One could sense the collective yawn and rolling of the eyes when Gov. Bobby Jindal urged two separate commissions on down-sizing state government and higher education to be bold, to think big and to come up with recommendations that won't just gather dust on a shelf, as has happened in the past.
Skepticism abounds, for these advisory panels, like those before, can think outside their boxes all they want, but it's the governor and the Legislature who have to follow through to make government institutions any smaller, as has not happened in the past.
This time, however, with state revenues in steep decline for years to come, change is going to happen, the only question being if and how government and higher education will work when it is all done.
One would think Jindal, with his big-picture vision and laser-like focus, would not need a couple of blue-ribbon commissions to tell him what needs to be done. Nor is the Legislature clueless.
What they both need is outside validation and broad-based public support for the hard political choices to curtail government services and shrink universities.
For that, the Commission on Streamlining State Government and the Postsecondary Education Review Commission could prove useful, not to mention quick and cheap for government work.
With only four months to report back, the streamlining commission is taking a broad look at state government instead of drilling down into each agency. "We want to make sweeping recommendations," said its chairman, Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville, with the aim of saving hundreds of millions of dollars.
Off the top of his head, he suggests centralizing human resources and technology support instead of every agency having its own staffs for those functions. The governor urged the streamliners to look at merging some state agencies and privatizing and outsourcing the work of others.
Comprised mostly of state officials and with minimal operating expenses, if the streamliners come up with one $10 million idea that the Legislature buys, the effort won't be wasted.
The higher education commission, however, needs to do better than that, given the serious and growing shortfalls for college budgets. There are those who won't be satisfied with anything less than the closure of three or four of the state's 14 four-year universities. That's not going to happen.
According to a web site that tracks universities that have closed, since 1945, the number of public four-year colleges in the country to shut down is three: in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. More four-year colleges have become two-year schools, but as major economic engines of any community, they don't just go away.
Instead, the governor asked the commission, comprised mainly of out-of-state experts and Louisiana private citizens, to look at right-sizing the schools we have. In Louisiana, 75 percent of college students attend four-year universities and only 25 percent go to community colleges, while nationwide, it's closer to 50-50.
The governor proposed a solution straight out of Economics 101: raise admission requirements at four-year schools in order to divert more marginal, less-prepared students to community colleges, where the cost per credit hour is far cheaper, both for the state and the student.
The economic impact of the poor graduation rates of Louisiana universities is seen in students who flunk out or quit after a few semesters, but are saddled with their student loans for years. If the same students start at community colleges, they would borrow less with far greater chances of earning associate degrees, which lead to better jobs or admission to four-year schools.
Enticing unprepared students to take out loans to go to universities where they will fail morally equates to the worst practices of the sub-prime mortgage industry.
The idea of raising admission requirements is not new, but neither has it been embraced by university leaders and their local legislators, who fear losing enrollment on which funding and jobs are based. Fortunately, the colleges have a voice but not a vote on the college commission.
That will make it easier, or at least possible, for the panel to make and validate the kind of bold recommendations the governor will need to build public support around. It's going to take a lot.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Both Sides Hit Landrieu on Healthcare
Sen. Mary Landrieu plans to host a town-hall meeting on healthcare reform later this month somewhere in the river parishes. Bring a helmet.
That would be the advice of Democratic congressmen around the country who have been booed, heckled, shouted down and threatened while trying to explain and/or defend their positions on health insurance legislation, particularly the 1,017-page bill that will be on the House floor when lawmakers return from August recess.
Republican operatives and conservative talk show hosts have been blamed for or credited with whipping up the masses, but they didn't wholly manufacture the genuine anger, fear and confusion over an omnibus bill that people felt was being jammed down on them.
Even before the facilitators got involved, one of the first such outbursts of public wrath took place in Reserve, La., last month, when a national rural listening tour of federal Cabinet secretaries, particularly Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, received a hostile earful from a loud and angry crowd. The prospect of walking into another raucous town-square shout-out doesn't seem to rattle Landrieu, who has been attacked already over national healthcare--not by conservatives but by liberals in her own party.
