Four Courageous Teachers in Louisiana

Last spring, four teachers in Calcasieu Parish in Louisiana decided “enough is enough” when Governor Bobby Jindal rushed through his legislation targeting teachers and attacking public education.

They decided they would launch a campaign to recall Jindal and House Speaker Chuck Kleckley. None had ever been politically active before.

You have to understand that Bobby Jindal–at this moment in time–owns Louisiana politics, lock, stock, and barrel. The teachers’ campaign was akin to a petition drive against the emperor of Rome.

Their campaign didn’t get very far. They didn’t have an organization or money, and they didn’t collect enough signatures to get on the ballot.

“The petitions required signatures from at least one-third of the registered voters in an election district. In the case of Jindal, it would have been about 965,000 signatures statewide. For Kleckley, it was roughly 9,000 signatures.

In each case the required reports were filed 56 days late. When they were filed, the reports reflected little financial activity.

The Jindal recall campaign showed $525 in receipts and no disbursement.

The Kleckley effort showed $1,600 in receipts and no disbursements.”

The Republican party spent $100,000 to quash the recall effort, and it filed a complaint with the state Ethics Board because the teachers did not file their campaign disclosure documents in the required 45 day period; they were 11 days late.

The two teachers who led the effort, such as it was, were fined $1,000 each.

I had planned to ask readers of this blog to raise the money to pay their fines, but an anonymous donor in Louisiana has already stepped up and done it.

The teachers were acting on their own, as citizens in a democracy. I would have gladly shown my support for them.

This is the same Ethics Board that ruled a few weeks ago that it was no conflict of interest for a member of the State Board of Education to award a contract to a business that had given him or her a campaign contribution.

Source:  http://dianeravitch.net/2012/12/24/four-courageous-teachers-in-louisiana/

Bobby Jindal: Bring the Rhetoric Home!

Source:  Louisiana Progress - Dec. 7, 2012

Gov. Jindal called for Republicans to rethink their approach to the so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations and instead fight for structural reforms, such as instituting a federal balanced budget amendment, requiring a super majority to raise taxes or creating term limits.

 

While he didn't suggest that Republicans should drop their opposition to tax increases on the wealthy, he argued that the party's focus should be elsewhere.

 

Jindal wrote in an op-ed published in Politico, "[I]n the negotiations, Republicans certainly should fight to at least get something done that will matter. At present, any reading of the headlines over the past week indicates that Republicans are fighting to protect the rich and cut benefits for seniors. It may be possible to have worse political positioning than that, but I’m not sure how."

 

Pot Meet Kettle… 

 

Clearly the reinvention of Governor Bobby Jindal and his national political rhetoric has skewed his reality.   

 

Back in the Real World of Louisiana: 

 

Louisiana has not had a balanced budget in the five years of the Jindal Administration.  Every year, the budget is patched together with one-time money and massive mid-year budget cuts.  In fact, a group of Republican legislators have revolted against the Governor over his poor fiscal management.

 

Louisiana continues to eviscerate higher education, social services, health care and public education, but finds the money to give away massive tax breaks to out of state corporations.

 

Big Business Tax Breaks 

 

As Jindal continues to tout his ever changing personality as the kinder and gentler Republican, Louisiana Budget Project estimates that, "Louisiana spends at least $1.79 billion a year on corporate subsidies and incentive programs at the state and local level, which comes to $394 for every man, woman and child in the state.”

 

LBP’s analysis of Louisiana’s tax exemptions found that the cost of “tax incentives and exemption contracts administered by the Department of Economic Development climbed from $59 million in 2001 to nearly $400 million a decade later—a 573% increase.”

 

The state capital outlay budget is always over subscribed to available funding and managing debt is a principal function of the state budget.

 

Dismantling Services to Children, Seniors and Disadvantaged

 

There is always enough money for big out of state businesses, but no money for the people--funding for schools has been frozen, public hospital are shuttered and the average working family still struggles to make ends meet.

 

Meanwhile, the schools are crumbling, the universities are withering, the public hospitals are being sold at bargain prices.

 

Louisiana would rather make out of state national health care and insurance conglomerates rich, rather than focusing on providing adequate access to health care to Louisiana citizens.

 

The impact of political rhetoric and positioning on the national stage….

• How about refusing to cover the 124,000 children and 771,000 adults (20% of Louisiana) who are uninsured through the Affordable Care Act?
• How about denying the citizens of Louisiana the opportunity to create a health insurance exchange and design our own package of Essential Health Benefits?

What is the Impact of National Political Positioning?

 

Governor Jindal considers himself a possible 2016 presidential contender and has embarked on a campaign to rebrand himself and his party since the election. Last month, Jindal told Politico, “We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything. We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

 

It is clear that the political rhetoric from Governor Jindal gives on the national level does not match the actions here in Louisiana. If being Governor of Louisiana is the job he wants, as he always says, then maybe he should fix the mess in Louisiana. 

 

Out of state, out of touch and out of ideas…

Sotomayor tells Sesame Street: ‘Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career’

By Kay Steiger
Friday, November 9, 2012 13:39 EST

Supreme Court Justice Justice Sonia Sotomayor offered some real talk to to Sesame Street character Abby about princesses and careers. 

Sotomayor explained that a “career is something that you train for and prepare for and plan on doing for a long time,” but when Abby says she wants to be a princess, Sotomayor shut that down pretty quickly.

“Abby, pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career,” Sotomayor said.
Abby replies, “You’re right. I guess a princess isn’t really a job.”

Instead, Sotomayor suggested, Abby could be “a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer and even a scientist.” She explained how she got to be a Supreme Court justice, to which Abby replied, “Wow, that sounds important.”

“It is,” Sotomayor confirmed.

Take that, Disney.

Watch the video, uploaded to YouTube by Sesame Street on Nov. 9.

Jindal Approval Sinks Like A Stone - School Vouchers Opposed By Majority

Source:  http://dailykingfish.com/2012/10/02/jindalsinking/

64-61-51

Those are Bobby Jindal’s last three approval numbers in a SMOR Survey.

This is what a flailing Governor looks like.

Jindal is watching his political career tumble down the drain, and he has started to panic.

Earlier this week Jindal announced a very startling staff shake-up, dumping his Chief of Staff without a cited reason:

In two weeks, Gov. Bobby Jindal will have a new budget adviser and a new chief of staff.

