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27.2.25

Wise to remove diversity from LA teacher grants

In the final analysis, Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s decision to end educational grants that give a role to intentional diversification of the teaching profession can provide Louisiana with the chance to improve its training of future teachers.

Expressions of concern, if not outright apoplexy, ensued when the Trump Administration notified it would end hundreds of millions of dollars of grants that had components designed to give preference to racial minorities in teacher training. In Louisiana, under the Teacher Quality Partnerships Program it would appear three grantees with about $13 million in remaining budget authority were affected, and under Supporting Effective Educator Development grants it would appear one grant with $3 million in budget authority remaining was affected. All explicitly set as a goal preference to serving minority applicants in order to create a more racially diverse teacher workforce.

Complaints came from those involved in the grants as well as special interests who benefited from them, decrying the move as damaging to teacher recruitment generally but in particular towards creating a more racially diverse educator workforce. Yet the facts show such hand-wringing as misplaced.

26.2.25

BC blowing fuse over unneeded car chargers

So, what part of “waste of money” do Republican Bossier City Mayor Tommy Chandler and the City Council not understand?

City taxpayers may be excused for thinking the city wasn’t going to pursue a project it actually first contemplated in 2018, and got the official award for in 2021 – two fast charging electric vehicle outlets. This comes from a court settlement where Volkswagen promised to pay up for surreptitiously selling vehicles able to dodge emissions standards. The consent decree allows states and Indian tribes and Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to solicit money from a trust fund for projects that reduce nitrogen oxides emitted from vehicles.

Each state came up with plans detailing eligible usages. A common usage in Louisiana’s has been conversion of older school buses from diesel to something else. In fact, among several local education agencies the Bossier Parish School District won just such an award in 2020 to replace 25 such 2009-or-older buses with new ones powered by propane with the grant picking up half the tab. This meant the BPSD could purchase newer replacements at less than market rate, a potential savings in the million-dollar range. The district did have to fund to install a propane filling unit at its bus barn and it’s unknown whether the fuel and maintenance costs of these buses are higher or lower than for the remainder of the diesel-run fleet.

25.2.25

Right-sizing LA govt means less local govt aid

Part of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s fiscal reform attempts to right-size Louisiana government must include assigning spending to its appropriate level of subsidiarity, a recent controversy reveals.

Last week, when Landry had introduced the fiscal year 2026 budget, concern arose over removal of a $7 million appropriation to distribute grants to domestic violence shelters. Befitting current revenue estimates, Landry wanted to produce a budget essentially at standstill, which meant forgoing almost all temporary items from last year.

This included that line item, tucked away in the FY 2025 supplemental appropriation bill and replicating from the previous year. Direct state appropriations happen only sporadically, with the last prior to FY 2024-25 being in 2018. Note that a dedicated funding source exists – self-generated revenues from one half of the fee charged for marriage licenses, and from civil fees charged to persons filing any suit or proceeding for divorce, annulment of marriage, or establishment or disavowal of the paternity of children – but this generates less than half a million bucks a year for general domestic violence mitigation.

24.2.25

BC has chance to cure herpetic outlay request

A Bossier City Council on the verge of its biggest shakeup in nearly a quarter-century may tell at its next meeting, after a promising sign at its previous gathering, whether it finally has renounced its free-spending, money-wasting ways.

This week, the Council will consider its annual five-year Capital Outlay Budget. While the plan may be altered at any time, it gives an idea of city priorities for infrastructure over the next half-decade.

As an example of how the city may pivot, earlier this month it considered plunking down front money, plus a small amount for contingencies, of $80,000 to install two electric vehicle charging stations on the top deck of the Louisiana Boardwalk parking garage it built two decades ago as a gift to developers. This stemmed from the federal government’s Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund program that would pay for purchase and installation of light duty direct current fast charging (“level 3” or about 20 to 60 minutes for a full charge) chargers according to a state plan, which in Louisiana means along various corridors located within a close distance of a high-speed roadway, or in Bossier City’s case Interstate 20. A survey of available power infrastructure led to this particular siting.

23.2.25

Landry must resist warping of standstill budget

As currently constituted, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s most pressing budget task will be to resist government-as-usual to continue right-sizing state government and to fund priorities that improve quality of life within Louisiana.

When introduced last week described as a “standstill” budget, spending rises less than one percent. However, that masks a lot of change, principally from two sources: the disappearance of pandemic-related grants and one-time spending attached to that but countered by continuation of escalating health care costs triggered by Medicaid expansion almost a decade ago. In all, while state means of finance fall two percent, a federal funds increase of around 3.5 percent more than offsets that to increase the total adjusted budget a few hundred million to $45 billion.

Lesser movement comes from shifting priorities. Not surprisingly, health care continues to vacuuming up more dollars, although there were a couple of novel situations. A decline in collections from motor vehicles and from state lands produced more demands on the general fund. On the spending side, juvenile justice and child welfare matters receive a boost, as does general public safety. And, contrary to claims made by advocates of committing to increasing food aid in the summer with federal dollars that this wouldn’t cost the state, the budget had to include extra state dollars to cover that.

