LA higher education must address inconvenient data

It seems like a day doesn’t go by when Louisiana higher education officials aren’t decrying the impending budget cuts that will have to be endured. As unfortunate as the results of these might be, the problem is the constant refrain that neglects certain aspects threatens the credibility of higher education in a state where its reputation already is subdued among the general population.

Of course, it helps your cause when you don’t associate yourself around idiocy and failure to do so occurred recently when the leaders of the three public Baton Rouge institutions allowed East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden to speak on their behalf. “All three institutions in Baton Rouge are facing layoffs, which weakens consumer confidence and consumer spending and ultimately impacts our sales taxes,” he wailed, which has a degree of truth. But he left out the rest of the story: if restoring funding means removing that money from the private sector, that probably would end up costing more job reductions and lowering of consumer confidence and sales tax revenues. And his idea is logically absurd: according to Holden’s view, why not drain every cent from the private sector to support these schools if that’s what it takes to preserve jobs, etc.

At least the college heads seemed more rational in their statements, adding to the chorus over the past three months about potential adverse impacts concerning the disproportionate cuts, largely dictated by the inflexible state fiscal structure in a deteriorating economy. However, the continued poor-mouthing by higher education threatens to backfire so long as certain inconvenient facts are not discussed, information that, if left unexplained by the higher education community, weakens the argument against significant cuts.

Politics, greed mark many representatives' smoking votes

That stench emanating from the Louisiana Capitol isn’t from tobacco, it’s that from the hypocrisy surrounding how the House is treating the issue of smoking.

As noted previously, HB 889 which raises revenue from increased tobacco taxes itself is chock full of hypocrisy. It raises money off the destructive behavior of individuals yet does not adequately guard that the money will be used only to prevent or deal with that behavior. An honest bill would dedicate all revenues derived from it to smoking cessation, prevention, treatment of diseases believed associated with it, and research of those, that also does not allow for cost shifting, meaning these new revenues would be added to existing revenues for the same purposes and the old revenues not shunted to be spent on purposes unrelated to smoking. The bill doesn’t do that, so therefore it is more about raising revenue than dealing with smoking.

For some, it also is about politics perhaps more than revenue. Test votes on parliamentary maneuvers showed it does not have enough votes to pass the House, and that it is scheduled to be debated next week means there’s not much of a chance it can pass through the Senate in time to even get to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal prior to the session end Jun. 25 without extraordinary measures. And Jindal has promised to veto it meaning, given the timeframe, a special veto override session would have to be called to accomplish this which never before has been successful. Only a political payoff – trying to embarrass Jindal in order to hamper his political future – would justify anything more than non-public attempts by the bill’s author, Democrat party official and state Rep. Karen Peterson, to keep it going under these conditions.

Tobacco tax hike remains disingenuously political

No doubt she gave it her best shot, which was pretty good in that she got a party-line vote to go in her favor, but despite that all of the conceptual and political flaws behind HB 889 by Rep. Karen Peterson still reveals it to be more about trying to score political points than any serious, workable measure addressing the state’s fiscal structure or health care issues.

The bill would take tax increases levied on tobacco and dedicate them to a number of purposes dealing with the health care area – a tax increase Gov. Bobby Jindal said he would veto and one which looks shaky to get the two-thirds vote each in chamber (or to override his veto) in any event. It is a scaled-down version of even higher taxes proposed in her HB 75 which was defeated in the House Ways and Means Committee, and reworked to avoid certain criticisms.

One was in the amount on cigarettes which was argued to cause business around the states’ border to flee to those surrounding states with lower taxes, thus largely negating the impact. Thus, the new cigarette tax was cut in half to 50 cents a pack to make the new total 86 cents a pack. Also, the money was not specifically dedicated to health care expenditures, so in the bill four different kinds of entities – providers, clinics, researchers, and treatment entities – were specified to receive the funds with half going to general providers of health care services. This was to counter the argument that it is unwise policy to base a tax on an activity for which the tax actually tries to discourage, because it creates an unstable funding mechanism and to some degree is hypocritical and there for only revenue-generating reasons, because if government truly wants to discourage this it would restrict or ban the practice.