The governor’s chief of staff, Stephen Waguespack, announced his resignation Monday, severing career ties with the governor that began during the 2007 campaign.
“From the beginning of our work to build a better Louisiana, Stephen has been by my side as a trusted adviser and a friend. He helped shepherd through monumental policy reforms that will have a lasting and positive impact on our state,” the governor said in a prepared statement.Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater will replace Waguespack on Oct. 14. Replacing Rainwater will be the governor’s deputy chief of staff, Kristy Nichols.

And now a Southern Media and Opinion Research Poll Find Jindal sinking. It’s no surprise, but 89% of those surveyed don’t like Jindal’s slash and burn of the public Charity Hospital.

More startlingly, Jindal’s prized voucher program is opposed by 54% of Louisianians:

The poll shows Gov. Bobby Jindal with a 51 percent approval rating. That compares with 61 percent last spring and 64 percent a year ago.

Reductions for the LSU-operated charity hospital system are particularly unpopular. Eighty-nine percent said they were concerned by the cuts. Seventy-nine percent said the charity system would not be able to provide the same quality of health care, and 80 percent said Louisiana residents would lose access to health care as a result.
Among the poll’s other findings:

• On the issue of school vouchers, 54 percent were opposed.
• Salaries for state executives and political appointees were a hot button issue with 86 percent saying annual salaries of $175,000 and above are excessive or not justified.
• 47 percent favor eliminating tax exemptions to increase state revenue compared to 35 percent opposed, which tracks with widespread opposition to deeper budget cuts.
• 69 percent said the Legislature should be more independent from the governor

Bad news all around. #Vouchergate is going well for Team Jindal. Nor are his high-priced public employee hires.

And it looks like the tax credit monster is about to bite Jindal back…

Jindal isn’t worried, however. He’s spent the last week campaigning for judges in Iowa, in some fields of dreams.

Top 10 Reasons Wealthy Segregationists Want Urban Charter Schools

• Urban charter schools require minimal public investment in physical plants, library programs, the arts, science labs, athletics, personnel, and transportation infrastructure.
  
• Urban charter schools are cheaper because they depend upon an endless stream of young beginning teachers with few benefits, no retirement payouts, and no collective bargaining.
• Urban charter schools make it easy to segregate based on race, economics, gender, and disability.
• Urban charter schools allow for the exclusion or dumping of problem students whose abilities, behaviors, or test performance that could damage to the charter brand.
• Urban charter schools make it easier to hide the problems of the poor by pointing to testing success by those who survive the charter gauntlet.
• Urban charter schools allow for the imposition of cultural and psychological control techniques in urban areas that are not subject to public scrutiny.
• Urban charter schools put decision-making and control into the hands of unelected executives with no oversight beyond hand-picked board members.
  
• Urban charter schools (not-for-profit CMOs) allow corporations and wealthy donors to reap huge tax benefits for their generosity to corporate charter schools.
• Urban charter schools (for-profit EMOs) expand business opportunities for the education industry & testing-industrial complex.
• Urban charter schools make it possible to take the state tax dollars saved from the forced choice of urban charters and use that money to enrich suburban public schools without raising taxes.

Read entire article here.

Bobby Jindal vs. Public Education

Education Reform in Louisana: A Metaphor

Jo Bob's Car Dealership in NY wants to start selling repo'd cars in Louisiana. The cars have no warranties, and Jo Bob sure doesn't drive one (he's got a limo), but he knows he can charge double for these cars if he sells them out-of-state because nobody outside of NY knows Jo Bob's reputation when it comes to selling questionable, after-market cars with no warranties.

So Jo Bob flies to Louisiana in his fancy corporate jet. He starts wining & dining politicians to get their permission to sell his questionable cars in Louisiana. The politicians really enjoy eating Kobe steak and drinking expensive wine, so Jo Bob gets his way.

The governor tells Jo Bob he can come on down here and sell his cars to people in LA. He won't even have to register his cars in LA because the governor feels pretty sure he's going to tell consumers the truth about the quality of his repo'd cars. Jo Bob goes to the same church as the governor, after all - he's gotta be a good guy!

Jo Bob knows lots of poor people live in LA, so he figures out a way to sell his cars here - even to poor folks! He proposes that, if someone wants to upgrade their clunker of a car for one of his cars, the state will pay for it with public tax dollars! It's helping the PUBLIC, after all, right?? "What a great idea - I can make that happen," says the governor!! They celebrate at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, then Jo Bob flies the governor to NY in his private jet for a week to raise some money for his wife's foundation. (It's for the kids, of course.)

Word gets out about Jo Bobs car deal, and ol' Mary Lou decides she doesn't like her 1992 Dodge Caravan. It runs, and could be fixed - but she is unemployed, has four kids, a deadbeat ex-husband, and a mortgage she can't pay. Mary Lou hears that she can get a "BRAND NEW CAR" from Jo Bob, who is a fancy car salesman from NY - and she can get her new car for FREE because the governor passed a law saying: if you don't like your car, lemme get you a new one on Mike Stone's nickel just because I'm a swell guy & want you to have the best car EVER.

The governor tells her, "We'll just send the monthly car note to good ol' Mike Stone (a random name) and he'll cover it for you. ln fact, I'll guarantee that Mike will pay that note for you," says the governor," because I'll deduct it out of his paycheck! Now, I won't let him vote on it...I'll just get all the wined & dined legislators to vote in Jo Bob's favor because Jo Bob sure seems to have a sweet deal going in NY, and ALL the politicians in NY love him, and he's spent ALL this money wining & dining us. It's a win/win situation for everybody! And good ol' Mike is legally obligated to back us on this decision because I committed to the deal with Jo Bob two weeks ago while Mike was in the hospital recovering from a near-death experience!"

The governor listens to Jo Bob while they're lounging at the Country Club one Wednesday. Jo Bob assures him that can sell more cars than Yokem, Wray Ford, Red River Chevy and Holmes Honda combined. The governor know these dealerships have been here for a long time, built the economy, warrantied their cars, contributed to the tax base, created lots of jobs, and been generally good corporate citizens, but heck, they don't WINE AN DINE US like Jo Bob does!

Jo Bob is the charter school industry.

You are Mike Stone, buying questionable cars for other people against your will.

Mary Lou is the parent who doesn't get involved in fixing public education because she's just trying to survive a crappy economy and raise her kids the best she knows how. Now, she's gonna have an un-warrantied car which may or may not get her & her children to work and school. Oh, and by getting a car from Jo Bob, she forfeited public transportation for her & her kids FOREVER.

The existing car dealerships are our public schools - they were doing what they were supposed to be doing based on the rules they'd been given, but now the rug's been pulled out from under them and they're scrambling to compete on a suddenly unequal & largely politicized playing field.

