Give teachers pay raises only if they prove they're worth it

Have you ever heard a bigger bunch of crybabies in this state than some public school teachers?

Let’s see – you get to work a little over half a year 6 hours a day (8 maybe if you count grading and aren’t involved in extracurricular activities), you have no service or publishing requirements, after a short period of time you have a job for life unless you’re caught with a live boy or a dead girl (or just a live boy, depending on gender), and in Louisiana your average salary with most having just a bachelor’s degree is higher than mine with a Ph.D. and 18 years of teaching at the university level.

Nonetheless, we get bleating like this:

Tessie Adams Domangue of Houma, the state Teacher of the Year, said she has a second job selling cosmetics because her school salary is less than $34,000 a year. Domangue, 34, said she sells Avon products as a second job and even considered leaving the profession before she was picked as Teacher of the Year.

Unless you have several children and/or medical problems in your family, you’d have to be a spendthrift to be unable to live on close to $34,000 for a little over half a year of work. I know several people who would do anything legal and moral to make $34,000 a year even working 2,000 hours a year. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out of the profession.

Simply, the typical public school teacher in this state has done nothing to deserve any kind of raise, given the results we get from the public schools. Still, if so many people have bought into this argument that public school teachers in this state deserve pay raises, at least they seem to have it straight that the reason why they didn’t get – a flawed plan by Gov. Kathleen Blanco to jack up taxes on an activity that had nothing to do with education, while the money was there all the time to fund this.

Nonetheless, I’d be happy to support a pay raise for teachers – if they’d accept accountability measures designed to ensure only quality and knowledgeable instructors continue to be employed, measures used by many other states, measures against which too many teachers and sybaritic unions have fought time and time again. A recent report of the National Governors’ Association reminds of the federal mandate involved in improved teaching, and specifically notes that

states are moving away from the notion of licensure as a way to ensure basic competence. They are designing performance-based licenses that require demonstration of subject knowledge and teaching skill, rather than basing licenses on course credits and hours of professional development. More than 30 states now require a candidate to pass Praxis II written tests of subject knowledge and pedagogy to receive a provisional teaching license. States are also beginning to use performance-based systems to create tiered professional designations—initial, provisional, professional, and master teacher licenses, for example.

Louisiana, it should be noted, does not require periodic testing of teachers for competency in their subject areas. And the standards for initially being licensed in an area are set so low (like most other states) it’s difficult not to pass them. Until standards are raised and periodic testing of teacher knowledge in their subject areas is instituted, teacher pay raises in this state simply are not warranted.

State must try harder to reduce obesity-related taxpayer costs

Once again, Louisiana makes the news for unenviable reasons. But whether public policy can change this situation is uncertain.

The state ranked fourth in obesity in a recent, if somewhat controversial, study. More disturbingly, the report notes that the combined health cost to taxpayers to pay for those on government health care from conditions resulting from obesity was $39 billion. Given that the state has nearly 1.5 percent of the country’s population, we can estimate the state paid $585 million to deal with the problems created by obesity (and it’s probably higher, because of the higher proportion of obese people in Louisiana comparatively and indicated by related diseases – for example, the state ranked tied for fifth in the proportion of adult diabetes sufferers, at 8.4 percent).

Louisiana has taken some steps that can improve the situation, mainly in the area of education. Health and physical education are required in schools and limitations are placed upon provision of “competitive” (non-school-provided) foods (which likely are “junk” foods in nature) by schools. In addition, producers of these products have a liability shield, ensuring that the proper incentives and disincentives for reduction of obesity rest where appropriate – with the consumer himself, who chooses to overeat relative to his level of activity.

Still, more can be done, according to the report. In schools, the state could require nutritional standards of both school-provided and competitive foods, or at least enforce such standards in regards to Title I (free or reduced-cost meal) recipients. Most controversially, as nearly a third of states have done in various forms, a “snack” tax could be imposed on foods of dubious nutritional value provided that the money raised be dedicated to state health care needs, raising money to offset health care costs and discouraging, even if just incrementally, these foods’ consumption.

