Frivolous request won't halt speed trap law implementation

If ever we needed to confirm that for dozens of Louisiana towns it’s all about money, a legal request initiated by one of them confirmed that.

Act 188 of the 2009 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature makes all non-home rule charter municipalities remit any speeding ticket revenue from an infraction on an interstate 10 miles an hour or less over the posted limit to the state. Several communities generate a large portion of their overall finances from these citations on all roads, as ridiculously high as seven-eighths of the towns’ total revenues.

One at the higher end, Washington Mayor Joseph Pitre, gathered about three dozen signatures of mayors to petition Gov. Bobby Jindal to veto the bill that became the act, to which Jindal wisely responded by not doing so. Pitre now has come back with more signatures on a request for an advisory opinion from Attorney General Buddy Caldwell on the constitutionality of the new law to go into effect Aug. 15. The opinion may be get rendered by that time.

BESE can save academic integrity by applying GEE

All throughout the process, the defenders of legislation recently passed by the Louisiana Legislature that relaxed significantly the classroom requirements to graduate high school with an alternative diploma argued they were not dumbing down the curriculum in order to boost artificially graduation rates. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has the chance to help them put their money where their mouths are.

At BESE’s regular meeting next month, it will get the chance to promulgate final rules about the installation and operation of the new curriculum. In part because the law only specifies broad unit requirements and leaves much up to BESE as far as details, many districts are opting out of starting the curriculum this year, as permitted by law by approved waiver, since their terms begin for some as early as in two weeks and guidance still is lacking. (Interestingly, all of the lower-achieving urban systems in the state except Orleans have not asked for waivers to date; Orleans however hardly has any schools left under its jurisdiction).

Of all the rules that need to be laid down by BESE, by far the most crucial will be whether those in the new curriculum must take the Graduate Exit Exam to graduate. This assesses whether students have learned sufficiently material that they must know theoretically to pass essential classes that make up the existing curriculum. It sparks some controversy because some students fail it even though they were given passing marks in all of their courses.

But as far as the integrity of raising and maintaining academic standards goes, there is nothing more crucial than the requirement to pass the GEE. Prior to its introduction and requirement of it to graduate in the past decade, the dirty secret of Louisiana public education for decades was that some schools were passing through and handing diplomas to students who could not do some very basic things expected of graduates. Even now, you find some schools were some students complete their coursework near the top of their classes yet cannot pass the GEE even after multiple attempts. This is because these school lack rigor in their approaches and quality in their instruction (often the teachers themselves do not have sufficient mastery of the subjects they teach; Louisiana has no requirement that at regular intervals teachers be able to demonstrate subject mastery). The GEE was designed to solve for this by making sure uniform and adequate standards were being employed in instruction regardless of where instruction was taking place.

Backers of the bill kept saying the new curriculum, which would reduce the number of units taken in some areas, would still leave a student prepared with meaningful skills. The GEE itself is not based upon the entire four-year courses of study, but on the first couple of years where the most basic skills are learned (which is why the English and mathematics components are taken as many as two years prior to graduation, and the science and social studies parts a year ahead, leaving time in hand for remediation and retaking of the test if necessary). In fact, at present a student doesn’t even have to “pass” (score at the “basic” level) either the science or social studies section of the GEE to qualify for graduation. In other words, this material should be covered in the new curriculum, and therefore there is no reason that the GEE should not be required of students in the new curriculum.

BESE was lukewarm to the new curriculum, so let’s hope it asserts itself and requires the GEE of all students, as it does now of the present college-preparation curriculum and the relatively new, technical-based alternative that already exists. Exempting this third, new “career” track would make BESE an accomplice showing the whole idea behind this in fact was to dumb down the curriculum to boost statistics, putting politicians ahead of children.

Commission offers hope for fundamental LA govt change

Some wondered why Louisiana needed a commission to sort out cost savings measures, created under law this past legislative session and set to expire at the end of the year, and just didn’t go ahead and do it. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s introductory remarks to the new commission gave us the answer that at least provides the potential for a welcome, wholly-new philosophy to be introduced into state government.