20.2.25

Removing Lewis for bad judgment appropriate

And this is why the political left is out of power in Washington and can’t win an election in most parts of Louisiana – intellectual poverty behind its argumentation seen as such by enough voters who demand better.

At its last meeting, the Louisiana Public Service Commission stripped Democrat Davante Lewis of his vice chairmanship for remarks made over social media. The job, which Lewis had assumed only at the year’s beginning, carries little weight and basically gives its holder the power to run meetings in the absence of the chairman.

Lewis precociously had been put into the job after just two years as a commissioner at the request of the year’s chairman, Republican Mike Francis, out of a spirit of bipartisanship he said. Francis then moved to remove Lewis upon learning of the remarks, and following partisan lines by a 3-2 vote Lewis was dumped.

19.2.25

Bossier should trim burdens, let market decide

Tax increase? Pull up the ladder? More sensible regulation? Do nothing? The Bossier Parish Police Jury still can’t make up its mind about dealing with something it can’t make up its mind about whether it’s a problem demanding swift, if not far-reaching action.

That sums up a public meeting the Jury called this week, followed on by its regular meeting where it addressed whether to continue a residential building moratorium roughly in the northern part of the parish (in the areas in which it has jurisdiction, or outside of municipalities). The halt first was triggered, over a somewhat larger area, last year after the inventory of permits given for builders had spiraled well into the thousands. In fact, in the current area the estimated number of lots proposed has hit about 5,000, and thousands more exist outside it, mainly in the Haughton area.

The moratorium doesn’t affect the ability of those builders with permits to construct on that land as long as they put down the required infrastructure. Bossier Parish operates on an impact fee regime, so that builders must pay for the infrastructure additions as specified in its building code. Moreover, the moratorium on new permits only affects residential units; commercial and other zones remain unaffected.

18.2.25

Leftist heave to thwart fiscal reform should fail

You knew the Hail Mary pass was coming from the vested interests that want to thwart Louisiana’s attempt at fiscal reform, and here it is.

This week, a law firm in the past associated with supporting far left-wing political candidacies filed suit to try to kick off Amendment 2 from the March ballot. That came to be from Act 1 of the Third Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature, which passed unanimously in the Senate and with only a few dissenting votes from hard left Democrats in the House.

Leftist extremists oppose the amendment because it reduces taxation on investment and productive activity but raises it on consumption and enhances conditions to right-size state government. That means lower income individuals probably would be more likely to experience an overall tax increase than would higher income individuals, or would see a smaller tax decrease. It also makes more likely curtailment of discretionary transfer payments from government, whether to individuals or groupings of them such as nonprofit organizations, whether in recurring or one-time form.

17.2.25

Case telling more about media, higher education

As the saga of the disposition of the neurotic Louisiana State University law professor continues to drag out, it tells us more about the media and higher education than the actual demerits of the subject in question.

That guy ensconced at the Paul M. Hebert School of Law, Ken Levy, almost a month ago found himself suspended from teaching duties because of some unfortunate remarks of his. Besides insulting a politician or two in a semester-beginning lecture, he also managed to convey the impression that students with different political sensibilities than his needed reeducation that could begin with grading them on that criterion and that he could toss them into the hoosegow if they dared record his lectures (the complex legal question aside, he had no such authority), citing controversy that percolated from somewhat less openly jaundiced recorded remarks by one of his colleagues.

After retaining counsel, Levy alleged his remarks were in jest, which he appeared to mean served as a prophylactic against any unprofessional offense. To which I say, pulling out the old as-I’ve-been-teaching-in-higher-education-nearly-four-decades card, even if joking around it was unprofessional enough to warrant not just his suspension, but dismissal. You don’t even need four decades, not even four minutes, as a higher education instructor to know you don’t levy, even if a joking fashion, threats against assignment of a course grade that don’t have a direct relationship to a student’s demonstration of course mastery. Simply, too much is at stake for a student when it comes to a grade, where even a letter grade difference could mean the difference between staying in or out of school, retaining or not retaining financial aid, eligibility for job recruitment possibilities, and the like.

That noted, since his initial suspension in the course of legal hearings to ascertain whether LSU legally suspended him with pay, even more evidence has surfaced about his competency to teach effectively, in the form of a test question that in previous centuries might be referred to as bawdy. Briefly, the question graphically set up a scenario where students had to determine whether criminal behavior had occurred involving copulation with a jack-o-lantern, followed by recording and disseminating sexual abuse of minors, and with a direct insult to Republicans thrown in.

Demonstrating yet again that sophistry and irrelevancy often rise to the top in legal argumentation and decision-making, his mouthpiece argued nothing was wrong with the material in the question because a lawyer potentially could run into all of this in the profession, to which the judge assented in ruling Levy back into the classroom. A day later, the First Circuit Court of Appeals vetoed that.