(Unfortunately, of all the states that do this, only one – believe it or not, neighbor to the north Arkansas – does this. Almost all of the others dump the extra revenue into their general funds. This is precisely what got Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s cigarette tax into trouble this past legislative session, as the money raised would have gone to something totally unrelated to health, teacher pay raises.)

To do this favor to taxpayers, what the state should not do is permit behavior such as obese patients complaining about physicians advising them of their condition or passing laws that would encourage overeating. Whether state government can pursue policy that does not threaten citizens’ liberties which can encourage the reduction of obesity is an open question, but with budgetary constraints crying out for use of some portion of the $585 million that could be saved from this reduction, it needs to try.

GOP should hint thanks, but no thanks to Ieyoub

In one of the strangest deliberations in Louisiana politics, former Attorney General and lifetime Democrat Richard Ieyoub has let it be known that he is thinking about switching to the Republican Party.

Political parties don’t cast anybody aside, with the exception of the very rare David Duke, but there are not many well-known politicians in the state that would be an odder fit than Ieyoub to the GOP. He’s no U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander, who was a card-carrying conservative who criticized the GOP mildly in the years up to his switch. Instead, Ieyoub as recently as his failed gubernatorial run in 2003 did things such as:

Called then-candidate, now Gov. Kathleen Blanco a “Republican pretending to be a Democrat” and urged listeners to turn to him as a true Democrat

Advocated a tax on tobacco, precisely what the Republicans prevented from being enacted last legislative session

Gained the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO which is loathe to give one to any Republican with any Democrat opposition, as well as New Orleans’ Black Organization for Leadership Development, which endorses Republicans even more rarely, so he could kiss those goodbye as a Republican

This doesn’t count such rhetoric from previous campaigns but, suffice to say, except for a pro-life view, Ieyoub definitely does not fit the Republican profile. Party chairman Richard Villere has voiced noncommittal remarks about this, as well he should. Such a switch would do little to aid the party, and promises of assistance to Ieyoub for a switch need not be considered at all.

Given his past, Ieyoub only could be interested in running for governor in 2007 or U.S. Senator in 2006 and he could possibly pick off a few votes from the Democrat incumbents by doing so. But the party would have to guard against the distraction Ieyoub might create regarding “true” GOP candidates in these races. Since both Blanco and Sen. Mary Landrieu look vulnerable and are not likely to draw opposition from the left, it would be better to have the party work to clear the field as it did concerning Sen. David Vitter’s 2004 run and removing GOP competitors for these contests.

This strategy will work because of quality candidates have begun surfacing within Republicans ranks. With more quality, homegrown GOP politicians out there now where it seemed just a few years ago the best the party could do to win statewide office was to send out a RINO, it would serve the party and its conservative base ill to do anything in addition to welcoming Ieyoub on board if he chooses that, and just leaving it at that.

Increasing turnout tough job in Louisiana

Allow me to assist Shreveport Times assistant editor Martha Fitzgerald and Secretary of State Al Ater, whose musings about increasing voter participation in elections Fitzgerald herself mused about.

One solution would be for them to show up in my American Government class around the middle of November when we’ll spend a good part of one class period discussing voter turnout in America and why it’s relatively so low (as well as determining whether it’s even a problem, but for the moment we’ll accept Ater’s position that it is). But likely their schedules may not mesh with this opportunity, so I’ll give them a rundown of it now.
First, we must understand both the general factors which determine political participation, and then the ones specific to voting. The first set essentially are demographic in nature, they being that the older and better-educated a person, the more likely he is to participate in politics.

On that score, Louisiana seems to have a mixed message. The state’s average population relatively is younger than the country’s as a whole and following a trend where a demographic bulge of a disproportionately younger population is on the way in America, but educational attainment was on the rise and the gap closing slightly with the rest of America. All in all, this probably means voting participation factors here are moving a bit against any increases in turnout in Louisiana.