And Jo Bob is laughing all the way to the bank. He'll cash out & fly back to NY, leaving a few cars sputtering along I-20 for a year or so until their owners realize they'd have been better off buying a dang used Honda from Fred, their next-door neighbor who works at Holmes Honda. But no one can do that now because Holmes went out of business when everybody decided to buy Jo Bob's shitty cars, and his next-door neighbor Fred is now unemployed & living on welfare in his mom's basement.

L.E.A.R.N. Protests Gov. Jindal's Privatization of Public Education in LA

See photos from the protest here.

"I grew up in the public education system in Louisiana and I got a fantastic education. It pulled me out of a family that had lived in poverty forever. My son will be graduating next year and going to a state school, and every child in the state of Louisiana should have the same opportunities that he does," says member of the movement and parent, Debbie Engle."

Read entire story here:  http://www.ktbs.com/news/Citizens-gather-to-protest-education-reform-bill/-/144844/12533166/-/k3ibjj/-/index.html
_______________________________________________________________

Visit the L.E.A.R.N. website for news and updates.
_______________________________________________________________


"Teacher Mike Myers said the future of Louisiana's education will no longer be in the hands of community members who hope to better the areas in which they grew up, but instead will be corporate start-up charters looking to make a profit off of Louisiana's $8 billion-a-year education system.

'These carpetbagger schools are going to come in solely to get their hands on public money,' he said. 'They have no interest in bettering local education.'

Debbie Engle, a parent of a junior at C.E. Byrd High School, said her son is a successful student garnering excellent grades and acing standardized tests. However, she wishes more students had the same opportunities as her son and the state was working more to help teachers and classroom instruction.

'Public education is under attack, and it's about money and political favor,' she said."

Read the entire story by Times reporter Mary Nash-Wood here:  Grass-roots organization assembles ed reform protest

The Daily Solution

What if college courses were available FREE to anybody with an internet connection?

How many world problems could be solved by millions of well-educated people?

What if professors selflessly volunteered to educate people outside their university walls - people who could never afford to attend a class at MIT or Harvard?

Here's your daily solution, friends:

"MIT and Harvard are each pouring $30 million into a nonprofit partnership edX, which they hope will make the top-notch faculties and courses of their schools available for free to millions of people around the world -- free for anyone with an Internet connection."

"At the core of this program is a belief that the excellence of the education available at MIT and Harvard should be available -- in an online format -- to anyone who has the commitment and desire to make it through an online course.

It's a reminder that these schools aren't just institutions with long, venerable histories, but also collections of living people -- people whose values and ideas shape how these universities exist in the world today."

Read entire article here:  'The Single Biggest Change in Education Since the Printing Press' - The Atlantic

Schools for the Corporate Era

Gov. Bobby Jindal (Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

Gov. Jindal has reshaped Louisiana's public education system based on ALEC's blueprints

By Julianne Hing, Colorlines.com

Gov. Bobby Jindal has remade the Louisiana public schools system with impressive speed over the past legislative session. Last week, he signed into law a suite of landmark reform bills that will likely change the direction of public education in Louisiana forever. But not all change is good, and critics say both Jindal’s agenda and the strategy to move it come right from the playbook of conservative advocacy group ALEC, in an effort to revive Jindal’s national political profile.

Louisiana is now home to the nation’s most expansive school voucher program. Charter school authorization powers have been broadened. And teacher tenure policies have been radically transformed. Louisiana already had something of a reputation as a radical-reform state, thanks to the post-Katrina educational climate in New Orleans. But not all change is good, and education advocates have deep concerns about the efficacy of Jindal’s overhaul, and the interests that have pushed it.

“With these laws Gov. Bobby Jindal has sold our kids out for his political aspirations,” said Karran Royal Harper, a Louisiana parent activist and education advocate.

The bills all sprinted through the state legislature. Committee hearings were conducted at a breakneck speed, Democratic lawmakers complained, and members were asked to vote on amendments they didn’t actually understand. When the House took up a bill changing teacher-tenure rules, it ran the session past midnight, refusing to break until they called for a vote.

“There’s just so much more here than what our group can handle,” said Minh Nguyen, executive director of the Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans, a community advocacy group. “We don’t even have the capacity to handle all the bills that are being proposed right now and it’s been really challenging to us.”

ALEC’s 2010 “Report Card on American Education” (PDF) suggested that lawmakers overwhelm their opposition in exactly this manner. “Do not simply just introduce one reform in the legislature—build a consensus for reform and introduce a lot,” the report authors told ALEC members.

“Across the country for the past two decades, education reform efforts have popped up in legislatures at different times in different places,” the report authors wrote. “As a result, teachers’ unions have been playing something akin to ‘whack-a- mole’—you know the game—striking down as many education reform efforts as possible. Many times, the unions successfully ‘whack’ the ‘mole,’ i.e., the reform legislation. Sometimes, however, they miss. If all the moles pop up at once, there is no way the person with the mallet can get them all. Introduce comprehensive reform packages.”

One new law Jindal moved in this fashion will make Louisiana among the most aggressive states in the nation for pushing charter schools and publicly funded vouchers for private institutions. It also includes a “parent trigger” provision, where parents whose children are enrolled in a failing school can hand the school over to Louisiana’s Recovery School District if a majority choose to do so.

However, the key provision expands New Orleans’ current pilot voucher program so that now, students from high-poverty families enrolled in schools that have been rated a C, D or F by the state may move to a private school at the state’s expense.

More than half of Louisiana’s student population, or around 385,000 students, are expected to qualify for the voucher program, according to Tulane University’s Cowen Institute. Only 4,000 vouchers will be available in the first year, experts estimate, but the law makes Louisiana’s program the most expansive in the nation.

Jindal’s set of reforms hews closely to the model reform legislation set out by ALEC, which advocates for the privatization of traditionally public services, like health care, prisons and education. ALEC and Jindal’s school agenda is driven by a conservative ideology that believes private markets can help introduce efficiency and healthy competition into public institutions. As ALEC’s education report card in 2010 laid out, “Families need a market for K-12 schools. The market mechanism rewards success, and either improves or eliminates failure.”

ALEC and Jindal have kept close ties for some time now, education watchers in the state say.

“This is really ALEC at work. It’s a feather in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s cap—he has spent a lot of time traveling around the country lining up donor money and now he can say Louisiana is one of the few states that has a large choice environment,” said Harper, who pointed out that many of the key committee members who supported the legislation are ALEC members or have received campaign contributions from groups with ties to ALEC. Indeed, at its annual meeting last August, ALEC recognized Jindal with its coveted Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award for “outstanding public service.”

