At a certain point, the parent
must facilitate the child’s independence and the child must accept that, lest
an unhealthy dependency ensue. But judging from the reaction of Louisiana’s Council for the Development of French in
Louisiana to a budget cut enacted by Gov. Bobby
Jindal, you can tell those involved with CODOFIL aren’t grown up enough to
take the step willingly even after the point was reached long ago.
The group and its supporters
bemoaned the fact that Jindal, given
broad instructions by the Legislature, to cut $15 million out of the
operating budget for next fiscal year using his own discretion, lopped off from
it $100,000 from what had been a budgeted $257,000, an almost 40 percent
slicing. Making the leaving of the overgrown toddler, now at the ripe old age
of 44, hungry for more mother’s milk was the abrupt separation on this occasion,
with the Jindal Administration not giving it any prior notice.
But this long history created extreme separation anxiety with the head
of its board of directors William Arceneaux declaring that its response in the
future would be to “to go back to the Legislature and fight for those programs.”
He clearly doesn’t get it – is it really the responsibility of the Louisiana
taxpayer to duplicate services offered by the Department of Education in French
language education and the agency of which it’s part, the Department of
Culture, Recreation, and Tourism? Should citizens really have to pay more so a
few thousand students get some additional instruction in French, and tens of thousands
of more some very slight additional exposure to the language? It might be kick
for some involved, but what real value does it bring to the state as a whole?
One claim to this value, its executive director Joseph Dunn makes,
notes that those in the immersion classes “typically perform 10 percent better
than children in monolingual environments,” regardless of socioeconomic status.
Assuming he uses “better than” to mean “better than in regards to school performance
in general,” one suspects he needs to do an actual real and valid evaluation of
the program. Chances are that result comes from the inherent self-selective
nature of the program: those participating in it take it in part because they
are more motivated to learn, making them better students. They aren’t
outperforming others because the program “causes” them to do so, but because their
natural desire to learn causes them to perform better, one reflection of this
desire being willingness to enter the immersion program.
Consistent with others in his department that remonstrate wildly with
little logic about the benefits of tourism, Dunn ups the ante when he appears
to assert that his agency’s tourism outreach efforts sucked in $26 million a
year to the state from French-speaking tourists. This puts the oft-quoted
but entirely illogical figure of every dollar spent on tourism brings back $17
to absolute shame, for here Dunn implies the return is more like $100 back for
every one spent. Had Louisiana’s budgeters a month back dumped only about $58
million into the agency, the amount of tourist spending it would generate
captured by the state’s sales tax with
this multiplier would have erased the prior projected deficit. How stupid of
Jindal and the Legislature to miss this opportunity! Less sarcastically and
more realistically, does anybody seriously believe that hyperbole?
In truth, there’s no real way to justify the program’s existence
monetarily, only aesthetically. But that’s something that with other pressing
needs of the state takes a great deal of justification. No, that shouldn’t mean
one or two severely disabled persons shouldn’t go without a New Opportunities
Waiver slot for the amount cut. At the same time, maybe as peripheral to the
needs of the state’s people as CODIFIL is, it still would be a wiser use of the
people’s resources than paying
a has-been politician in his new state job nearly twice what his bureaucrat
predecessor made.
Regardless, the time has come for CODOFIL to stand on its own. Already
it gets assistance from outside sources and Arceneaux has spoken of increased
fundraising efforts. However, that transition won’t happen if some purveyors of
Louisiana’s populist past have their way, such as the self-contradicting state
Rep. Stephen
Ortego, the recent author of a law
that made French the “official working language” of CODOFIL who in one breath
proclaims there is a resurgence of interest in French in the state, but in the
next claims the funding cut puts the brakes on it and therefore government funding
for it should be increased, hinting that the state could do so by reducing tax
breaks that stimulate business activity.
Well, if there’s greater interest in all things French in Louisiana,
then this would be reflected in a fertile fundraising environment entirely
unrelated to government budgetary decisions. How is this in any way dependent on
government spending in this area – unless Ortego takes the discredited and asinine
view that government drives not just economic but cultural development?
Such silliness would not be surprising given the implications of his
remark on the subject that “people receiving services from CODOFIL, they're taxpayers
and they're expecting these kinds of services. They're not expecting their tax
money to be given out to private companies.” In other words, the fool equates
government confiscating the people’s monies always as good because they “expect”
duplication of services and performance of nonessential ones, while citizens
are disserved by attempting to create a favorable business climate already
polluted with government over-regulation and over-taxation by leaving more of
their money in their own hands. And voters actually elected this guy?
1 comment:
Jeff, what are you getting other than a sore behind for being Jindal's little servant boy? No wonder you are still an ASSociate Professor and not a Full Professor.
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