The specific factors basically are attitudinal, and include attitudes about the importance of elections, the competitiveness of elections, strength of identification with candidates, and strength of identification with parties. The last is easy to answer – with the nonpartisan blanket primary, Louisiana has the weakest political parties in the country, so such attachments by the citizenry also will be weak.

Recent data also addresses tangentially the idea of competitiveness. The Center for Voting and Democracy rated the state low on “democracy” in Congressional elections partially because of the low degree of competitiveness of these elections. That’s not uncommon in the state, particularly with judicial elections. Again, this would argue for lower turnout.

It’s hard to say about the other two factors without hard data, but my guess is there’s more upside to these. With a political culture more infused with politics than in most states, that ought to make people feel elections are important (but, then again, given the pervasive attitude that the state has too much political corruption that could work the opposite way here). And, Louisianans often place a great deal of stock in candidates, even (perhaps especially) the rapscallions.

All in all, Ater has a tough task. Not only must he fight demographic trends, but the necessary attitudinal changes may be even more difficult to overcome. Focus groups and surveys are fine, but the things that really count us political scientists have known for a long time and he needs not get bogged down in reinventing the wheel. The causes are well-known; it’s the solutions that will require creativity, if they even are possible.

Marketplace of ideas bankrupting liberal radio in Baton Rouge

So Baton Rouge’s National Public Radio affiliate WRKF got rid of three news/talk shows. Not living there, I must admit I’ve never heard the three programs in question, “Here and Now,” “The Connection,” and “News and Notes with Ed Gordon,” so this change to me at first seemed unremarkable.

But being that NPR also goes by the moniker of “National Peoples’ Radio” because of its relentless left-wing programming bias, I wondered if this was consequence of the long-term trend of an American public, being given options in their media consumption through talk shows, increasing cable and satellite radio capacity, and the Internet, to throw off the yoke of liberal media and to consume material more in tune what their education and experiences have confirmed to them in how the world really is and works. So I did a little digging and, sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed.

I listened through archives of “Here and Now” and discovered the show’s leftist tilt. Scrolling through its listings, for example, one finds a number of stories about the war in Iraq, which usually involve interviews with people against the war, or who don’t like the idea their relatives or friends are over there, or interviews with Iraqis themselves expressing dismay over the situation. Rarely does one hear anything close to a positive affirmation of the war from any source.

The same goes with “The Connection” which if anything is even more relentlessly trendy lefty. To get an even better sense of the show’s offerings, one also can peruse the message forum postings addressing the show’s demise, which in part gets hijacked by posts regarding the, at worst, anti-Semitic nature of the program or, at best, its relentlessly pro-Palestinian tilt.

These two shows were outright cancelled by their host producer Boston’s (it figures) WBUR and thus WRKF had no choice here. That the other program which continues on elsewhere does so is telling because it’s the only one where there seemed to be any balance and is produced nationally by NPR. Ed Gordon, the host, who is perhaps most famous for being the guy whose interview helped fan the flames of the controversy that cost Sen. Trent Lott his majority leader’s position, tries to bring in all sides of controversies. This, of course, angers the loony left who believes it’s their right to colonize NPR (on the taxpayer’s dole).

Gordon’s show is out at WRKF (although it may be brought back if underwriters – that is, it can’t pull its own weight in advertising so must be subsidized – step up to prop it up) because of the telling admission that classical music outdraws all three programs and news/talk competition was too tough. Classical hardly draws any listeners, and Moon Griffon and other local talk shows draw much better. And, of course, Rush Limbaugh steamrolls the competition, particularly (intellectually as well as by the numbers) the left’s puny offerings on other stations.

