Resist attempts to put teacher jobs ahead of children

The slogan of teacher unions – leave no union member behind – was on full display when the state’s Advisory Committee on Educator Evaluation met. By contrast, at best any interest in children’s education was feigned.

This panel was formed as a result of enactment of Act 54 of 2010 that changed the way teacher evaluations occur. The legislation specified scoring half of an annual evaluation (formerly conducted every three years) on the basis of student improvement in a subject area from the previous year, with the other half being on subjective assessments of teaching. However, not every subject area lends itself to objective subject-area testing and details of the subjective half remained unspecified, hence the purpose of the committee, comprised of 23 members, mostly teachers, with slots for representatives of both of the state’s major teachers’ unions, to figure out the details of assessment.

Rather than do that, unions whined how they were not being allowed input into the process, even though they had plenty during the legislative process that created it and through their panel membership – and then proceeded to make suggestions outside of the scope of the law that represented a desire to reverse a battle already lost. That input consisted of – surprise – reducing the objective portion of the evaluation as that will make clearer who cannot sufficiently improve students.

Jindal endorsements tip his future, delayed ambitions

Gov. Bobby Jindal has gone on an endorsement binge, including a pick outside the fall state elections, all of which tells us about his future plans.

In state, Jindal followed a pattern of picking mostly Republicans when facing off against Democrats, seldom voicing a preference where two of the same party compete. The latter follows the tried-and-true strategy of not wishing to alienate a potential ally by picking the opponent of the winner when the differences between the two are not stark – about which Jindal has perhaps learned the hard way.

Thus, the differences are instructive.

Reformers seek to complete BESE job of 4 years ago

After qualification for the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s fall elections settled, it has become clear that momentum generated four years ago by one side has continued to grow, while the other only now has recognized and responded to the threat to its power and privilege by this development.

Prior to four years ago, BESE had hunkered down to a business-as-usual approach in education policy-making, after the previous decade when significant advances had been made in the areas of school accountability and some raising of standards and expectations. About the only significant change along those lines had been, courtesy of the disruption wrought by Hurricane Katrina, large numbers of charter schools getting a foothold in Orleans Parish where the local school board, whose schools had been among the worst in the nation, had control of most schools taken by the state’s Recovery School District.

But besides that historical accident, on BESE there was a lack of enthusiasm for meaningful efforts to improve education statewide beyond where it was.

Changing LA political culture explains Democrat decline

With qualifying for fall state elections (never mind what the actual results might be) demonstrating an increasingly surging Republican Party while Democrats seem in a recession of growing permanence, speculation arises over why this has occurred and why now. Understanding the intersection of political culture and institutions explains.

Offering the idea that a decline in unionization of the state’s workforce contributed in reality confuses symptom with disease. The concept of a union, simply, is a device employed by a collective of individuals to expropriate resources from shareholders (in the private sector; taxpayers in the public), based on the idea that it is legitimate to transfer from a target group to a preferred group by use of coercive power based on numbers of individuals.

That same idea lies behind what once was bedrock of Louisiana’s political culture, populism.

Term limits successful on accountability, thus policy

As Louisiana voters face a second cycle of legislative elections impacted by term limitation, one former candidate for its House of Representatives laments the belief that its imposition has meant nothing in terms of public policy. That hasty judgment neither appreciates the effort to get there nor what has happened since.

Ryan Gatti terms his anticipation of their imposition as creating an environment where “no one person could garner too much power and to ensure new blood and new ideas would be just over a decade away. This was going to transform the Legislature because there would be no more 20- to 30-year dynasties, and special interests would lose their stranglehold on the capital.” Yet, he writes it “was just a sham. The law technically allows one person to serve for up to 24 years,” and that “our 1995 uprising was really just a ploy to get us to vote.”

Actually, Gatti is incorrect on the constitutional amendment’s specifics.

Qualifying shows GOP looks to extend power grasp

Qualifying for state and local elections has ended, setting up fall elections that showcase the dominance the Republican Party has assumed in the state, in the process creating some Alice-in-Wonderland moments.

As no candidate considered major entered any of the statewide races who was not a Republican, expect after the October election that if for any of these a Republican does not win outright then, including the governorship, only Republicans will be left for the general election runoffs in November. As for the governor’s race, expect incumbent Republican Bobby Jindal to win in the general election with at least 60 percent of the vote. This eventually discomfits the liberal elite such as writers at the Baton Rouge Advocate, who never would have given front-page treatment to an opponent of his with almost no money and no real grasp of preferred issues by the Louisiana public as they did when it splashed prominently the entrance into the contest of one of the several Democrat longshots hoping Jindal before election day gets caught with a live boy or a dead girl; good luck with that with this scandal-boring top officer.

