Union hack's remarks show necessity of education reform

Previously, this space discussed fractures within the education reform movement in Louisiana, mentioning its opponents only in passing. To illuminate their place in the debate, one needs only to focus on one recent incident to understand why they encapsulate everything that made the state’s educational system a laughingstock for so long.

Interestingly, it was one of their own, Bernard Taylor, the superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish School District, who stirred the bats in the belfry. As a motivational tool, he rewarded by publishing in newsprint the names of over 1,000 district teachers who rated in the highest category of the state’s new, somewhat improved, teacher evaluation instrument known as COMPASS.

This disturbed one Carnell Washington, president of the East Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers, who in the past with these kinds of arguments treated policy-makers to a display of crepuscular intellect. He claimed this broke the law because evaluation results “are confidential, do not constitute a public record, and shall not be released or shown to any person” outside of personnel actions internal to a district or as part of a court case.

Populist legacy threatens to derail LA education reforms

Along with Gov. Bobby Jindal and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Chairman Chas Roemer, state Superintendent John White is one of the three most despised individuals by established political powers and special interests in education in Louisiana. Yesterday he made a bid to go to the head of that class and then some by laying out a stunningly accurate assessment of the state of reform and where it’s headed in Louisiana and maybe elsewhere.

In remarks made to the invaluable American Enterprise Institute, White noted that the enemies of reform include not just the usual suspects – teacher unions, educrats, and ideological fellow-traveling policy-makers that are invested in the current government-monopoly model because of the power and privilege it brings them – but also those who preach reform yet allow themselves to become coopted by that system and those who become opponents of beneficial reform only because it gets a policy foothold. The latter category of individuals particularly is noteworthy and disproportionate in size in Louisiana because of its political culture.

The former bunch’s source of antipathy is well known and its causes well understood – by expanding choice in education, this exposes the self-serving, hidebound nature of the structure it has built and nurtured. That since the advent of the first charter schools the vast preponderance of scholarly work has demonstrated their performance is superior to that of government monopoly schools, affirmed by the latest and most comprehensive study, and particularly in Louisiana, only this attitude can explain why they view choice as such a threat. As White noted, choice has not only the effect of reducing bureaucratic command and control that frees creativity and innovation, but that this very maze of regulations acts to insulate and protect vested interests.

Without federal change, LA state flood insurer idea impractical

Today higher, in some cases much higher, premiums go into effect for flood insurance across the country, but disproportionately so in Louisiana. Last week, state Treas. John Kennedy said he wanted to start a conversation about what the state could do to lower these rates. And when we do it, it turns out to be a lot of hot air.

Kennedy’s suggested that the state create its own, basic flood insurance program with the federal program as a catastrophic backstop that might allow combined rates overall to come down. He figured this possible as state authorities could factor in to pricing elements such as locally-built levees not considered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in its determination of flood risk used by the National Flood Insurance Program. He said a similar state insurer, Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, might serve as a model.

Whether that would produce an outcome of lower aggregate pricing is anybody’s guess, but Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon sees certainly it would increase the administrative complexity. He also noted this is not something the state unilaterally could do in any event, for changes to federal law would have to be made to alter its nature to accommodate.

Appointment reaction reminds of liberalism's bankruptcy

It was the Braindead Goes Wild when the larger world learned of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s appointment of Family Research Council Pres. Tony Perkins to a state commission, illustrating the intellectual bankruptcy of today’s liberalism and the surrender of any rational thinking by some homosexual support lobbies.

In April, Jindal tabbed Perkins to join the Commission on Law Enforcement as one of his 26 appointees to the 55-member body, which provides policy advice and direction on law enforcement and public safety issues. While the FRC is located in Washington, DC, Perkins still lives in Baton Rouge and is a former law enforcement officer and state legislator.

Unnoticed at the time, only last week did this raise any ruckus as groups that have advocated for special rights in public law for those who practice homosexuality condemned the decision ratified months ago, echoing the bigots that comprise the Southern Poverty Law Center that brand the FRC a “hate group.” This provided talking points parroted by the mainstream media and other hangers-on drinking the Kool-Aid.

Reject extensive retirement arrangments oversight by LA

A proposal by state Sen. Troy Brown scored him a small press notice, but makes one wonder whether it will turn into just another exercise of big government.

Brown announced that, in a few months hence, he will file legislation establishing a state program aimed at small business employee retirement options, which he describes as “a simple, cost-effective system of tax-qualified retirement savings accounts for private-sector employees. Generally, the idea is to provide employees whose employers do not offer retirement benefits a way to pool their voluntary payroll deductions through a statutorily-established framework. The retirement savings would be invested as a pool in low-risk investments with reduced fees as compared to an individual trying to build up a retirement nest egg.”

He put the word out now because he plans to invite business and employee groups to give comments and make proposals relevant to the idea. Whatever product emerges he argues fills a need, for only half of all private sector workers have access to a sponsored plan of some kind, and a majority of those receiving Social Security report it is at least half of their income.

LA economic performance validates conservative policies

It’s tough being an economic leftist in Louisiana these days. After five years of economic mismanagement, from whatever the motivation, by Pres. Barack Obama and Democrats in Washington, with so little to defend at the national level, liberals in the state turn to its economic performance to try to restore their faith in their untenable ideology. But while the state as whole got more good news on that front last week, to them it simply was more of the bad variety.

It turns out that the state set a jobs record last month, getting pretty close to two million employed. Better, it came as a result of strong private sector hiring in the face of small declines in public sector jobs. That makes the state only one of 14 that has added jobs since the recession began in 2008 followed by the Obama-inspired jobless “recovery,” and has done so now for three straight years. Even the only potential negative to this report, the unemployment rate higher than last year is because the workforce has expanded so significantly, and that rate of 7 percent still is below the national rate of 7.3 percent where the expansion of the workforce has been much slower, if not retracting, than Louisiana’s.