These decisions illustrate the continuing decline of a media controlled by elites in everything except their ability to understand political ideas and human beings in a valid way. A very few listeners around Baton Rouge may be upset because their talking points about certain things will not make it to them over the air on weekdays, but they’ll have other sources. Or, without these programs to lean on, maybe they’ll open their eyes and minds a little wider and discover their views evolve in a direction away from what they used to swallow uncritically.

Bring it on! What the Democrat left seems to think of those like me

Imitation is the sincerest flattery, so I thank the author of this note posted at Moon Griffon’s web site, although I’m not sure whether this blog qualifies me as a member of the “right-wing destruction machine” because, as readers know, it focuses on policy and fact, not a “goal of personal ruin through vicious attack politics.”

(However, it doesn’t seem to work the other way. Since I started this blog mere months ago, I am told that more than one disgruntled person with some power in politics has gone complaining to my public university employer, all over postings that often get fewer than 100 hits a day, and a university representative has made certain inappropriate requests regarding modification of material on this university-unrelated blog. But this is a story for another time.)

Even if this note were a forgery it captures perfectly the zeitgeist/kultursmog of establishment political elites in Louisiana, of the indignance that their divine right to rule be questioned. Regardless, if indeed there is some kind of move afoot to create a Democrat/Blanco/Landrieu etc. spin machine on the web designed to “highlight their inconsistencies, or deconstruct their policies and reframe them to our advantage, in our own language … [o]r we point out where they’re engaged in folly or mendacity or just plain old greed or meanness,” it largely will fail, mainly because this strategy totally does not understand what those of us who have raised their ire are trying to do.

For one thing, I use fact and logic in my postings to demonstrate the fundamental errors Democrats have in their guiding political philosophy (if it can be called that) or the conclusions they draw from selective use of information. The Democrat left does not understand this because they cannot bring themselves to admit that their views are, as proven by events, bankrupt, and long since have been replaced by a politics of personal, rather than community, interest, based on the wielding or power rather than doing the right thing. Thus, because they now resort themselves to a strategy of “personal ruin through vicious attack politics” in the absence of any valid ideology, they mistakenly assume all others do as well.

In short, they have disarmed themselves intellectually and thinking, reasoning persons realize this and thus gravitate to the arguments myself and others present. Personally, I welcome any attempt to do what the memo says. I challenge them to find “inconsistencies … folly or mendacity or just plain old greed or meanness” in what I write; I urge them to try to “deconstruct” and “reframe” because, by their self-handicapping, the reasonable person easily sees the vacuity of their arguments. By the very nature of the fundamental differences between views, mine based on truth, reason, and coherence, and theirs, unmitigated emotion without fact or logic to substantiate except the notion that they want to take what they think is theirs from those who have genuinely earned it, they surrender in the battle of ideas.

The memo’s concern for anonymity also is illustrative. I freely admit who I am (indeed, to the endangerment of my career) and what my ideas are. The memo writer recognizes the fraud that his allies’ ideas are and so counsels to keep the identities and agendas of the efforts contributors as secret as possible. This is an obvious admission of the weakness of their arguments.

Finally, while the idea of trying to use humor is a winner, it’s clear the writer does not understand it. The idea of calling their masterminds behind the effort the “Working Group” is itself funny, but surely not in the way he intended. Because, when was the last time you could honestly say the liberal Democrat agenda actually championed the “working man?” These people seek to take more and more of the “working man’s” resources through higher and higher taxes and fees, strive to restrict his liberties more and more through government regulation of the crassest kind, and seek to disempower him through disinformation – the thing I try in my postings to correct. For ultimately, if I tell one side of the story and they tell another, what really burns them up is, by definition, my side is more persuasive. Which is why they must adopt, as the writer urges, this strategy of projecting what they falsely see in their opponents to what they do.