“It was a huge defeat for us,” said Damekia Morgan, the statewide educational policy and campaign director of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children.

Public “Accountability,” Private Free-for-All

Critics say the rushed process hampered conversation on the bills. The voucher bill in particular is still light on specifics about implementation. The state has yet to create a plan for evaluating the private schools that take public vouchers. Evaluation wasn’t even mentioned until a vague amendment that calls for “an accountability system for participating students at participating schools” to be hammered out by the state board of education by Aug. 1.

The lack of an accountability plan is telling, says Morgan. The standards that are devised don’t need to come again before the public before they are codified. “This is all supposedly about demanding accountability for public schools and here we’re handing off our students to private schools without any checks,” Harper also said.

In addition, the parent trigger provisions are also too vague, education advocates say. In California, the lack of specificity around that state’s parent trigger law led to protracted court battles when a community first made use of the law.

These sorts of bills have an undeniable appeal for parents, especially poor parents of color who’ve been locked out of decision making circles and feel like their concerns have often gone ignored by public school administrators. Yet education advocates say that these bills provide only the veneer of choice for parents, while removing parents’ avenues for demanding accountability via collective action.

The parent trigger portion of the new Louisiana laws, for instance, allows for public schools to be converted only to charter schools. The laws give parents no avenue for re-triggering a failing charter school, of which there are many. And while lawmakers hope that parents feel empowered by school vouchers, their options for where they can place their children will be limited to the private school options on the table.

“Clearly these options are not full choice for parents,” said Andre Perry, associate director of Loyola University’s New Orleans’ Institute for Quality and Equity in Education. Perry said his concern was that these reforms, while bold, don’t get to the heart of how educational inequity is created in the first place. Instead, what lawmakers are voting for, Perry said, “is a belief in a philosophy that’s being applied in the name of choice.”

“It’s a catch-22 for parents,” said Damekia Morgan, the statewide educational policy and campaign director of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children. “Parents are desperate for change. But as a parent myself, I know that the more money we take away from public education systems to go to private entities, the less control I have over what public education looks like.”

Hijacking Obama’s Agenda

These days, the push to deregulate public education is a popular, bipartisan issue. Many of the states that have passed school reform overhauls in recent years did so to become eligible for the Obama administration’s $4.3 billion competitive grants program Race to the Top.

“Republican governors, shrewdly, jumped all over it and packed on their version of choice,” Perry said. “That’s how you see what we have now, where many different political bedfellows are coming together in a strange way.”

Indeed, Jindal spoke the language of the Obama administration last Wednesday when he touted his reform package as a way to help Louisiana children better compete in the global economy.

“[Louisiana children] are going to be competing with kids not only from Texas, Georgia, and other states, but they’re going to be competing for jobs with kids in China and other countries around the world,” Jindal said. “That is why it is so important we give every child in Louisiana a great education.” It could have been a line out of one of President Obama’s own education speeches.

This is one of the reasons why Perry says the presence of ALEC in the school reform policy arena isn’t reason enough for an outcry. Not only is ALEC not the only conservative group pushing for a free market approach to public education, but “there are pillars of each party that push the agenda.”

“The question is more about: what is so compelling about their arguments that is helping advance their agendas? Again, Jindal has been able to usher this through partly because the traditionally based system has failed in many ways. And that’s just the reality.”

Call your local State Farm agents. Tell them you want the company to Ditch ALEC!

More evidence your activism is working! 

ALEC has announced that it is disbanding its "Public Safety and Elections Task Force," the working group responsible for advancing model legislation like the controversial Voter ID and "Shoot First" gun laws that have proliferated around the country. 

Of course the move is a transparent attempt to stem the hemorrhaging of support ALEC's facing, thanks in large part to our efforts, but it's big symbolic victory and shows we have them on the defensive. 

ALEC's trying to whitewash their role pushing extreme legislation that endangers the safety and lives of Americans -- but we won't let them. 

ALEC now claims they will only focus on legislation that will 'put the economy back to work,' but will they work to undo the immense harm that have already caused? 

And it begs the question of how they will use a so called 'jobs agenda' to justify laws -- which they presumably will still be pushing -- that undermine workers' rights, privatize public education, and make it harder to hold corporations accountable for poisoning our air and water or selling us dangerous and defective products. 

We will continue to work with our friends to shine a light on ALEC's agenda and hold members accountable for supporting that agenda.

In another major victory, Blue Cross Blue Shield became the latest company to pull out of ALEC. We are going to keep up the momentum by turning the focus of our next round of grassroots pressure on State Farm.

Please use the link below to find the State Farm agents near you -- contact one or more of the agents directly and tell them you want the company to stop supporting ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

http://www.statefarm.com/agent/results.xhtml?ak_proof=1&zipCode=71104-3130

You can use the same call report form you've been using for calls to State Farm and Johnson & Johnson executives to let us know how your calls go.

Hopefully this local, bottom-up grassroots pressure will be what it takes to make State Farm join Blue Cross, McDonald's, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Intuit, Mars and the other companies who have so far said "enough" to ALEC's destructive right-wing agenda.

Thank you for your activism!

Do politicians know anything at all about schools and education? Anything?

Tenth-graders in Springfied, Ill., last October. (AP photo)

ASK THIS | February 07, 2012

Diane Ravitch poses a dozen piercing questions on education and school policy. Some of them turn conventional thinking on its ear, and each could be a starting point for reporting on elections, from the presidency on down to local school boards.

By Diane Ravitch
gardendr@gmail.com

 

1.     Both Republican candidates and President Obama are enamored of charter schools—that is, schools that are privately managed and deregulated. Are you aware that studies consistently show that charter schools don’t get better results than regular public schools? Are you aware that studies show that, like any deregulated sector, some charter schools get high test scores, many more get low scores, but most are no different from regular public schools? Do you recognize the danger in handing public schools and public monies over to private entities with weak oversight? Didn’t we learn some lessons from the stock collapse of 2008 about the risk of deregulation?

 

2.    Both Republican candidates and President Obama are enamored of merit pay for teachers based on test scores. Are you aware that merit pay has been tried in the schools again and again since the 1920s and it has never worked? Are you aware of the exhaustive study of merit pay in the Nashville schools, conducted by the National Center for Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt, which found that a bonus of $15,000 per teacher for higher test scores made no difference? 

 

3.     Are you aware that Milwaukee has had vouchers for low-income students since 1990, and now state scores in Wisconsin show that low-income students in voucher schools get no better test scores than low-income students in the Milwaukee public schools? Are you aware that the federal test (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) shows that—after 21 years of vouchers in Milwaukee—black students in the Milwaukee public schools score on par with black students in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana?