All the publicity seems to have centered on that Jindal emphasized the commission should seek ways to privatize and outsource functions of state government. Certainly that is desirable but it does not really change the worldview under which government operates. Savings would be realized in terms of total resources consumed by government, but its scope would remain the same. The same things would be done, just more efficiently.

This will bring some controversy for die-hard liberals in state government will not want to surrender any direct government control even if it retains indirect control in a principal-agent relationship. The real wailing and gnashing of teeth will come from several other requests given by Jindal, namely to define what an agency’s actual mission is, the core activities around it, and how closely matched is what the agency does to these. While it may be true some activities may be found to be neglected and thus should be added, chances are many more will be discovered to be peripheral, duplicative, and/or outdated, and thereby targeted for elimination.

In other words, this alters the worldview. Under this regime, the scope of government would be addressed, and almost certainly resulting in the shrinking of scope. Those who believe government’s primary mission is to transform society and redistribute wealth because of some perceived and assumed inequities erroneously present in society, will not abide by such determinations, as they threaten the very basis of their power. This threat they will fight tooth and nail, depending what gets forwarded by Jindal from the commission’s deliberations.

This kind of impact Jindal presumably desires from the commission, and points to why the whole exercise should be gone through. By having an official body recommend such things, it strengthens Jindal’s hand in carrying them forward to the Legislature (and don’t think that some of the items won’t already have been discovered by the Jindal Administration but were not acted upon because of the strength of the political constituencies behind them, but now will have the imprimatur of the commission to aid in their quest for passage). Even having the commission mention them, if it lacks the stomach, will, or the avoidance of enough revanchist sentiment fully to recommend them, will provide some political capital for Jindal to push for them if he wants this. If this is his wont, surely he recognizes the additional tool in his arsenal to encourage him to go for it – impending budget deficits that create no better political time to remake government into a smaller, less inefficient enterprise.

Or, it could be all just a big public relations exercise. Proof will come at the end of the year when summing all that was discussed and recommended. If these things include shrinkage both of government’s resource usage and scope and Jindal’s subsequent willingness to fight for these, the ideal purpose of the commission will have been realized, possibly dramatically and with long term positive implications. If they simply address marginal aspects, the grand opportunity will have been wasted, and one will wonder whether the commission was worth it.

Melancon again paints stripes on horse, calls it zebra

Rep. Charlie Melancon’s career as a legal, publicly-employed con man continues apace with his crowing about his support and passage of a bill that claims it will introduce fiscal discipline into Congress when it actually will end up doing the opposite.

Democrat Melancon’s federally-elected career has consisted of trying to convince voters he is one thing even as he acts differently. Perhaps the greatest fiction he has perpetrated on his constituents is he supports fiscally conservative government, with the final nail on the coffin to that lie he struck earlier this year his by supporting Pres. Barack Obama’s massive spending increases and sounding foolish in doing so when giving excuses as to why he did that.

But Melancon also apparently believes that if you tell a lie often enough, enough people will think it is true, so his latest sortie to shore up his image has come with the passage of H.R. 2920 which would mean that Congress, whenever it increases spending in select areas or cuts taxes in select areas, that any reduction in revenue must be accompanied by a reduction in spending. Prior to its passage helped with his vote, Melancon proclaimed “If we do not begin paying our bills today, we will continue to short-change future generations ….Our federal government simply cannot continue to live beyond its means, mortgaging our future on the backs of our children and grandchildren,” and suggested it as a solution.

The hypocrisy of Melancon, braying loudly about deficit spending when only months ago he voted to increase that deficit by trillions on top of another trillion or so dollars over the previous few years, is obvious. Less so is the fact that the bill basically does little to put deficit spending under control. Not only do the substantial loopholes exist that exempts several areas but without any cap at all on spending some 40 percent of annual appropriations is unaffected by any limits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill praised by Melancon could allow a $3 trillion increase in deficits over the next decade. And waivers can be passed to exempt anything.

In other words, its practical effect renders it nothing more that a public relations stunt, designed to give cover to those like Melancon who pose as fiscal conservatives but in reality are big spending liberals. It's a sham palliative he hopes will hide the fact he is incompletely closing the barn door after the massive deficit horse has fled with his assistance -- a horse he has painted stripes on to call it a zebra. As he contemplates a run for the U.S. Senate or to seek reelection to his House post, this camouflage Melancon would find very helpful. But recognize this smokescreen for what it is, yet another pathetic attempt to fool the people.