This result produced a governor’s contest that features the least suspense, given the quality of candidates as a whole, since 1936.

GOP statewide winner good bet to win 2015 governorship

As qualifying for state office begins, and since no major Democrats appear to be willing to run for any of the statewide kinds, given the kinds of outcomes that can come from the contests for the junior offices, we can see the jockeying begin among these Republicans appealing to the conservative base to become to successor to Gov. Bobby Jindal four years hence.

However, were any of Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, Plaquemines Pres. Billy Nungesser, Sec. of State Tom Schedler, House Speaker Jim Tucker, Atty. Gen. Buddy Caldwell, Treasurer John Kennedy, Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, and Sec. of Agriculture and Forestry Mike Strain to win the governorship in 2015, that would run against the field of play historically. With the exception of (then Lt. Gov.) Jared Sanders in 1908, (then Atty. Gen.) Ruffin Pleasant in 1916, and (then Lt. Gov.) Kathleen Blanco in 2003, no governor has come directly from one of the minor statewide offices since the 1898 Constitution that eliminated the last vestiges of Reconstruction. Congress, the Legislature, the state courts, and the Public Service Commission have provided more fertile grounds to launch a successful gubernatorial campaign than any single statewide office.

Nonetheless, especially in the term-limited era of the Legislature, ambitious politicians need a place to go and these offices allow for the continuation of political careers.

Alone, parish governing change unlikely to yield benefits

An interesting policy question that for a couple of Louisiana parishes has moved from the academic to practical is whether to put in place an elected parish executive with broad policy powers. As the media have reported imprecisely on the matter without referencing comprehensive expertise, I’ll provide some clarification and more precision here.

Both Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana Parishes have policy-makers or citizen groups pursuing a change from the Constitutionally-defined parish police jury system of government to adopting home rule charters that allow for much more flexibility in governing arrangements. Currently, 23 of Louisiana’s 64 parishes have opted not to operate under the system defined as the default under the Constitution. It also permits them to adopt a home-rule charter to change this, and of those that have, four have used it to create consolidated (that is, combining functions and governance of the parish and one or more cities within it) government.

Discussion concerning these two parishes focuses on the creation of an elected chief executive with broad powers.

Plan change approval would signal improved attitude

Recently, last year’s deposed University of New Orleans chancellor Tim Ryan, back to wearing his faculty researcher hat, produced a report commissioned by Entergy to determine the utility’s impact to the New Orleans metropolitan area. In an opinion piece focusing on how company metrics reflected the recovery of the city, the shorter-term successes were blunted by a revealing, and disturbing, tidbit about the considerable economic impact Entergy has on New Orleans.

And that was, ranked as the 213^th largest public company in America, Entergy is the only Fortune 500 company still headquartered in New Orleans. As a whole, Louisiana has only three, with Entergy the smaller CenturyLink in Monroe and Shaw Group in Baton Rouge, and those two are newcomers moving on up onto the list in the past couple of years, while New Orleans has been slipping back. In 2006, the only two in the state were in New Orleans – and then Freeport McMoran bolted. But the decline had been long in coming.

Just before Hurricane Katrina, in 2004, in per capita terms by metropolitan area, the New Orleans area ranked second-lowest with these large firms in the country.

Switch to help win top spot reignites parish GOP feud

While state Rep. Joel Robidueax surprised no one with his recent acquisition of the Republican Party label, some whining by members of the GOP from his area may have caught off guard those who don’t know the circumstances of Robideaux’s entry into the Legislature and his voting record.

Robideaux, whose switch from independence is considered related to his bid to become the next House speaker pending reelection, first got into the Legislature when winning a special election over the choice of many Lafayette area Republicans. This confirmed a growing gulf between two factions of the local GOP, between former state Rep. Ernie Alexander and outgoing state Sen. Mike Michot. Without going into the Byzantine details of the tiff, involving such issues as leadership of the state party, supporting GOP national candidates, and legislation and retaliation about it, the onetime allies increasingly became divided and Robideaux was backed by Michot against Alexander and others’ choice, where Robideaux ran as an independent to differentiate him.

While Robideaux throughout his political career to this point maintained a no-party identity, his voting behavior as a legislator clearly is conservative and reform, as his scores on the Louisiana Legislature Log voting index have demonstrated.