 

4.     Does it concern you that cyber charters and virtual academies make millions for their sponsors yet get terrible results for their students?

 

5.     Are you concerned that charters will skim off the best-performing students and weaken our nation’s public education system?

 

6.     Are you aware that there is a large body of research by testing experts warning that it is wrong to judge teacher quality by student test scores? Are you aware that these measures are considered inaccurate and unstable, that a teacher may be labeled effective one year, then ineffective the next one? Are you aware that these measures may be strongly influenced by the composition of a teacher’s classroom, over which she or he has no control? Do you think there is a long line of excellent teachers waiting to replace those who are (in many cases, wrongly) fired?

 

7.     Although elected officials like to complain about our standing on international tests, did you know that students in the United States have never done well on those tests? Did you know that when the first international test was given in the mid-1960s, the United States came in 12th out of 12? Did you know that over the past half-century, our students have typically scored no better than average and often in the bottom quartile on international tests? Have you ever wondered how our nation developed the world’s most successful economy when we scored so poorly over the decades on those tests? 

 

8.     Did you know that American schools where less than 10% of the students were poor scored above those of Finland, Japan and Korea in the last international assessment? Did you know that American schools where 25% of the students were poor scored the same as the international leaders Finland, Japan and Korea? Did you know that the U.S. is #1 among advanced nations in child poverty? Did you know that more than 20% of our children live in poverty and that this is far greater than in the nations to which we compare ourselves?

 

9.     Did you know that family income is the single most reliable predictor of student test scores? Did you know that every testing program—the SAT, the ACT, the NAEP, state tests and international tests—shows the same tight correlation between family income and test scores? Affluence helps—children in affluent homes have educated parents, more books in the home, more vocabulary spoken around them, better medical care, more access to travel and libraries, more economic security—as compared to students who live in poverty, who are more likely to have poor medical care, poor nutrition, uneducated parents, more instability in their lives. Do you think these things matter?

10. Are you concerned that closing schools in low-income neighborhoods will further weaken fragile communities? 

 

11. Are you worried that annual firings of teachers will cause demoralization and loss of prestige for teachers? Any ideas about who will replace those fired because they taught too many low-scoring students?

 

12.  Why is it that politicians don’t pay attention to research and studies?

Add end

 

And another question that came to mind after the initial posting of this article: 

 

13.  Do you know of any high-performing nation in the world that got that way by privatizing public schools, closing those with low test scores, and firing teachers? The answer: none.

 

 

Photo by Jack Miller

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a distinguished historian of American education.

Bobby Jindal Is Mooning Louisiana

Source:  http://cenlamar.com/
by Lamar White, Jr. on February 5, 2012

A few days ago, The Wall Street Journal compared Governor Bobby Jindal’s plans for education reform to Newt Gingrich’s plans for a moon colony. And they weren’t being facetious or ironic. Quoting from their article “Jindal’s Education Moon Shot“:

Newt Gingrich wants the U.S. to return to the moon, but as challenges go he has nothing on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s school reform plans.

Mr. Jindal wants to create America’s largest school voucher program, broadest parental choice system, and toughest teacher accountability regime—all in one legislative session. Any one of those would be a big win, but all three could make the state the first to effectively dismantle a public education monopoly.

In an attempt at praising Jindal’s “reform” efforts, The Wall Street Journal unwittingly reinforced something most rational people already understand: Like Gingrich’s pitch for a colony on the moon, Jindal’s plan for education is irrational, untested, grandiose, and absurd. But at least they got one thing right: While Jindal and company attempt to convince us that they’re merely proposing scholarships, the simple and obvious truth is that they are calling for “America’s largest school voucher program.” Let’s get this out of the way: Jindal’s voucher plan is comically infeasible and impractical. From The Times-Picayune:

Under Jindal’s plan, about 380,000 students would qualify to receive state aid for tuition at a private or religious school, (Senator) Landrieu pointed out.

But even if every private elementary school in the state could immediately grow its enrollment by 10 percent to accommodate an influx of voucher recipients, only about 8,000 seats would be available. Include private high schools and that figure rises to about 11,200.

Jindal, by the way, did not dispute these numbers. He didn’t dispute that his voucher plan cannot and will not work, that there is no possible way he could ever deliver on his promise. Instead, his spokesperson said that Senator Landrieu was “missing the point.” No, no, she’s not. She’s speaking precisely on point: Jindal cannot deliver right now.

Thus far, unfortunately, teacher unions and the superintendents are playing right into Jindal’s hands. The teacher unions are harping on teacher pay and benefits; the superintendents, who stand to gain even more discretionary powers, are distancing themselves as quickly as possible, hoping to appear as apolitical as possible. I wonder, though: Are any of these people aware of the end-game here? Because Jindal’s proposals about performance-based pay and tenure are just window-dressing. On their own, they’re radical, to be sure, but not nearly as radical as Jindal’s end-game. Ultimately, Jindal’s goal, as The Wall Street Journal notes, is not merely to create the country’s “largest voucher program;” it’s about using taxpayer dollars to establish an undemocratic, unprotected parallel education system.

Senator Landrieu points out that we simply don’t have enough private-school openings to accommodate even a fraction of the kids to whom Jindal plans to give vouchers. She’s right, and on its surface, this makes Jindal’s plan foolish. Except vouchers aren’t really the issue either. Surely, Jindal is smart enough to know his numbers simply don’t add up, that there is no possible way he could ever deliver vouchers to even 5% of the kids who qualify. It’s a sham. And it’s meant to be a sham. It’s meant to provide the Governor with the ability to establish a threshold of public dollars per student that Louisianans would be willing to contribute toward the development of a parallel charter and for-profit education system and infrastructure. And he’s aiming at $8,500 per student per year. Again, this is precisely why Mr. Jindal unveiled his program in front of the largest group of business lobbyists in the State of Louisiana; there is a ton of money to be made in privatizing public education.

Mr. Jindal’s proponents will likely point to the charter school model created in New Orleans after the storm. There are many good people doing exceptional things in charter schools and in the Recovery School District, but sorry, it’s absolutely absurd to attribute any marginal successes in New Orleans education to a business model. When charters fail and when charters go bankrupt, which is the case more often than proponents would have us believe, it can be abruptly catastrophic for students and their families. And because of the way most charters are structured, there is little to no accountability when they fail.