None of this changed Jindal’s mind which means pursuit of the bill is pointless given existing political dynamics. As a demonstration of his influence, the bill’s consideration was delayed almost a month which means any further delay will kill it given the approaching end of the session. And, if the content and debate of and vote concerning the bill in committee are indicators, continued public pursuit of it by Carter will be primarily for political reasons.

Note that elements of hypocrisy, although reduced from the other bill, still hung over the original bill. For one thing, the half of the dedications that went to activities that could be related to smoking prevention/cessation and diseases from it was ill-defined in direction, specified to certain agencies but not activities. However, state Rep. Mike Danahay called the bill on that (graciously accepted by Peterson), getting amendments that specified the money had to go to activities dealing with prevention, cessation, and/or research. While that helps make for a more honest bill, it still isn’t quite so on this measure. This is because cost-shifting still could occur. For example, money that would go for prevention can supplant funds formerly used for that purpose, which then could be shifted to other agency purposes and then the money that formerly funded these could be shifted outside of the agency for any purpose in state government. So Peterson or any other supporter of the bill is being dishonest if they assert the new monies raised by it “only” would go to health care-related items.

The other hypocritical aspect is the other 50 percent, which goes to “funding to the Department of Health and Hospitals for payments to providers in the state Medicaid program, specifically for increases in provider rates.” This has little to do with smoking unless one could argue that smoking-related ailments would cause an increase in the total amount paid to providers to be offset by the new revenue. But the bill does not do that, it addresses not serving more people more often, but rather increasing the per person, per event payment, so it does not expand coverage to address smoking’s consequences in any way. Further, the dirty secret concerning the effects associated with smoking is that it actually decreases the health care costs of government because studies show the costs of treating people with smoking ailments typically are lower because, frankly, they die faster than non-smokers whose longer lives rack up in the aggregate greater health costs to government. In respect to this half of the new revenue, there’s no moral justification at all: it simply proposes that state government raise revenue off the self-destructive behavior of some individuals.

To some degree understanding of these flaws was demonstrated in the committee vote. All Democrats present voted for it; all Republicans except two (who had been no-shows a month earlier, denying the committee a quorum and causing the delay) and independents voted against it except Chairman Hunter Greene who followed the tradition of chairman usually not voting. With eight of each party and both independents on the committee, and with two Democrats absent, the amended bill therefore passed 8-7. Opponents seemed to recognize that, no matter how many promises were made in the bill, it represented a tax increase that would allow monies to be spent on activities that had nothing to do with extra money going to ameliorating and dealing with the debilitating effects of smoking.

If in the entire House Republicans maintain the same degree of party loyalty as in committee, the bill cannot succeed given the supermajority requirement. Given a small victory, Peterson has the obligation to try to change enough minds to win the next step, but if that’s not forthcoming, greater public efforts on her part will demonstrate little more than trying to score political points, generally to make opponents look like they are “against” health care particularly for the indigent, and specifically if it can get that far to try to make Jindal look that way by forcing him to use a veto. The latter would serve the larger purpose of Democrats, of which Peterson is a party leader, to sully Jindal’s electoral future.

Despite claims the bill is about health care, it disingenuously is more about revenues and thereby lacks justification to become law. Therefore, its continued life suggests it is more than justified primarily as a political tool.

Writer's ideology trumps pragmatism on Jindal tax views

It always humorous to observe liberals, intentionally or otherwise, try to frame political issues in a format where following their liberal prescriptions is “pragmatic” but to practice conservatism is “ideological.” A recent opinion piece about Gov. Bobby Jindal demonstrates this attempt which, when analyzed, reminds us how the author got it exactly backwards which leads to a total misinterpretation of Jindal the politician.