So, let’s bring it on! And to make it easier to distinguish the sides involved, if the defenders of the status quo, the ones how have helped Louisiana into the fiscal, ethically-challenged mess that we are in want to call themselves the “Working Group,” then I’ll gladly take the appellation that they would give to those like me – the “Serfs.” Because that’s how they think of us, here to serve them as they pursue their political careers and any enrichment they see themselves worthy of accruing as a result of that activity – at our expense, of course. This “knighted” and “royal” classes in reality have it all backwards, and, as long as people like me, Moon Griffon, C.B. Forgotston, and others many of whom appear on the left-hand side of this page continue to point out this highly inconvenient fact, they are going to try to distract people from a debate on the issues because, frankly, they think you’re too stupid to know any better.

At present we may be Serfs in Louisiana, but one thing we are not is stupid.

Education "good" news isn't so good, but neither is "bad" news so bad

There’s good news and bad news for Louisiana education, but the bad actually might be good and the good bad.

The good news on the surface is that American College Testing standardized testing composite scores did not go down; in fact, they have inched up over the past few years. Around 85 percent, one of the highest proportions in the country, of Louisiana high school students take this test, mostly because almost all four-year public universities in the state require certain scores for admission and Tuition Opportunity Program for Students scholarships.

The bad news is that at 19.8, this score resides well below the national average of 20.9 (which, worse, itself reflects only minimal ability and also remains unchanged from last year). One could argue that because more Louisiana students take the ACT than in almost any state (save four), marginal students who might not take it in other states (without a TOPS scholarship waved in their face as incentive) are not included in the totals to dilute downward the average score. But, as it turns out, among the states that have the ACT as a requirement for entrance to a public university, only Mississippi scores lower (it being one of the four states where more students take it than Louisiana).

Louisiana ACLU representative shows bigoted ideological slip

Bigotry against religion lives in Louisiana, so the statements of the state’s American Civil Liberties Union executive Director Joe Cook demonstrate. On camera, he blithely stated, in reference to the organization’s allegations that the Tangipahoa Parish School Board was countenancing support of religious belief that it found unacceptable after a court ruling on the matter,

“They don’t want to abide by the agreement,” said Cook. “They have always crossed the line of separation of church and government… They believe they answer to a higher power, in my opinion… which is the kind of thinking you had with the people who flew airplanes in the buildings in this country and people who did that kind of thing in London.”

(It should be noted that the judge who issued the order, Chief Judge of the Louisiana Eastern District Ginger Berrigan, once was a state ACLU official.)

Cook later attempted damage control by trying to rephrase his sentiments as saying that it’s dangerous to have people who believe they “answer to some higher religious power than the Constitution of the United States of America.” Naturally, these statements do not equate; Tangipahoa Parish School Board members take an oath to obey local law and defend the state and national Constitutions, are elected and execute the duties of their offices in the open and, most importantly, at least I am unaware that any of them affirm that they follow religious practices they interpret as condoning murder.

Cook’s attempt also shows a profound ignorance of the fact that many of the Framers of the Constitution were very religious men and who also declared religious ideas and belief as cornerstones behind the principles of the Constitution. Their words and actions (religious ceremonies were held in the U.S. House chamber for decades, for example) demonstrate that the ideas behind the Constitution had religious origins. In short, to follow the Constitution (as originally written for the most part, not including meanings from outside it imposed on it by court fiat inconsistent with its original intent) is an extension of belief in a higher power, and following the document a requirement of it.

This slip, the outright admission by the representative the leftist ACLU that to it those who believe in God are to be equated with terrorist murderers, is not surprising in that it appears to be an attitude prevalent within the organization, but is in that its leader was careless enough to broadcast it. This is why we must understand that the true ACLU agenda does not concern itself with “rights,” but with a political agenda marked by loathing for those who are different from its members on this issue. It’s now obvious to all that the emperor has no clothes.

If the state’s ACLU is to regain what little credibility it had, its board must fire Cook and then mandate sensitivity training in the area of tolerance for religious believers for itself, its officers, and local chapter board members and officers. If the ACLU does not cleanse itself of this bigotry now, it will merely confirm that it pursues an agenda at odds with the vast majority of Americans, one which mocks their beliefs, an agenda based on hatred which ultimately harms America.

