The governor appeared to have complete disdain for the law while he was chasing a vice presidential nomination.”

—State Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite), commenting on Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision on voucher financing.

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