Add to this a rising household median income that is among the fastest in the nation which has gained 4.2 percent over the past dozen years while the nation’s has fallen 6.6 percent – with this drop essentially all during the Obama presidency – and a slowly but continuously falling poverty rate over the past few years even as Obama’s economy continues to create more poverty nationally. At the current rates of change, by the next decade Louisiana’s poverty rate will be lower than the national average and by the end of that decade its median income will be higher.

Don't buy DOJ assertion it doesn't oppose LA vouchers

Realizing the gravity of its situation, has the federal government folded up in its attempt to impede Louisiana’s scholarship voucher program? Chances are the legal tussle may be only beginning, because the federal government insists on bending the law to fulfill an ideological purpose.

Yesterday, Pres. Barack Obama’s Department of Justice, out of the blue, released a letter to the media declaring that quick resolution was at hand concerning its lawsuit against the state. DOJ sued Louisiana over the program that allows students in underperforming schools to receive state aid to attend schools of their choices, almost always private ones, because it said about 560 of these students were in districts under court desegregation orders and that courts had to supervise these transfers even if they changed minutely the racial balance even in schools largely racially balanced.

The note, actually a reply to an inquiry by U.S. House Speaker John Boehner about the legality and purpose of the action, said that the state had turned over information that it sought, or promised it would soon, and that the federal government was awaiting court action on the suit to determine whether there was a violation. It also repeated that “we are neither opposing … nor seeking to revoke vouchers from any student.”

Implemeting Common Core must avoid federal overreach

The tempest in a teapot colloquially known as the Common Core State Standards surged again with the statement of a Louisiana legislator that he would file legislation hoping to block their implementation next year, and Gov. Bobby Jindal asking state education leaders to take questions surrounding that seriously. That this debate features more light than heat nonetheless does not mean it should be settled either definitively for or against CCSS.

State Rep. Cameron Henry claimed in the letter to Jindal that implementation of these standards shifted oversight from parents to bureaucrats, were not scrutinized prior to adoption, overrides state choices in curriculum, educational standards, and the “proper role of parents and teachers,” through its testing mechanism violates privacy rights, and imposes additional costs. He wrote not only that he would file legislation to halt implementation at the last minute, but also asked Jindal to complement that effort by getting the Department of Education, run by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education through its appointed superintendant John White, to stop the process.

For his part, Jindal asked White to review with Henry these concerns but said little beyond previous comments about then issue, where he cautioned that the CCSS effort not become the imposition of a federal curriculum. However, Jindal does not have any formal authority over this kind of policy, except for his ability to appoint but not remove three of the 11 members of BESE to an unlimited number of terms. And, to date, White and BESE have shown little enthusiasm for any substantive changes to the course; in fact, Louisiana was one of the initial adopters and leaders of the effort in 2010, shaping the concept more than most because the allied testing program that goes along with it largely replicates what Louisiana already does.

Federal rule change to hurt LA health care delivery

Last week, Pres. Barack Obama’s Department of Labor threw a sop to labor unions that creates yet another potential financial crisis for Louisiana.

The department issued rules regarding the Fair Labor Standards Act which wiped away the exemption to pay minimum wage and overtime to unskilled home health care workers. While a minority of states already mandates minimum wage or higher payments and/or overtime to these workers, Louisiana is among the majority that does not have to pay $7.25 an hour or time-and-a-half for any work over 40 hours. Unions long have wanted this because this boost in pay could make unionization more attractive for these workers with the potential increase in pay that could justify union dues.

While a good deal of the market involves families paying from their own resources or from insurance to a person or organization, in Louisiana a significant portion of the quarter billion dollars a year spent on Medicaid waiver programs is on reimbursements for hiring these workers. The state contracts to agencies, paying a specified rate. From that, agencies set their own wages and overtime policies with an eye to having enough left over to stay in business. Also impacted by this change would be the state’s fledgling self-direction program, where families are given Medicaid dollars to hire their own workers. These would have no choice but to pay the higher rate if they are not doing so already (which many do, given the savings from reduced bureaucracy from them taking on that function), but that reimbursement rate fluctuates with some hours budgeted as many as two bucks below $7.25, meaning depending on circumstances for some it could cause hardship.

Dardenne should stop whining, start privatizing

As previously noted, complaints about funding for Louisiana’s Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism are the norm for its chief Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne because of his political ambitions. But if he really wants to set himself apart from other gubernatorial contenders in 2015 as well as serve the state better, a change in tune from asking for handouts to helping himself would do the trick.

So far, as the state has faced fiscal pressures in the past few years, annually Dardenne has moaned that (1) his department isn’t getting enough money overall, (2) some of statutory dedications that could go to operating expenses instead are directed to funding special events, and (3) funds that could be used for capital items are getting diverted to operating costs. Almost certain to run for governor in two years, he has kept up this drumbeat of criticism as funding for parks has decreased from over $33 million to under $32 million, and for the department from $87 million to $80 million since he assumed the job in 2010 (a percentage reduction below many state agencies) because the relative powerlessness of the office becomes even more pronounced the fewer resources he has to use.

Last week, he harped again on the last gripe when lamenting about how repairs are coming so slowly for the most-visited of all state parks, Fontainebleau, concerning its dozen cabins that often are reserved months in advance still out of service after Hurricane Isaac. He repeated his refrain that in the past six years the removal of money from the State Park Repair and Improvement Fund, some $34 million worth, could have gone to repairs, among other capital items. However, using the discretionary authority in the law (clarified this year), over that span Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Legislature have chosen to use that on operating expenses, leaving a $20.4 million backlog and a empty fund.