Note the red herring shift in force here. The issue isn’t that students may encounter cases involving sexually-oriented criminal behavior, but in the presentation of these kinds of cases by the question material demonstrates a behavior sanctionable by the university. Keep in mind the idea of the university (to paraphrase John Henry Cardinal Newman) is to enlarge and illuminate the mind to view many things at once. But you can’t do that if you alienate your audience from the start by appealing to vulgarity (mistaken for cleverness) and insults (mistaken for virtue signaling).

All too often these days academia ends up the refuge of those who use instruction as a kind of therapy, to allow modes of behavior dressed in the trappings of teaching, making the classroom a playground for indulging in the instructor’s psychological insecurities. For example, undoubtedly one can write a question that more clinically and less floridly, and without partisan slurs (that have nothing to do with the subject), makes the same inquiries. You would want to do that because a more salacious rendering distracts some students of more delicate sensibilities while the political insult distracts others of that partisan stripe. Your job is to help students to learn and express that learning, not to throw up impediments via shock and provocation.

Why would an instructor do this? (For readers with college experience, think about these archetypes you may have encountered in the course of your studies.) Maybe he fancies himself a rebel who believes untraditional discourse signifies he is more creative and imaginative than the herd. Or sees himself as a provocateur who to change academia must thumb his nose at it through attention-grabbing rhetoric and actions. Or maybe he views himself as an academic Ãœbermensch, to whom the rules don’t apply and he can take this power trip that disparages the beliefs of many of his students with impunity. Or perhaps he conceives of himself as the “cool” professor, who imagines such discourse increases his popularity among the students as it has him climb down from the ivory tower to become more relatable to their supposedly more earthy lives. There are others unrelated to the conceit that lies behind those so far explicated, even less salutary, that deal with neuroses.

The point is posturing in these forms detracts from effective teaching. And when these have the effect of denigrating students for reasons beyond academic performance, if not creating a hostile learning environment, that is something for which a university can bounce from its hallowed halls even a tenured professor.

Yet reading much of the media coverage of this protracted case frames it in free expression terms that in reality don’t form the basis for his suspension, implying if not asserting that LSU is trying to punish the cretin for his political opinions, which included in class vulgar exhortations about conservative elected officials. Some, like the Baton Rouge Advocate, at least mention that LSU’s disciplinary attempts involve comportment, while other like the far left-funded Louisiana Illuminator web site entirely and dishonestly ignores the basis for LSU’s action. This all is done as a method to advance a false narrative that somehow the rise of conservative elected officials that now dominate Louisiana government and hold majorities in the federal government threatens free expression and cows what should be the bastions of that, higher education.

Quite the opposite. For this guy is but the tip of the iceberg. His insecurities may have been such that he too openly and stupidly displayed them, but there are plenty of others more circumspect populating academia, both in Louisiana and across the nation. And as academia has sympathy for their political views, ordinarily it won’t bother with them no matter how much they may invest in indoctrination instead of (see Newman above) education. This creates an echo chamber of orthodoxy that experiences excavation only when its excesses become illuminated to the larger world, which introduces the real heroes of it all, the students whose recording and revelation of class materials exposed the poverty of Levy’s approach to instruction. It takes courage to enter into conflict with a guy who holds tremendous power over your future, and that is fortified by knowing in government you have elected officials that will hear you out and will apply pressure for a fair resolution of the conflict. Knowing that greater capacity exists to expose idiocy in the classroom has the effect of exposing more of that idiocy, which then at least drives more of that idiocy underground and away from interfering with genuine education.

In other words, maybe having a Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who appoints members of the LSU Board of Supervisors confirmed by a state Senate with a GOP supermajority, makes LSU (who like most higher education institutions otherwise practices “don’t ask/don’t tell” in this regard) pursue more aggressively punishment of faculty stupidity in the classroom. In that respect, the real story the media is missing is how conservatives controlling elective offices instead of threatening free expression are restoring the idea of free inquiry thereby enhancing the mission of superior education within academia.

16.2.25

LA should forbid planned virtual learning days

The Ouachita Parish School Board made a bad precedent worse, and alerts the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and/or the Louisiana Legislature they might want to counter this.

This past week the Board ratified its academic year 2026 calendar. Included in it are three virtual learning days, up from two at present. Virtual leaning days are those where students don’t report to class but are responsible for completing school work due that day from another location.

The concept originated around a decade ago when, with the increased technological capacity to deliver coursework remotely and the spread of devices among students to perform it led some districts that experience chronic bad weather to use these days to supplement “snow days.” While calendars could work in a few days where schools would close because of inclement weather, in too many cases that allocation would be exhausted and then some, causing loss of learning potential. With this option, snow days could be converted into virtual learning days with less erosion of learning. Adoption spread when the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic closed schools for an extended period of time.