Resignation call sign of progress in improving education

The clearest signal that Louisiana’s Superintendant of Education Paul Pastorek is doing something right has come with the call for his resignation by the polar opposite of excellence in education, a teacher’s union.

Over the past two years, Pastorek has not opposed wider introduction of charter schools and vouchers and merit pay ideas, initially opposed a measure that became law that will reduce standards in secondary education, and supported several changes that would have depoliticized public education in the state. As these preferences are diametrically opposed by teacher unions, the Louisiana Association of Educators has called for his head.

Investigating the goals of each shows why this collective would make such an unusual request. Teacher unions’ goals include transferring as much taxpayer wealth as possible to teachers in exchange for the least amount of work and supervision. If they care about quality at all, they prefer there to be as little as possible because the more demanding that standards are, the more work a teacher must do and the greater ability and intellect they must have. By contrast, Pastorek has been adamant on the issue of standards and has allowed the increased use of innovations such as charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay, all of which have the effect of demanding more from teachers (which, with pay for them rocketing upwards, is appropriate).

Concurrently, they threaten the hold that unions have over education in the state, a major reason why achievement historically has been so poor. As these kinds of measures erode the state monopoly over education and the political influence over it, it becomes more difficult for unions to have easy access to policy-making as decentralization creates more points of influence and parties to contest for it. Accentuating standards and introducing competition while reducing bureaucratization steers policy away from the environment in which unions can most effectively exert power, where a concern to put everything at the lowest common denominator rules. Make striving for excellence the standard and unions lose because simply they are not conceptualized nor designed for this, instead as they are created to protect jobs and benefits the most effective way to do so is to have the lowest possible performance standards.

Thus, the two are at an impasse because Pastorek’s desires (and, by implication, those of the voters who put most the members of his employer the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education into office and Gov. Bobby Jindal who put in the remainder) contradict theirs. And a call for his dismissal only can mean he is perceived by the union leadership as a grave threat to its wishes.

Which these, of course, have nothing to do with quality education or the best interests of school children and people of the state. Board members and Jindal have indicated strong support of Pastorek, and wisely so. The opposite of what opponents of excellence in education want only can be positive for Louisiana elementary and secondary education.

Walker remarks reminds Bossier ship of fools sails on

Some governments get saved from mistakes by fate. Others do not because they meet the enemies of good decision-making, and they are themselves.

Hope still exists for the one that apparently dodged a bullet through not fault of its own, the Caddo Parish School Board. The bullet it dodged came in the form of Monroe Superintendant of Schools James Dupree who now is less than a month from being fired from this post. Over a year ago, he almost was hired by Caddo. Offered the job, negotiations foundered because the district would not meet his salary demands.

Having endured a stormy history in five years for Monroe, Dupree is on his way out as a result of allegations of improper procedural actions as well as missing subjective outcome targets for performance. Not that the district’s academic performance helped his cause – the Monroe City School District according to the latest evaluation scored below the state’s average accountability score for all districts, was regarded as not making acceptable progress in sub-groups scores, and whose 76.8 accountability score among systems ranked 44th of the 61 assessed districts. (By contrast, Caddo with a score of 81.9 raked 35th.)

Whether the district did any better by hiring current Superintendant Gerald Dawkins remains an open question. Hired just over a year ago, to tackle low-performing schools he introduced a plan long on cosmetic but short on substantive changes and demonstrated some resistance to the implementation of the progressive educational strategy of charter schools when the state removed two underperforming schools from the district’s jurisdiction. Still, on the surface to date Caddo seems better off because of Dupree’s inflated sense of self-value and its ability to detect this.

Unfortunately, such self-awareness seems genetically removed and replaced with terminal self-congratulation among reelected Bossier City officials who gathered, with the one open seat winner on the City Council, at the end of June to be sworn in to another term. At least that was the impression made by Mayor Lorenz “Lo” Walker in remarks about the city government’s doings over the past four years, whose presented a laundry list of excuse-making for expensive mistakes made in that time period.