To see where liberals go wrong on this, it’s helpful to understand what is meant by being “pragmatic” and “ideological.” To be “pragmatic” involves (invoking some 19th century philosophical musings) an attempt to derive philosophy from empirical experience, to set aside “idealism” in action. To be “ideological” in its political sense is to espouse and act upon a program of interrelated assertions – which does not stray far from what pragmatism tries to avoid, “idealism” which postulates there is exists a preferable end-state that is believed, but not proven, to be achievable.

This writer, Stephanie Grace, claims that because Jindal does not want two particular tax increases – one a roll-back of deductions on income that began earlier this year and another on Internet service to fund district attorney investigations – that somehow this is “ideological” because the “pragmatic” thing to do would be, in this instance of the first case, to spend the additional revenue raised on higher education, and in the latter to be used to better police sexual predation on youth. She asserts this behavior stems from a desire of Jindal to gain political support for nomination to the presidency in the future.

Of course, she entirely misses the point because she does not understand that that act of raising taxes is itself “ideological” and not “pragmatic” regardless of the uses to which the extra revenue is put. As history and empirical fact have demonstrated, taxation both infringes upon individual liberty (because it unambiguously takes property legally and morally earned by its owner) and the economic well-being of society (because it removes resources from their most productive users, their owners operating in a free market). Therefore, the appropriate level of taxation is an “ideological” question because it involves a tradeoff between a tolerance of how much infringement of liberty and damage to the economy will be permitted in the quest for a policy preference deemed to be more valuable.

Here, Grace also does some sloppy assuming/misunderstanding – she doesn’t seem to get that the retraction is of an already-existing (for 159 days now) tax reduction and any increase on Internet bills takes money out of the hands of the most productive sector of the eocnomy, she calls the revenue cuts to higher education “severe” (they aren’t, at only 15 percent of general fund allocations at most and looking to be lower than that which may be better phrased as “significant;” “severe” would be of a much higher magnitude), and that Jindal wants to be viewed as more conservative because it helps win primary votes for president (the GOP’s 2008 nominee did precisely the opposite). But it is a big government mentality that ultimately destroys her argument.

Grace appears to assume that to oppose increases for these purposes (higher education, enforcement funds) has no rational policy basis; therefore, she writes, “ideology trumps pragmatism.” In reality, there are very rational reasons for not funneling more money to government, especially in a down economy. It’s a subject about which she apparently doesn’t know much as she wrote that a governor should “focus more on the practical demands of keeping state government functioning, particularly during an acute economic downturn” – ignorant obviously that the last thing government should be doing is taking more money out of a slumping economy as this removes resources from the most productive users of it when their services are most needed.

It also doesn’t seem to occur to her that perhaps Jindal is right about Louisiana having the capacity to increase its efficiency. Is higher education really crippled for the foreseeable future by this cut (which still puts it well above where it was a few years ago with no more students than before)? Does the attorney general really need more money to perform this task or can resources be realigned from less useful areas to increase activity in this area without more money? Grace appears to have given no thought to these possibilities and just simplistically swallowed a mantra about cuts should be reduced in higher education and funding increased for the district attorney, without any understanding of the larger situation now and in the future, and perhaps playing to a bias that the higher producers of wealth in society should pay more in taxes.

Those are the kinds of views that are “ideological.” If anything, Jindal’s views are the more “pragmatic” of the lot – a refusal to stay captive to the notion that government must do more and take more to do it, an openness to the idea that government can do a better job of making priorities especially when the people have to do with less, a recognition of reality that in times of distress leaving more money in the private sector provides a better long-term solution to government fiscal woes than a short-term infusion of cash. Thus, Jindal takes what history and fact have demonstrated, and acts accordingly – pragmatically.

This is why Grace makes a completely misguided assessment of Jindal’s actions. Jindal pursues the policy end of keeping money in the economy and reducing the size of government because it simply is the superior option. Maybe it comports to any future agenda that Jindal may have, and maybe it doesn’t, but it stands apart from that consideration and needs to be analyzed as such. Captive to ideology herself, following the usual liberal misnomer about their policy preferences being “pragmatic” but conservatives’ being “ideology,” Grace is unable to do so adequately. Thus, while Grace opined for Jindal it was “ideology trumping pragmatism,” that phrase more accurately describes her attempt to make this assertion, as thinking readers recognize.