I, for one, am tired of Bobby Jindal “experimenting” with Louisiana. Despite the fact that his diploma is from one of the finest public high schools in the country, Baton Rouge Magnet, I don’t believe he is an advocate for public education. For months, my buddy Zack Kopplin, a fellow graduate of Baton Rouge Magnet, pestered the public and the media about the Louisiana Science Education Act (the LSEA). If you need any evidence that Mr. Jindal doesn’t care about the quality of public education, then all you need to do is look at the LSEA, a pernicious and likely unconstitutional piece of legislation that allows public schools to substitute science with religion, a piece of legislation that was brought to you and funded through the generous contributions of the radical religious right– groups like the Discovery Institute and the (in my opinion, shady) Louisiana Family Forum. Mr. Jindal, a Biology major from Brown, likely knows better; he was even criticized by his own college biology professor. But while Mr. Jindal doubled-down on the radical right and signed a bill undermining the integrity of science education in our public schools, Zack did something else: He received endorsements from over 71 Noble Prize laureates calling for a repeal of the law. You know how many Nobel laureates have endorsed Governor Jindal? None. Zero.

When he signed the LSEA, Governor Jindal wasn’t guided by any metrics of academic performance; he wasn’t concerned with preserving the integrity of the institution of public education. Mr. Jindal was merely playing politics. And so it is with his proposed overhaul of education.

The inconvenient truth, ironically, is that public schools in Louisiana have improved during the last few years. Our graduation rates have increased by nearly 6% since 2001; we’re closing the so-called “achievement gap;” test scores are up. There’s no reason to suddenly panic, and certainly, there’s no basis for attempting to completely overhaul the entire education system.

Louisiana, we don’t need to be, once again, turned into Bobby Jindal’s experimental laboratory. We tried that once before, when he was Secretary of the DHH, and it didn’t work out well at all.

Mr. Jindal, despite his impressive academic pedigree, is and has always been manifestly and vehemently opposed to a robust and successful public education system. Our charter schools in New Orleans may be performing better than comparable schools were before the storm, but, really, so what? Who is to say that our public schools wouldn’t have rebounded just as well, had they only been given the same resources, priorities, and treatment as our charters? We strip money from public education, give it to private and quasi-private charters, and then, we wonder about why charters are out-performing public schools. We’re being dangerously naive.

Louisiana is still at the bottom of many public education rankings, and without any doubt, there is a lot of work to be done. But think about this: Every single state that is ranked higher than Louisiana is working with the same toolkit. They’re not giving millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to build a parallel system of education more adept at maximizing private-sector profits (no, this is definitely Bobby Jindal’s “moon shot”); they’re beating Louisiana because they’re investing in themselves. We, on the other hand, are being led by a man who seems all too eager and willing to privatize the most important public institution in the United States of America- the right to an education.

If Bobby Jindal wants to reform public education in Louisiana, then he needs to go back to the drawing board. If he is serious, then he needs to begin talking with educators instead of business lobbyists and radical fundamentalists. If anyone should profit from public education, it should be the people who actually invest their own money, not those who use public dollars for the expressed purpose of dismantling public education.

And if not, Jindal will continue to moon all of us, as he flies toward America’s newest extraterrestrial colony, a slab of rock hurling around the earth, a place that appears in phases and adheres to its own cycles, a land called Gingrich.

Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

 March 9, 2012

Source:  AlterNet / By Christopher Bonastia

As a parent I find it easy to understand the appeal of charter schools, especially for parents and students who feel that traditional public schools have failed them.

As a historical sociologist who studies race and politics, however, I am disturbed both by the significant challenges that plague the contemporary charter school movement, and by the ugly history of segregationist tactics that link past educational practices to the troubling present.

The now-popular idea of offering public education dollars to private entrepreneurs has historical roots in white resistance to school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The desired outcome was few or, better yet, no black students in white schools. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, one of the five cases decided in Brown, segregationist whites sought to outwit integration by directing taxpayer funds to segregated private schools.

Two years before a federal court set a final desegregation deadline for fall 1959, local newspaper publisher J. Barrye Wall shared white county leaders’ strategy of resistance with Congressman Watkins Abbitt:

“We are working [on] a scheme in which we will abandon public schools, sell the buildings to our corporation, reopen as privately operated schools with tuition grants from [Virginia] and P.E. county as the basic financial program,” he wrote. “Those wishing to go to integrated schools can take their tuition grants and operate their own schools. To hell with 'em.” 

Though the county ultimately refused to sell the public school buildings, public education in Prince Edward County was nevertheless abandoned for five years (1959-1964), as taxpayer dollars were funneled to the segregated white academies, which were housed in privately owned facilities such as churches and the local Moose Lodge.

Federal courts struck down this use of taxpayer funds after a year. Still, whites won and blacks lost.

Because there were no local taxes assessed to operate public schools during those years, whites could invest in private schools for their children, while blacks in the county—unable and unwilling to finance their own private, segregated schools—were left to fend for themselves, with many black children shut out of school for multiple years. 

Meanwhile, in less blatant attempts to avoid desegregation, states and localities also enacted “freedom of choice” plans that typically allowed white students to transfer out of desegregated schools, but forced black students to clear numerous administrative hurdles and, not infrequently, withstand harassment from teachers and students if they entered formerly all-white schools.

When some segregationists began to acknowledge that separate black and white schools were no longer viable legally, they sought other means to eliminate "undesirables."

Attorney David Mays, who advised high-ranking Virginia politicians on school strategy, reasoned, “Negroes could be let in [to white schools] and then chased out by setting high academic standards they could not maintain, by hazing if necessary, by economic pressures in some cases, etc. This should leave few Negroes in the white schools. The federal courts can easily force Negroes into our white schools, but they can’t possibly administer them and listen to the merits of thousands of bellyaches.” (Mays vastly underestimated the determination of individual black families and federal officials.)

These nefarious motives may seem a far cry from the desire of many charter school operators to “reinvent” public education for students whom traditional public schools have failed.

In theory, these committed bands of reformers come with good intentions: they purport to bring in dedicated teachers who have not been pummeled into complacency; energize their students by creating by a caring, rigorous school environment; and build a parent body that is inspired (in some cases compelled) to become more involved in their children’s education both inside and outside the school. And in some cases, charter schools deliver what they promise. In others, however, this sparkling veneer masks less attractive realities that are too often dismissed, or ignored, as the complaints of reactionaries with a vested interest in propping up our failed system of public education.

Read the entire article here.

Women Deliver 50: the 50 most inspiring ideas and solutions that are delivering for girls and women

Source:  WomenDeliver.org

"Proverbs 1: 1-7" by DBE

Every year, in conjunction with International Women’s Day, Women Deliver celebrates the progress made on behalf of girls and women worldwide.