Statistics show to boost Louisiana's population, cut taxes

As more dismal statistics come out demonstrating Louisiana’s lack of allure for living in it, reflected by relative population changes of the state versus others, let us digest upon the following remark:

Elliott Stonecipher, a political pollster and demographer based in Shreveport … said state officials should be trying to find out why people are leaving the state, and they should reshape state economic and taxation policies both to reduce out-migration and to entice people to move in.

As I have argued, (and so have C.B. Forgotston, Moon Griffon, and still others), Stonecipher’s conjecture that tax policy has consequences rings quite true. Given census data and that from the Tax Foundation, this is not difficult to test.

I corralled three sets of data for each of the states plus the District of Columbia: total state tax burden (including local taxes) in 2005 (in percent, which for most states has changed little over the past few years, Louisiana being an exception), net migration for 2000-2004 (in percent increase), and total population change from 2000-04 (in percent increase). Then I computed two relationships, between 2005 tax rate and population change, and between the rate and net migration. The theory here is that higher tax burdens on residents encourages them to leave and discourages others from coming, which also gets reflected in population changes.

For readers into statistics, here’s what I got: for population change, the Pearson product-moment correlation is -0.22, and for migration it is -0.30 (note: we are looking at the entire population of 51 jurisdictions so significance tests are superfluous). For readers not into statistical analysis, what this means is tax rates are moderately correlated to population and migration; as these rates increase, the rate of population increase and rate of in-migration increase go down.

Ranking 16th in tax burden (10.3%), 44th in population change (+1.05%), and 43rd in in-migration (-1.66%), one can see why Louisiana is where it is on these numbers. Stonecipher has a plea in this regard: “I can't prove that's what's happening. But the state should be doing research to see if that's true. There's an elephant in the room, and nobody wants to acknowledge it.”

Well, I just showed something was there. The state can start its research if it likes, but much better to solve the problem would be some tax cutting at the first opportunity. Gov. Kathleen Blanco seems bent on a special session for teacher pay raises in January; instead, she needs to make it one dedicated to lowering taxes.

Why did Bossier City hand over $21.5 million for little gain?

The good news is Bossier City has taken in around $1.7 million in sales taxes from Bass Pro Shops and the rest of the Louisiana Boardwalk since the former opened. The bad news is, we don’t know how much of that was beggared from the metropolitan economy and Bossier City paid $21.5 million for that privilege.

Since the Boardwalk opened roughly three months ago, it’s my guess, given that Bass Pro Shops generated $852,000 in sales taxes in 2004 that about $1.4 million of the total is attributable to it. Better, probably a few hundred thousand of that represents sales that came from outside the metropolitan area. This means created revenue for the city. Estimating then that the Boardwalk has contributed $300,000 that means it’s bringing in about $3,500 a day in sales tax revenues. Unfortunately, the large majority of that probably does not come from outside the metropolitan area – that is, there’s really nothing at the Boardwalk that could not be substituted for elsewhere in the area unlike Bass Pro Shops – leaving only the small portion of visitors from outside the area who came expressly to hang at the Boardwalk as the only source of newly “created” sales tax revenue.

However, for the moment let’s ignore the fact that beggaring Shreveport’s economy is harmful to Bossier City (in fact, probably more Bossier workers cross the river to go to their jobs every day than stay on the east side of the Red) and assume that $2,000 a day of that money comes from people who otherwise would not have patronized a Bossier City establishment. Also ignoring investment and interest rate factors, and also eliminating the $20 million Bossier City spent on improving the infrastructure in and around the Boardwalk that means the $21.5 million Bossier City plunked down to give a parking garage to the private sector will take nearly 30 years year to be paid back out of additional sales taxes! (Not being so generous and more realistic with these assumptions potentially adds decades more.)