Myths drive politically preening senators favoring SB 335

A majority in the Louisiana Senate nearly broke their arms patting themselves on their backs, bringing a new epitome to the idea of self-congratulation when they voted for SB 335 which would roll back a tax break for people – nearly half of all taxpaying households – on deductions, some affecting the most disadvantaged in the state such as those who have high medical bills. In fact, such a vote displayed a virulent mix of disingenuousness, ignorance, irresponsibility, and self-deception that sets new standards even for that body.

From the rhetoric emanating from many in that chamber, a vote for the bill was based upon one or more, perhaps all, of the following myths:

That it does not change the current tax structure in Louisiana. This is a lie repeated so often by its author state Sen. Lydia Jackson that either she must be entirely brazen or uncompromisingly stupid, perhaps both. She asserts that the current standard of 65 percent of the deductions would not be changed to 100 percent as is current law but stay the same, so therefore it’s not a tax increase. But the law did in fact change 158 days ago and for tax year 2009 people already have made financial decisions with tax consequences based upon the 100 percent level already in place. Changing it back is nothing more than a bait-and-switch. It’s a tax increase obvious to anybody who can fog a mirror and rub two brain cells together.

That this was a “hard” vote requiring expert balancing of preferences. It was actually a very simple vote as state Sen. Buddy Shaw pointed out: vote for it and be a hypocrite, or not. It was nauseating to watch several senators try to squirm their way out of this reality, droning on about how difficult it was (Bob Kostelka challenged opponents to try to do a better job on these kind of issues than he – uh, not a smart thing to say; the line of capable people from his district who could would be longer than that of legislators with state-reserved tickets queuing to get into the Baton Rouge super-regional college baseball action), looking for all the world like ugly stepsisters cooing to glass on metal, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall ….” New flash to these ignoramuses: political preening doesn’t turn the gamesmanship (as noted below) into statesmanship.

That it is in response to some “lack of plan” in place to deal with significant cuts to higher education. This also is at best confused, at worst maliciously false. The governor has a plan for handling cuts: have higher education absorb them now before they get worse in the coming years. The House has a plan as well: have higher education absorb somewhat fewer of them. Just because you don’t like politically other credible and realistic plans doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

That it sends money to higher education. Absolutely nothing in SB 335 directs money to higher education. It merely puts the money into a fund which the bill stipulates may be used only to fund higher education. It does not appropriate the money, and that portion of the bill could be changed at any time.

That is it is constitutional. Besides the problem of creating a retroactive tax increase, the Louisiana Constitution’s Article III Section 16(B) puts it bluntly and unambiguously: “All bills for raising revenue or appropriating money shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur in amendments, as in other bills.” It’s ludicrous that its Senate supporters can’t even see or admit the contradiction in their rhetoric when they say it will raise revenue for higher education, yet claim it’s a constitutional bill when it comes from the Senate with a fiscal note showing it raises revenue. It is irresponsible for the Senate to be wasting time and taxpayer resources on a matter that clearly is unconstitutional.

That too many senators continue to believe in these myths shows either they live in a fantasy land with no connection to reality (not a new charge levied against them, to be sure) or they temperamentally are unsuited for their offices. Let a citizenry riled by this insolence judge which is what for whom.

Whiners might win pay raise battle, but lose layoff war

When around 500 Louisiana state employees showed up at the State Civil Service Commission meeting to protest the possible excising of their “merit” raises and the Commission responded by taking no action on a recommendation to do this, they may not want what they wished to get.

Every year, evaluation of most state civil service (comprising about 70 percent of state employees) is supposed to produce “merit” raises. Because of budgetary difficulties this year, Commission staff had proposed forgoing this. (While the Legislature can control money going to agencies, only the SCSC can determine whether merit pay will be distributed.) But the siege of whiners may have changed their minds for the next fiscal year, without another regularly-scheduled meeting until then – which may have unforeseen consequences some won’t particularly like.