The “Women Deliver 50” is a compilation of the 50 most inspiring ideas and solutions that are delivering for girls and women. Out of hundreds of submissions from 103 countries around the world, a selection committee of experts and advocates from leading global non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and foundations narrowed the applications to 125 finalists.

These were then posted online and more than 6,000 individuals voted to select the 50 winners.

We would like to thank all the members of the selection committee, our partner organizations, and the voters who made the Women Deliver 50 such a success.

Continue reading below to learn more about the inspiring organizations and initiatives—from the grassroots to the global–that are pioneering real and lasting social change. We hope it gives you a renewed energy to work toward building a better world for girls and women.

Ordered Alphabetically by Organization

Advocacy and Awareness Campaigns
1. Helping Rural Communities Combat the Violence and Discrimination of Children and Women by Aawaaj
2. World Contraception Day by Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals and partners
3. The Partnership to End Child Marriage by Girls Not Brides
4. Girl Effect by Nike Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls
5. Because I Am a Girl by Plan International
6. Protecting Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights by The 30 for 30 Campaign
7. Real Men Never Hit Women by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
8. Every Woman Every Child by the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General
9. Libyan Women's Charter by Voice of Libyan Women
10. Promoting Women's Health and Human Rights in the Struggle to Address HIV and AIDS by Women Won't Wait

Educational Initiatives
1. Hamlin College of Midwives by Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital
2. Hospitality Management and Entrepreneurship Degree Programs by Akilah Institute for Women
3. Chanan Theatre Group by Chanan Development Association (CDA)
4. Gender Integrated Education Program on Reproductive Health, STDs, and HIV/AIDS by Concern for Children and Women Empowerment (COFCAWE)
5. Skillz Street: Changing the Game for Girls by Grassroot Soccer
6. Innovative Participatory Health Educational Approach in South Sudan by University of Medical Sciences and Technology
7. Reducing Maternal Mortality in Haiti by Midwives for Haiti
8. Access to Teaching Scholarship by Teacher Education in Sub Saharan Africa (TESSA)
9. Equal Access to Education in Afghanistan by The Oruj Learning Center
10. Schools for Husbands by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Health Interventions

1. Post-abortion Care by EngenderHealth

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Post

2. Mobilizing Traditional Birth Attendants and Local Communities by Health Poverty Action

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Mobilizing

3. Reaching the Survivors of Coerced Marriages and Violence in Pakistan by Rahnuma Family Planning Association of Pakistan, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Women

4. Expanding Access to Safe Medical Abortion for Women in Their Communities by Ipas

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Abortion

5. Respecting Women: A Model Maternities Initiative by Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP)

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Respecting

6. Go Girls! Initiative by Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Go

7. Rescue for Survivors of Gender-Based Violence by Nairobi Women’s Hospital

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Rescue

8. Rape Crisis Center by Sister Somalia

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Rape

9. Let’s Save Our Mothers—Mobile Ante-Natal Services by Traffina Foundation http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Save

10. Disaster Risk Reduction Policy and Planning by Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC)

http://www.womendeliver.org/knowledge-center/publications/women-deliver-50/health-interventions#Planning

Health Interventions
1. Post-abortion Care by EngenderHealth
2. Mobilizing Traditional Birth Attendants and Local Communities by Health Poverty Action
3. Reaching the Survivors of Coerced Marriages and Violence in Pakistan by Rahnuma Family Planning Association of Pakistan, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
4. Expanding Access to Safe Medical Abortion for Women in Their Communities by Ipas
5. Respecting Women: A Model Maternities Initiative by Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP)
6. Go Girls! Initiative by Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs
7. Rescue for Survivors of Gender-Based Violence by Nairobi Women’s Hospital
8. Rape Crisis Center by Sister Somalia
9. Let’s Save Our Mothers—Mobile Ante-Natal Services by Traffina Foundation
10. Disaster Risk Reduction Policy and Planning by Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC)

Leadership and Empowerment
1. Africans Feeding Africa by Backpack Farm
2. Advancing the Social and Political Rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Questioning (LGBTIQ) Individuals by EQUAL GROUND
3. Youth Leadership Program for Commercially Sexually Exploited and Domestically Trafficked Girls and Young Women by Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS)
4. Adolescents Count Today by Family Health Options Kenya, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
5. Women First by International Relief and Development (IRD)
6. Abriendo Oportunidades (Creating Opportunities) by Population Council
7. UN Women by United Nations
8. Women’s Rights are Human Rights by Women for Afghan Women
9. Stop the Violence—Speak Out for Girls’ Rights by World Association for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS)
10. Addressing Poverty by Building the Capacity of Future Leaders by Women LEAD

Technologies and Innovations
1. Menstrual Kits by AFRIpads Ltd.
2. Teaching Young Women in Poor Urban Communities IT Skills by AkiraChix Association
3. Helping Babies Breathe Initiative by American Academy of Pediatrics, WHO, USAID, Saving Newborn Lives, the National Institute of Child Health and Development, and partners
4. Mobile for Reproductive Health (m4RH) by FHI 360, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
5. Prioritizing Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccines by GAVI Alliance
6. Addressing Postpartum Hemorrhage in Afghanistan and Nepal by Jhpiego
7. Obstetric Kits by Maternova
8. Woman’s Condoms by PATH
9. Tools to Bring Clean Energy Technology by Solar Sister
10. Eco-Friendly Sanitary Pads by Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)

To download a PDF of the winners, please click here.

Bobby Jindal: Cutting funds & killing Louisianians

From Brett Malone, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Center in Shreveport, LA:

"The CDC released it's annual surveillance report today for HIV/AIDS... it's not good, folks.

Louisiana is now ranked #2 for new AIDS diagnoses (rate of diagnosis per capita)…. Baton Rouge is now ranked #1 for new HIV infections (rate of diagnosis per capita)*...

THIS is what happens when the there is ZERO state funding for HIV prevention and EDUCATION (it's all related - and we're in this fight together, teachers!)... and our youth are suffering because of it (33% of new infections are with folks between 13-24yrs).

The only $$ for prevention is from federal sources - which are grossly insufficient to deal with an epidemic the size of the one we now have in Louisiana...

Ignorance (and lack of resources) lead to suffering... (and death)."

(*Pages 64 and 74 of Centers for Disease Control report)

Read CDC report here.

Play Ball! An opening day manifesto.

Today is the opening day of the 2012 Louisiana Legislative session.

This is the Louisiana we see.