For example, Walker crowed about how the city was about to embark upon several transportation projects – neglecting to mention that these and others already finished could have been completed years earlier if the city had not wasted around $112 million on an arena that loses money, a private parking garage that will take decades to pay off, and the Cyber Innovation Center which probably never will recoup its investment. None of these had to be built with the people’s money and if they were needed would have been built by the private sector. Infrastructure improvements should have been a far bigger priority.

As part of these new projects, the city is about to expropriate and tear down the Provenza Building on Traffic Street that has housed for many years psychics willing to do readings on the future. With that gone, one wonders where Walker will now get his information about the prospects for the CIC which he insists will make a “ton of money” despite the $35 million (to the city) gamble that it would attract Air Force cyber operations to Barksdale Air Force Base that went to San Antonio.

It is bad enough that Walker and the incumbents were so blinded by needs to feed their egos that they took what clear-headed individuals realized was an impermissibly-risky gamble with money that wasn’t theirs. But it is unconscionable that he does not correct the mistake but instead in a bull-headed, ignorant manner on this issue continues to blow sunshine up the public’s collective skirts that makes the sun’s output look like a moonless night in the darkest graveyard. We neither are amused nor are buying it.

Walker also complimented the City Council on how pleasant its members were to work with – meaning their state of pliancy made them equally as derelict as he on these issues. But there seems to be no great desire to end this nonsense by the voters as witnessed by the paucity of candidates to the entrenched mandarins in the spring elections and the biggest issue during the campaign of the only new member was his participation in Airline High’s 1967 state football championship.

No doubt these kinds of things are what prompted Walker to assert that the city is “getting a reputation as a progressive city around the state.” Before you laugh, he’s actually right. “Progressive” is a term often appropriated by liberals to describe their big-spending ideology that stridently objects to smaller government, that does not believe that government should do only the necessary tasks rather than build monuments to themselves. Mayor Walker and returning members of the Bossier City Council, you have found yourselves.

Poll data may push Landrieu away from nationalized care

Another day, another poll and especially when it’s dealing with figures like Gov. Bobby Jindal, up for reelection in two years; Pres. Barack Obama, up for reelection in three years; and Sen. Mary Landrieu, up for reelection in five years; they usually don’t mean a whole lot. But this one might have some lessons given the attempt by Obama and his Democrat allies to consolidate government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

The poll showed that Louisianans in general are not fond of Obama. He registered only a 44 percent approval rate, six points below his disapproval rate. He also is very polarizing, getting 74 percent support from Democrats but only 12 percent support from Republicans. Of that Democrat preference, about two-fifths of it is represented by the 91 percent of blacks approving; only 25 percent of whites in total do, far behind their massive 68 percent disapproval.

By contrast, Republican Jindal’s 55 percent overall approval rating is 17 points higher than his disapproval number. Scarier for Democrats than his 80-14 percent distribution in favor of approval among Republicans, 59-20 percent margin for independents, and less than 2:1 disapproval among themselves (32-60 percent), is his support differentiated by race: his numbers among whites are just about the opposite of Obama’s (one point higher in approval than disapproval of Obama), but almost as many blacks (21 percent) approve of Jindal as whites do of Obama (70 percent of blacks disapprove of Jindal). This means among white Democrats Jindal is running about even.

The policy nexus between these two is Obama’s plan to complete the process of nationalization of health care by socializing its provision. There are so many bad aspects present in and falsehoods perpetrated by the current bill’s supporters that Louisiana, so often a follower, has by the efforts of its people turned into a leader opposing this horrendous policy (flacks from the Obama Administration on several occasions were gustily booed for their answers at a meeting designed to propagandize it). Which only complements and is reflected by Jindal’s (who started his federal career in the area of health care policy) own strong reservations he has publicized about it.

So Jindal and Louisiana may rally enough opposition nationwide to alter the most obnoxious aspects of the plan, perhaps even to derail it. Yet more important than the publicity they may bring against it is that a crucial vote concerning it will be Landrieu’s. To overcome a sure filibuster by opponents, Democrats must have every single one of themselves ready to slavishly follow Obama’s liberal line. Democrat Landrieu may not be willing to do so.