The whole “merit” process has been a sham for decades. As explained elsewhere (and depending on how you define the pool of eligibles) anywhere from 96 to 99 percent of classified employees “earn” this added pay every year, turning the concept in the minds of many into a cost-of-living entitlement. And this is on top of the generous situation they already have. If we look at 2006 state staffing levels and 2007 average earnings, Louisiana state public employees, despite being in a state in the bottom five of family incomes, are 36th in average monthly earnings.

(This doesn’t include a benefits package adjudged one of the most generous of all states including for many retiring as early as 60 at full pay averaged over the last three years of work. And maybe you’re wondering why 500 of them could get off work to attend the meeting? Because most state civil service employees get two days off a month, no questions asked. Throw in state holidays and the minimum vacation most get, a week but it can go up to three, do the math, and you’ll see a great many state employees get the equivalent of a minimum of eight weeks of vacation a year. That’s something for all you in the private sector who might get two week’s worth a year, and especially you small business owners who might get next to none, to think about.)

This is why they were so up in arms over what they view as their birthright. And certainly one thing the Commission could do is rewrite the rules not to make a standard 4 percent increase for all who qualify (scoring in any of the top three categories). Instead, it could, like most states, graduate increases by giving out, say, 5 percent increases to those at the highest level, 3 percent to the second-highest, and 1 percent to the third-highest (lowest acceptable) level. Better, the Commission could also institute rules that ensure agencies actually realistically appraise performance so you don’t get the ridiculous and obviously on face unrealistic outcomes of the present where as many as 99 percent of all employees fall in the top three categories.

However, it’s too late for such changes to be made to affect this upcoming fiscal year. But there is an area in which the Commission has acted that may signal a sensible step that will make many of the protesters rue this recent non-decision. It made a change to promote the use of performance (even if it is biased upwards) in layoff decisions, where previously in a layoff plan an agency could have gone basically on seniority only for those with acceptable ratings (in other words, about 99 percent of non-probationary classified employees). It’s a tepid change, forcing out people in the two lowest performance categories and then allowing as many as 20 percent of layoffs to occur on the basis of performance first, but at least it’s a small step in the right direction that needs to be extended in the near future.

Yet if the money crunch will not be made up with no pay raises, it will be made up by laying off people. And few states are more in desperate need that Louisiana in cutting fat in its civil service. Among the states, in per capita state employment, Louisiana ranks 10th. But remove the states with populations under a million, whose small numbers tend to skew upwards that statistic, and Louisiana ranks behind only Hawai’i, Arkansas, New Mexico, and West Virginia – all of which (except Arkansas, at about two-thirds which itself is no model of efficiency) have about half of Louisiana’s population. Put Louisiana in the same category as the dozen states with populations between 3 and 6 million and it’s not even close with Louisiana far and away having the highest per capita number of state employees.

Perhaps what will happen is with the new rules in effect, the state’s response will be a healthy round of layoffs that can much better than in the past get rid of underperforming deadwood that has survived for so long because of seniority that will create a more reasonable staffing levels. (There’s also a small amount of wiggle room that may allow for raises not to be given if they would come at the expense of layoffs.) That’s not a bad tradeoff, raises for many but more pink slips that would have occurred otherwise, and pink slips based more on actual quality than ever before.

Then to keep up the momentum, the SCSC should adopt the merit raise and additional layoff procedures outlined above. And if this makes mad those in the civil service who have slouched along for decades doing just enough and/or knowing enough of the right people to get an annual raise, there’s a whole big private sector economy out there just waiting to properly price your actual abilities if you’d like to leave the cozy confines of state employment.

Indoor smoking ban rejection sacrifices liberty for money

Courage never has been a long suit of politicians, and members of the Louisiana House yesterday showed they are no different when they caved in to protect – maybe – dollars over the rights of individuals by rejecting HB 844 by state Rep. Gary Smith that would have prevented smoking in every indoor establishment in Louisiana that served alcohol except Indian casinos.