1) The Governor’s so-called solutions to the state’s challenges are not about Louisiana; they are about his burning ambition to become the Republican nominee for President in 2016. Louisiana needs fixing, but we need real solutions that respond to the real needs of our state — not ideologically driven plans designed to raise your profile while driving down our state. “Hey Bobby, Stop Running for President on Our Backs!”

2) The Governor is calling on legislators to violate the Louisiana Constitution not once, but twice, just two months after taking an oath to uphold it. He wants legislators to ratify a decision rammed through the Board of Elementary & Secondary Education last month that would provide Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding for voucher students. This move violates Article VII, Section 13 of the Louisiana Constitution restricts the spending of MFP dollars to the support of public education. The Louisiana Constitution binds the government to honor the retirement commitments made to teachers, policemen, firefighters, and other public employees. Governor Jindal wants legislators to break those promises and to violate Article 10 Section 29 of the Louisiana Constitution. Hey Bobby, The Constitution Matters! Hands off the MFP and state worker retirements!

3) In every fiscal year that Bobby Jindal has been governor, the budget numbers endorsed by the administration during the session have not made it through the end of the calendar year, forcing mid-year budget cuts on the usual victims — higher education and healthcare. This year will be no different. This year the smoke and mirrors have smoke and mirrors. The first time the administration missed on the budget might have been an accident, the second time was on purpose, and now doctoring the budget numbers is a bad habit. The administration’s budget manipulation concentrates budget powers in its hands, beyond the reach of legislators. After four years of these sleights of hand, higher education has been decimated, healthcare providers are being choked, and essential health and mental health services are being eliminated. “Hey Bobby, your budget is a lie and people will die!”

4) The Governor and his minions says that the cuts are necessary because of tough times. That’s a lie! The governor says our economy is growing yet we can’t fund essential services. The real problem is that the Governor and the Legislature have given an unprecedented wave of tax exemptions to corporations and cut the highest rates on personal income taxes. These policies have benefited the most powerful interests in our state while forcing budget cuts that harm those who rely on state services. These are not cuts of necessity but are instead conscious choices of the Governor to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. “Hey Bobby! Stop the phony crisis; make your cronies pay!”

5) Since 1994, Louisiana has exempted severance tax payments on oil and gas obtained using directional drilling and fracking. This exemption alone has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in severance tax revenue that it otherwise would have gotten on natural gas produced in the Haynesville Trend in Northwest Louisiana — THE MOST PRODUCTIVE shale gas field in the United States. Severance taxes are the social contract between the people of this state and the energy companies that want access to our mineral resources. Denying the state severance tax revenues on that mineral wealth breaks the social contract. To deny us access to those severance tax revenues demonstrates (as did the BP Gulf Gusher) that the interests of the oil and gas industry and those of our state are not the same — and that, given a choice, the Jindal administration regularly sides with the industry against the people. “Hey Bobby! Which side are you on? LOGA’s or the people’s?"

6) The Governor says he wants to ‘reform’ the state employee retirement system. That’s a lie! He wants to tax state workers to fund his privatization schemes. The Governor says state employees should pay more of their wages to support their retirement. But, the Governor’s plan would not put that money into the retirement funds. No, he wants to put that additional money into the state General Fund to pay for things like privatizing state prisons, mental facilities and Medicaid services. “Hey Bobby! Tax the people who can afford it; leave state workers alone!”

7) The Governor says he values teachers and public education. That’s a lie! His voucher plan (even if constitutional) does not include even basic accountability for the billions in state tax dollars that will pour into the hundreds of new schools that would sprout up to tap this flush revenue stream. Parents will not have the tools needed to evaluate the quality of the private schools that they might want to use the voucher money to send their kids to attend. Vouchers and the attacks on teacher tenure are justified under the guise of accountability but the governor refuses to apply accountability to those who would receive the money as a result of his unconstitutional plan. “Hey Bobby! You’re a Hypocrite! Accountability for all — including you!”

8) Once again, the Governor wants to sell and/or privatize the operation of state prisons. This is a profoundly immoral proposal in this state with the highest per capita incarceration rate in the United States. The Governor would turn over Louisiana citizens — 70% of which are jailed for non-violent crimes — to the GEO Group, CCA or any other contributors to his campaigns and to the Louisiana Republican Party. He would sign long-term contracts with those companies to keep those jails filled. This is nothing less than human trafficking! Prisoners are humans. They are our brothers and sisters. We owe it to ourselves to do more than just warehouse them. Jindal has no policy in mind; it’s all about an ideological preference for privatization, mixed in with taking care of the people who support his campaigns and his party. “Hey Bobby! Don’t sell our prisons or our prisoners! Keep Louisiana out of the human trafficking business. ”

9) The Governor’s supporter Boysie Bollinger wants the right to take water from the Toledo Bend Reservoir (owned by the state) and sell it to Texas. Supposedly he wants to sell it to communities. Selling millions of gallons of water on a no-bid contract during worsening drought conditions in Texas and western Louisiana makes no sense. It would drop the water levels in Toledo Bend by at least a couple of feet, which would impact its value as a tourism and recreation destination — a vital business in the poor western parishes of the state. “Hey Bobby! We want clean air and clean water, for our sons and our daughters!”

10) Finally, the Governor and his allies want legislators to hurriedly rubber stamp his reckless, hastily conceived proposals. The Legislature is a coequal branch of government. The Governor can propose but legislators must decide. Bobby Jindal will be long gone before the impact of these proposals is fully clear. Legislators who are being asked now to defer to his judgment will be left holding the bag when the contents of it hits the fan. “Hey Legislators! Do Your Jobs! Think don’t follow!”
_______________________________
Source:  L.A.J.U.I.C.E.

Mission:  To change the political conversation in Louisiana by engaging the Jindal administration and its allies in an asymmetrical conversation during the 2012 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature.

Description: LAJUICE is the place for you! Bobby Jindal has proposed a radical series of proposals that would wreck public education, put essential state responsibilities in the hands of private corporations, turn the Louisiana budget into a revenue machine for private companies while gutting state services, and continue the massive wealth transference from Louisiana's middle class to the wealthiest families and corporations in our state. We recognize that these initiatives are not about what is best for Louisiana but what will best position Jindal to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2016.

Jindal will be long gone before the ruinous impact of his policies becomes fully evident. We will be left to clean up the mess.

We must resist and we must stop him now. We can do that by standing together to resist his divide and conquer approach to securing the victories he seeks by standing together and delivering a resounding "NO!"

Jindal was re-elected by winning a majority of one of the smallest turnout elections in our state's history. He was given no mandate to wreck our state! Whatever mandate he thinks he has, we are urging our fellow citizens to stand together and take it back!