The poll data showed dead-even numbers of approval/disapproval at 43 percent for her. Particularly worrying for her is that while predictably among Democrats her approval leads disapproval 66-19 percent and is the opposite for Republicans by 18-71 percent, for independents she has approval trailing disapproval 39-44 percent. The trend in the state to 2014 and beyond is for more Republicans and independents and fewer Democrats.

Five years is almost an eternity in politics, but how she votes on this matter, given the magnitude of its importance, is something that will be remembered for a long time. Which probably explains why she has not given any commitment to supporting what current Obama is pushing, despite some heavy-handed Democrat tactics against her. Seeing the way the wind is blowing now may make her even more hesitant to support Obama on this, and thereby save the state and nation a lot of agony.

Spat started by deposed illustrates hypocrisy, paranoia

Perhaps for political reasons, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser and Baton Rouge Advocate editorial pages are letting a spat between the husband of former Democrat Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Raymond “Coach” Blanco, and Republican Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker foment. It showcases a struggle between old and new politics in the state, and the hypocritical ranting of a tired old man who fortunately has been ejected from the political scene and the power that went with it.

Blanco, who retired six months ago from a high-paid, cushy job in charge of facilities and students at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette that he held throughout his wife’s political career, started things off with a critical letter to the editor in the Advertiser, reprinted in the Advocate, about Tucker’s leadership in the budgetary dealings in the just-completed regular session of the Legislature that saw higher education having to absorb a several percentage-point hit to its funding. He accused Tucker of being too negative in attitude to give more money to higher education.

Tucker fired back (which followed the same Advertiser-to-Advocate pipeline), writing it was more important to prevent tax hikes and to achieve savings that no doubt could be realized in examining higher education through his authorship and passage of a bill that would so exactly that. He opined that Blanco’s comments were rooted in petty politics of the past, and that he opposed a tax hike to accomplish increased funding that Blanco presumably supported. Blanco then responded (again, utilizing the same pipeline), writing he never suggested a tax hike in his letter, but argued that increased spending in other areas sanctioned by Tucker sapped money from higher education, and asserted that was more reminiscent of politics of the past.

Typically, opinion pages allow a subject to go forth, allow one response, and move on. They also typically don’t reprint something fairly similar from another newspaper. So this calls into question the political motives of the two newspapers, neither of whom like Tucker, and whether Tucker will be allowed, if he wants, to be published on the subject. Even if he does, for reasons of political niceties Tucker is unlikely to expand upon the motives of Blanco, which reveal the real reasons behind the initial letter.

They being, unless there is a level of cognitive dissonance and tolerance in the Blanco household that makes those dynamics present in the marriage of the conservative Republican Mary Matalin and liberal Democrat James Carville look puny, then according to Blanco the conversations in the bedroom with this wife must have been very interesting and contentious. If Raymond Blanco thinks Tucker is a big-spender of the old school type, he apparently either knows nothing about his wife of some four decades or he was very skilled in hiding the violent disagreements they must have had over her free-spending ways. With even the faintest whiff of a budget surplus she hankered to spend it all, and strove time and again to raise taxes to allow for increased spending when there wasn’t one.

Perhaps the most prominent example of this came when, after a big surplus was determined in 2006 to exist because of federal recovery dollars pouring into the state in the aftermath of the hurricane disaster of 2005, Blanco tried to spend it all on various projects. But the Legislature denied her, in part because the minority Republicans in the House rallied to prevent it. Even though she overcame that opposition during the next regular session, the political defeat more than anything else other than her disastrous handling of the disaster response, sealed her fate that led her to decline running for another term.

Oh, and, by the way, the leader of that opposition that sank her spending plan temporarily was Tucker. That and now Tucker’s leadership to prompt examination higher education, where Raymond Blanco still has friends and influence that will be threatened through a greater emphasis on efficiency and value in higher education, it what sticks in his craw about Tucker (prompting Tucker to write obliquely about his “petty personal attacks”). This is why Blanco spends his days in retirement penning poisonous diatribes, because Tucker was instrumental in driving his wife out of power, and thereby perhaps him into premature retirement, and now threatens his bailiwick of nearly a half century.