At present, smoking indoors in public establishments that serve food can occur only at bars where less than half of their revenue comes from food service. Extending that ban to all bars and to commercial casinos, which like restaurants could continue to allow smoking and drinking in an outdoor setting, was argued against for two reasons, one that is illogical, and the other that is banal.

The illogical reason concerns the question of individual freedom. Many have been duped into believing that the law’s restrictions would somehow take away the “right” of people to smoke in bars, when it proposes no such thing. Smoking in outdoor settings at bars still would be permitted, so while the collection of venues at which to drink and smoke may be more limited, the activity still could be pursued.

There may be those who say they don’t want to do this in outdoor settings. Then they have another option, and that is not to smoke in an indoor setting. Nobody is putting a gun to their heads to make them smoke, and they still can enjoy the outing. Where the argument becomes absurd is when you get whiners, much like those who say they need more government services because they chose to have more children out of wedlock or to drop out of school, etc., who say they have to smoke and have others put up with it (if not subsidize the behavior).

And the ones “putting up” with the placing of the rights of those who choose to smoke indoors in bars ahead of their own are individuals who have no choice: people who because of illness are forced to use mechanical ventilation, and/or who have conditions like cystic fibrosis, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and others, or even just allergies to tobacco smoke. These individuals (ironically, some having been heavy smokers in the past) cannot even go to bars now because an irritant like smoke can cause them immediate respiratory distress if not threaten their lives. This law would have allowed them access that those who promote smoking in bars selfishly currently deny them.

In other words, under HB 844, smokers would still have the choice to smoke in some bars, or to go to but not smoke in others; their ability to choose is unaffected. But individuals with pulmonary conditions under present law have no choice at all; they cannot go to bars at all because the “rights” or smokers, who can choose where to go or whether to smoke, are given priority over theirs when they cannot choose whether to have a pernicious disease.

Some might argue bars could voluntarily choose not to have smoking (in my entire life I have found exactly one place like this among the 50 countries I have been in) to attract these customers, but that is akin to the situation with the disabled prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act – almost no business voluntarily instituted accessible features or practices even at little or no cost, so to allow the disabled to lead even a partially normal existence in this facet of their lives the law was passed. The same applies here: bars think with an indoor smoking ban they may lose revenue (studies suggest it goes either way) so they won’t make the modification. Since rights now are in conflict – smoking indoors in a bar vs. granting access to a minority – government must adjudicate whose take precedence and the compassionate thing to do, which representatives choked on yesterday, would have been to assist those who cannot choose and thereby must suffer over those who are free to choose.

But lack of recognition that a ban would increase individual liberty (since smokers’ liberty would not be curtailed while that of those harmed by smoking would be increased, and there would be no burden placed on bar owners as a result of the ban) appeared not to be the only driving force behind rejection. With casinos serving drinks in gaming areas they would be covered under the proposal, some lawmakers feared with the ban less gambling would occur (addictions tend to go together) meaning reduced revenues to the state in a time of falling state collections. In other words, representatives shamefully sold out the rights of a vulnerable minority for money (and this is a particularly egregious offense for those who claim to be conservatives who argue government should promote equal opportunity).

Fortunately, SB 186 by state Sen. Rob Marionneaux remains alive in a House committee which does substantially the same thing as HB 844, with the added benefit that the Senate already wisely passed it. Let’s hope that many House members come to the proper understanding that a vote for SB 186 represents a net expansion of individual liberty, and to allow the current situation to continue unchanged lends support to tyranny over the freedoms over a minority that doesn’t deserve the situations they are in – which becomes a deplorable, gutless dereliction of responsibility if lack of support is because of fear of falling revenues.

Opponents' arguments show why board reform must come

Today the Louisiana House of Representatives takes up HB 851, designed to place some limitations on discretion of school board members, with the best advertisement for bill passage being the intellect displayed on this matter by self-proclaimed representatives of the boards.

