Not only do the just-released school and district
accountability scores in Louisiana speak to the educational quality and pace of
improvement within the state’s elementary and secondary education, these also
illuminate how many Louisianans vote against their own self-interests.
The state’s Department of Education announced
yesterday
the scores, which federal law requires that it computes. Overall, these showed
improvement from 2018, particularly among worse-performing schools. Tempering
that good news, about 17 percent of schools ended up classified as “struggling,”
while 44 percent had at least one student sub-population of interest classified
as that.
However, out of all of this comes a fascinating
nugget of electoral and political importance. A relationship exists between the
quality of a school district and vote in the 2019 gubernatorial general
election. Specifically, the worse the schools perform, the more votes for
Democrats in that election.
If reelection of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards goes down in flames,
it won’t be for lack of trying by one far left Louisiana special interest
group.
Edwards finds himself locked in a tight reelection
battle against Republican Eddie
Rispone. Further, in the general election his candidacy didn’t seem to
generate as much enthusiasm among Democrats, especially
blacks, as seems necessary to win.
However, one group aims to change that, and it’s
off to a good start. The Power Coalition
for Equity and Justice launched efforts at the commencement of early voting
last Saturday to get as many people, very disproportionately black and
Democrat, to the polls.
Election season lies just keep coming from Democrat
Gov. John Bel Edwards about
Medicaid expansion.
Edwards has held up expansion as a major
accomplishment of his tenure, despite flimsy arguments in its favor. Throughout
his reelection campaign he has touted how it brought insurance to many who didn’t
have it and attributed care received under it as care that otherwise never
would have occurred. In
fact, as many as nearly half of all expansion enrollees already had
privately-paid insurance and the remainder had access to care at the state’s
charity hospitals. (And in any event, the health
benefits allegedly conveyed by expansion are wildly overblown.) Further,
about a tenth of enrollees at the peak were ineligible – largely because upon
entering office Edwards’ Department of Health deliberately weakened
verification standards – wasting $500 million a year in inappropriate payments.
That fact alone falsifies the idea that expansion “saved”
money – an argument that almost made sense in 2016 when the federal government
paid for all but several million dollars in administrative costs. But the tens
of millions of state dollars wasted through inappropriate payments cancels any
economic benefits from rerouting tax dollars from other states to pump through
Louisiana (while Louisianans also see their federal tax dollars going elsewhere
to pay for other states’ expansions) – even as an Edwards
Administration-financed report erroneously inflated claims of economic benefits
and left out other important data that left it almost useless to understanding expansion’s
economic impact.
If Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards has
shown anything in his just about four years in office, it’s that he plays
politics ruthlessly with state money in his quest to create an image and to
hold onto power.
During his reelection campaign, Edwards has touted
certain capital outlay projects and “savings” from criminal justice changes he
promoted. The latter claimed it could lower the state’s incarceration rate
without an increase in crime and thereby save money, by diverting nonviolent
offenders and releasing others early. Money retained would go into the general
fund and programs that supposedly would reduce recidivism.
But a review of the outcomes indicates that benefits
from these – money for criminal justice efforts and projects benefitting local
areas – often didn’t materialize in areas where Edwards has faced criticism from
other elected officials. Indeed, Edwards on projects has gone out of his way to
deny these to specific legislators critical of his policies.
