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As bad as teacher absences are in Louisiana
traditional public schools, it could be worse, data
from a recent report show, yet it can become better with enlightened
leadership.
It never hurts to state the obvious, and the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute did just that by comparing absenteeism of Louisiana
teachers in traditional compared to charter schools: teachers in traditional
schools have a rate almost three times that of those in charter schools. Duh;
considering that traditional public school teachers have had a fairly malleable
evaluation system where fewer that one in a hundred draw remediation for
incompetent performance (although evaluations
become more rigorous starting this year), and school districts give off at
least ten sick/emergency including two personal days a year, they have every
incentive to take all of those days, leaving classrooms in the hands of substitutes
largely often without college degrees with districts footing additional costs
as a result.
A dozen days are average among the 35 states with significant
numbers of charter schools. In Louisiana, the law mandates at least ten
sick days with the
two days but sick, not personal, days may accumulate. Teachers absent more than
five days consecutively must provide documentation of the illness, but days
taken here or there they can take one with impunity, up to their banked days.
If Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy hadn’t
realized it after a decade in politics, he knows it now: these people aren’t
your allies, much less your friends.
Some
months ago, Cassidy remarked that he would like to see health care
insurance reform pass a “Jimmy Kimmel test.” This referred to a sometimes
humorous but politically vapid late-night television talk show host whose son
was born with a heart problem. Having Cassidy on his show, Kimmel ventured the
eponymous test should be “no family should be denied medical care, emergency or
otherwise, because they can’t afford it.”
If so, the misnamed Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) fails. It doesn’t provide such a guarantee
because it leaves
over 28 million uninsured, with more on the way as it continues to drive premium
prices higher – up
on average 60 percent since full Obamacare implementation in 2013. Further,
the related Medicaid
expansion does not increase the amount of medical care delivered because
insurance and actual delivery are two different things.
So, it’s come to this: in a treasurer’s field
containing one of their own, Louisiana Democrats may vote for a Republican
because he seems to them least likely to use that office as a springboard for
something more exalted.
That seems
like the plan for at least some high-profile New Orleans elected Democrats
who back state Sen. Neil Riser in the
race to fill out the term of now-Sen. John Kennedy. The Columbia Republican
faces off against, among others, fellow GOP former state Rep. John Schroder and past Secretary of
Culture, Recreation, and Tourism Secretary as well as former Commissioner of
Administration Angéle Davis. Also, he
competes against a Libertarian, another Republican, and a Democrat.
But the Democrat, Derrick Edwards, has failed to
gain the backing of the state party and any of its influential elected
officials, even though polling puts him in a runoff. He would seem to have
potential: for a party that takes great store in finding “victims” supposedly
needing redress for the oppression/discrimination they face, Edwards ticks off
the two boxes of racial minority and disability. Additionally, he has an
inspirational story of suffering quadriplegia yet persevering to earn advanced
college degrees, most recently law in which he currently practices.
For Louisiana Public Service Commission District 2,
what’s a Democrat or Republican voter to do?
They face different challenges in the election
next month to replace the vacated seat. For Democrats, they not only don’t
have a horse in the race, but solely Republicans entered the starting gate. For
Republicans, they must figure out how to choose among the three.
Lining up are former state Rep. Damon Baldone, orthopedic surgeon
Dr. Craig Greene, and former state
Rep. Lenar Whitney. Each has different charms and warts depending upon the
partisan leanings of a voter.
The question posed by Louisiana Sen. Bill
Cassidy’s latest
effort is whether those wishing to have sanity return to American health
care insurance can use this as a bridge to get there or if letting the stench
worsen has a better chance of succeeding in that.
Cassidy and three co-sponsors rolled out legislation
yesterday to make substantive changes to health care policy, to mixed reviews
from his fellow Republicans and conservatives and predictably partisan
caterwauling from Democrats and the political left. It will act as an amendment
to a budgetary bill and must pass within the next two weeks, but only after
vetting from the Congressional Budget Office to ensure it does not raise
significantly the national debt.
For that reason, it has slim chances of passing.
The compressed time frame leaves little opportunity for analysis and to gather
support. At present, a majority of Republicans would vote for it, but all but
two would have to commit. Cassidy and his co-sponsors argue that not only does
this represent the last chance to alter substantially the failing Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) for at least a year, but also
allege that without it a “single-payer” system become probable – a ruinous
government-run health care system that promises worse care for at least a
trillion dollars a year more.
Louisiana Catholic Church leaders sometimes make it
more difficult for the faithful to align their political views to their
spiritual beliefs.
This year, a number of actions taken by
politicians have invited Catholics to examine how their faith should translate
into the political world. The interrogation
a week ago by a pair of Senate Democrats – one nominally Catholic – about a
Catholic judicial nominee’s faith as it relates to abortion jurisprudence
underscores this.
On this matter, some individuals representing the
Church cause confusion rather than clarity. It sometimes comes in the form of
publicly-rendered judgments such as with reactions to some executive orders
issued by Pres. Donald Trump.
Injecting a full dose of ignorance into the debate
over a Shreveport basketball arena, Fox Sports announcer and native Tim Brando
recently showed why the world doesn’t come rushing to figures in the sports
world to gather informed political commentary.
Last
month, Shreveport Mayor Ollie Tyler proclaimed
that the city would pursue building a facility to house a New Orleans Pelicans
minor league team. That would cost the city $30 million, with another $100 million
spent by the Alabama firm Corporate Realty to build stores and a hotel around it.
Pelican management remains undecided about where to locate the squad.
Opposition immediately surfaced as Shreveport has
roughly $750 million in infrastructure needs without funding presently for $300
million, meaning the $30 million would displace other priorities. And the $30
million would depend upon roughly $2 million a year in tax collections from the
complex for decades; given Shreveport’s troubled history with supporting professional
sports franchises – currently none – and the past instability of what the
National Basketball Association at present calls the G-League with 46
different team structures that last a little under five years on average, there
is no guarantee the team would stay an extended period of time or generate
enough money to repay the bonds.
As debate
over extension of the National Flood Insurance Program rages while tropical
disturbances that bring flooding rage, lawmakers should keep cognizant of the
larger picture and remember what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander.
Historically, almost annually a significant flood
hits somewhere in the U.S. Whether it be from sources as gigantic as the recent
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma that just slammed Texas and Florida or as
nondescript as the heavy rains that inundated New Orleans a month earlier, or
from the Red
River in northwest Louisiana to the other Red
River in North Dakota, flooding that breaches habitable structures occurs widely
in the country under widely different conditions. Indeed, last year every state
had at least one NFIP claim.
Yet the U.S. has a schizophrenic policy to deal
with these disasters. Almost a half-century ago, policy-makers hoped establishment
of the NFIP would create a stable, self-funded regime to take care of the
matter. But that rigid, government-run program takes
poorly into account actual risk into its pricing, which as a result has
failed to accumulate enough reserves to stave off losses triggered by huge
weather events. As such, the program has debt of $25 billion.