Essentially, the bill would address two areas. First, it would make the formal hiring and firing of a superintendant a two-thirds rather than simple majority vote. Second, after 2010, personnel hiring decisions will be transferred solely into the hands of the superintendant, although tenure and salary matters would be left to the boards.

These have stirred up incredible opposition from consultants employed by and officers past and present of the Louisiana School Board Association, even though the state’s head of education Paul Pastorek and some other past and current school board members and superintendants have said this measure would reduce individual board member meddling in personnel matters and gives superintendants more protection in pursuing these matters without boards threatening to can them. Proponents very reasonably argue that political interference can create performance problems that plague Louisiana education.

But the opponents react as if the world is going to end with these changes and, worse, they condone illogic if not outright idiocy in their arguments against them. The latest involve, first, the claim that the two-thirds requirement violates the “one man, one vote” concept, called a cherished concept of democracy. To assert such betrays an ignorance of what the entire concept is. This refers to efforts to ensure that artificial boundaries, such as non-compelling reasons to prevent eligible citizens to vote or that districts are formed to favor certain populations over others in their abilities to influence elections, do not exist in the electoral process. In fact, supermajoritarian requirements are not uncommon in government on the issue of officeholders, the best known example perhaps being the two-thirds vote required to remove any civil officer of the United States by the Senate after House impeachment.

A better argument about this requirement would be that it permits minority interests to prevent hirings and firings of superintendants. One could say a simple majority should be enough to accomplish these things. However, another ignored passage of the bill moots this concern in its entirety: that contracts offered to superintendants are subject to simple majority decisions. In other words, let’s say there is a situation where a 12-member board has seven who want to fire a superintendant which under the proposed law could not be done. The solution then would be to wait until contract renegotiation comes around, and the seven could offer such an unfavorable contract to the incumbent that he will resign.

Opponents of the bill never bring this up because it destroys their argument that the bill would remove “checks and balances” in the system. All a simple majority of the board has to do is give contracts that last a couple of years or so, and they have all the flexibility they need to get rid of superintendants they sour on without a lengthy period elapsing. At the same time, it means that a superintendant has greater protection to do necessary but unpopular things if he wants to risk his job by displeasing a simple majority.

The opposition also claims that the changes are not needed because of improving performance of schools statewide. There are two fallacies in this thinking, one being that because the whole improves does not mean that improvement is occurring in all of the parts, and it may be the issue of meddling which is preventing better performance in these places. It also runs afoul of the fallacy of monism, that all change in an observable phenomenon is attributed to one single cause. Performance is affected by many things, and it could be that it would have improved even more without meddling permitted in current law.

It’s little wonder Louisiana education is relatively abysmal compared to other states’ and some countries when this is the quality of critical thinking of those elected to oversee it at the local level. Which perhaps is the best reason why HB 851 should pass.

Review of dedicated funds bringing certain uses to light

One silver lining to the budgetary problems facing Louisiana at this time is it is forcing consideration of fiscal matters often forgotten or ignored that likely will lead to better future priorities. A case in point is the disposition of nearly 650 funds tucked away in state government mainly sequestered and largely unavailable for anything but often very narrow purposes.

The state’s laws and Constitution locks away the majority of state funds to dedicated purposes, which legally can be transferred to other purposes only in times of declared deficit, with agreement by both majoritarian branches of government, and, unless there is a huge crisis, only five percent of each may be transferred once in a two-year cycle. Legislation is before the Legislature to double the takings and to make them eligible for such annually (as well as to review them every four years to determine whether they really serve a needed purpose). The additional flexibility afforded by passage of these measures is paramount to more efficient and effective future budgeting.

But some are complaining that some of the money going into the funds – these can be as small as a few thousand dollars in balances while others carry multiple millions – are assessments on private, quasi-public, or local government entities . Therefore, it is “unfair” for the state to take what should have been set aside and used exclusively on behalf of, or at least in comportment with the wishes of, the assessed, it is argued.