I can understand Blanco wanting to have something to do now that he no longer gets to strut around his little fiefdom, but to keep himself occupied by railing against somebody as not being sufficiently fiscally conservative when he apparently did nothing to influence his wife to stop the runaway spending of her term in office shows a unique mixture of hypocrisy and selective memory (not to mention paranoia if he truly thinks that four percent cuts in higher education equals means it is “being crippled to the point that it will be derided nationally and unable to produce a well-educated, well-trained work force”). Bitterness, not honesty, typifies his contribution to this yawp of his, and disqualifies it from being taken seriously.

Statements challenge Blanco, suggest refurbishment

Concerned about her image from the day she entered the state’s highest office, former Gov. Kathleen Blanco suffered another blow to her credibility and Louisiana another obstacle to getting money for a brand-spanking new state-owned hospital when a widely-praised figure contradicted their claims about Hurricane Katrina damage.

Perhaps the person in any position of authority who came out of events leading up to and the aftermath of the storm that struck the New Orleans area in 2005 was Russell Honore, then a lieutenant general in charge of the military’s efforts at damage control in the days immediately after the storm triggered the breaching of the city’s levees. Although he had a decorated military career, Honore maybe is best known for popularizing the phrase in his initial days on this job “stuck on stupid” that characterizes those who don’t see mistakes of the past and are unwilling to move forward in new and positive ways.

His bluntness recently probably was not appreciated by Blanco or by the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration when he made comments about the situation at New Orleans’ “Big Charity” hospital that formerly existed in Mid-City. During Katrina, winds whipped the building and it flooded. Not long after, Blanco declared the building a total loss and began to pursue nearly $500 million in federal dollars to build a new facility as the federal Veterans Administration proposed a hospital of their own adjacent to it. Jindal scaled back Blanco’s palatial plans somewhat but still seeks a new building.

Amend LA Constitution to allow proper use of TIF

The Legislature in its recently-conducted session got it mostly right in regards to government subsidization of new business, but it needs to change the laws permitting it to make sure that economic growth rather than corporate welfare is the purpose behind it.

Six bills this past session sought to grant tax increment financing (TIF) power to local governments. This gives a tax break, generally on sales although in concept it could extend other kinds of tax credits, to entities that do business within the boundaries of the designated district. The idea stems from the enterprise zone concept which is to encourage businesses to locate in that area, by making the cost of doing business cheaper, presumably underserved and/or underutilized because of the distressed nature of the area.

However, the several Louisiana statutes that address TIF variably address whether the area must be “blighted” or that it appear unlikely that many employers would locate in an area because of its depressed nature. This has led to attempts, some successful, for relatively industrious areas to acquire the designation. Baton Rouge legislators authored TIF bills for two different locations, with the apparently more prosperous of the two being rejected while the other, to encourage refurbishment of the old Jimmy Swaggart Ministries dormitory, may have passed only because of the decrepitude of the building – a marginal use of the power at best.

Three other TIF bills went nowhere but HB 887, which allows for TIF districts in New Iberia, passed. Although the bill says the intent of the legislation is “to eliminate and prevent the development or spread of slum, blighted, and distressed areas; to allow the rehabilitation, clearance, and redevelopment of slum, blighted, and distressed areas; to provide for the expeditious conversion of blighted or underused property into habitable residential dwellings in the city of New Iberia,” this nebulous language does raise the specter that these powers could be used similarly to the most notorious uses of TIF districts in Louisiana, those in definitely non-distressed areas of Denham Springs and Gonzales created to permit big box retailers to forgo some sales tax payments.

It could even be worse. In 2005, seeking ways to make more palatable to the public some $40 million of taxpayers’ money going to build a city-owned hotel, Shreveport’s former mayor Keith Hightower sought TIF for it but was rebuffed in the Legislature. (The hotel was built anyway, about 20 percent paid for by state tax dollars, whose annual expenses always have exceeded its revenues.) Neither Louisiana’s law nor Constitution prohibit government giving itself a tax break to put itself in competition with the private sector.

These loopholes need closing, preferably by a Constitutional amendment since TIF use currently is a matter of statute and can be changed on a case-by-case basis. An amendment that restricts TIF use to redevelopment of obviously blighted areas is something the 2010 Legislature needs to take up to get approved next fall. Only then can TIF be used as an economic development tool that benefits the citizenry more than privileged private investors.