Scores show charter schools vastly superior in Orleans

In the debate about the future of New Orleans’ elementary and secondary education, as various arguments are bandied about as to how the presence of the Recovery School District existing beside the Orleans Parish School District and utilization of charter schools by both is affecting educational quality, something very basic is being missed, something that answers definitively the future strategy of education there and elsewhere in Louisiana.

With state testing results out, this debate has intensified because of the present success of the RSD compared to the Orleans past, and because of the success of charter schools, leading supporters of the present path to point to these successes. They are challenged by opponents who argue a variety of mitigating factors explains the progress, not the presence of the state nor having charter schools. Yet these questions, whether state presence and charter school functioning in the main explain the progress, are not very difficult to try to answer using quantitative data which neither supporters nor opponents seem to have done.

So I did. Theoretically, if these things are making a difference, then taking substantially equal populations among them (a pretty solid assumption within the RSD and Orleans categories, but obviously not the case between those two) and reviewing their outcomes – scores on the 4th grade and 8th grade LEAP exams and on the Graduate Exit Exam for high schools – assuming they have equivalent resources (more about that below), then differences observed in scores must be as a result of the qualities of education being delivered varying by the governance structures. I segregated the data into five school categories – RSD regular schools, RSD charter schools, Orleans regular schools, Orleans charter schools, and Orleans magnet schools – and computed means for each of the three levels in each of the four tested areas (English and Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies) for each of the five levels of achievement reported by percentage of students in those categories for each school (Advanced, Mastery, Basic, Approaching Basic, and Unacceptable). In addition, I created a mean of the four areas for each kinf od school where 100 scored as everybody scoring in the highest category and 0 meant everybody scored in the lowest, and then a grand mean of the four categories.

Reported here will be the grand means, after some minor adjustments (for example, a few schools don’t test in all areas, and alternative schools were excluded). They include comparisons between the same kinds of schools in different districts, and different schools within the same district, to demonstrate whether the RSD outperformed Orleans, and whether charter schools outperformed regular schools, for each grade level.

The results were unambiguous (rounding up to tenths). Among 4th graders, RSD regular schools averaged on the 0-100 scale 27.2, RSD charter schools averaged 34.9, Orleans charter schools averaged 54.8, and Orleans magnet schools averaged 52.9 (there being no Orleans 4th graders left in regular schools, all being in charters or the RSD). Among 8th graders, RSD regular schools averaged 20.2, RSD charter schools averaged 28.4, Orleans regular schools averaged 37.6, and Orleans charter schools averaged 53.7. Among 11th graders, RSD regular schools averaged 17.3, RSD charter schools averaged 39 (but this being partial scores from just one school), Orleans regular schools averaged 33.1, Orleans charter schools averaged 50.5, and Orleans magnet schools (being Benjamin Franklin High School) averaged 81.1.

Naturally, the RSD schools which are there because they were troubled in performance in the past lag their Orleans counterparts, so the argument there turns more on would they have been better off staying under local control. Trends of the past are just that, trends of the past that very unreliably can be extrapolated to the present, so it’s hard to judge, as well as the RSD schools are getting substantially more resources than the Orleans schools (because they supposedly need more to turn things around). So this question remains much in debate.

But the effect of charter schools cannot be. Simply, their students are doing substantially better than their peers in districts (most astoundingly, the typical 4th grader in Orleans charter schools scores better than the typical 4th grader in Orleans magnet schools). A few more years of these results, and the debate is over: charter schools simply do a much better job of educating than the old, on-sixe-fits-all bureaucratic, union-centric model of public education – and usually at a lower cost per pupil.

Therefore, going forward it does not seem to be a bad idea to usher low-performing schools in Orleans into the RSD, as there is no evidence that it does a worse job than such schools governed by Orleans. However, any school that is designated as unacceptable for several years regardless of who governs it should be converted into a charter schools as their deceased centralization brings superior results. And it’s a model that should be extended to failing schools across the state.