Last month, advocacy groups MoveOn.org and Change Congress ran radio and TV ads, respectively, that painted Landrieu as a toady for the insurance industry because she opposed a government-run health insurance option. She was urged to get in line with other Democrats supporting the government plan that would compete with private insurance.
One month later, the worm it is a-turning. Even before the town-hall riots of August, the notion of a federally-run insurance program, the centerpiece of the House bill, was starting to founder in the Senate.
There, negotiations over an elusive bipartisan bill have been moving away from the government option toward coverage offered by a network of non-profit member-owned cooperatives, which would be subsidized by the feds but run by the states. Though the bipartisan Senate bill has not taken full shape, it alone among the major bills under consideration would rein in the growth of federal healthcare spending over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The notion of more local control diminishes fear of Big Brother with a needle. Yet critics point out that under a subsidized co-op plan, like with a government plan, cheaper rates would lure many businesses who now offer insurance to employees to drop their private plans for the public model. So when the president says that if you like your insurance policy you can keep it, he should add, "unless your boss chooses the government option or co-op for you."
Landrieu has similar reservations about the government and employers determining the coverage for workers. She and 11 colleagues--six Democrats, six Republicans--have co-sponsored the Healthy Americans Act, which would grant individuals, instead of employers, substantial tax deductions to use to purchase insurance in the marketplace.
Everyone would be required to have insurance, but the government would subsidize those with low incomes. Employers would be required to increase wages to replace what they were spending on health insurance. And insurers could not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. It sounds too reasonable and straightforward to be taken seriously in Congress, and it hasn't been yet.
A large number of Democrats will not let go of the government option, while many Republicans still oppose required coverage and more government rules. Frustrated Democrats, angered by the mobbish disruptions in the heartland, might urge the president to pass a bill without any GOP votes.
They would do so at their peril, for passing a law is only the first step. Making that much change work, at what cost, and getting the people to like it, will be how healthcare reform is won, or lost. Sen. Landrieu, meanwhile, seems comfortable on the middle ground she has staked out, though she is scorned on the left and distrusted on the right.
Yet the longer she stays there, the closer the debate seems to move toward her. Down home later this month, armed only with her centrist plan, she will stride into the valley of the town-hall meeting, where, who knows, both sides might stop shouting long enough to listen.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Personal Spats Hold Back School Change
By John Maginnis
Whatever success Gov. Bobby Jindal may claim in the recent legislative session does not extend to his K-12 education agenda, which lawmakers trashed. Not only did the administration-backed package of bills to rein in the power of school boards fail to go anywhere, but passage of a controversial career diploma bill, which Pastorek opposed but the governor signed, could mark a big step backwards from the gains made in student accountability over the past decade.
So it's not surprising that the session barely ended before the blame games began—with emphasis on games, as played on schoolyards.
Legislators complained that state school Superintendent Paul Pastorek was abrasive and talked down to them.
Pastorek said the teacher unions and school boards badmouthed him in order to defeat bills that threatened them.
The governor said one of his appointees, Tammie McDaniel, was stirring up trouble on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and he asked her to resign.
She said no, because the constitution said she didn't have to.
McDaniel requested and was granted a meeting with the governor at the Mansion, but when she arrived, she found deputy chief of staff Steve Waguespack sitting in, which made her "uncomfortable." The governor explained that's how things are done in his office. She decided not to stay and drove back to Oak Ridge. The governor's staff leaked word to columnists that she walked out on him and that she was rude. Was not, she said.
Thankfully, the bell rang: recess over.
Now can we have a reasonable conversation about what needs to be changed with schools and school boards and how to get that done? Personalities will always play a role in how public policy is formed, but too often they are the excuses rather than real reasons for failure.
Whether or not Pastorek treated legislators and school board members with the deference they think they deserve obscures the point that he's right: that local school boards should stick to policy and let superintendents and principals run the schools, without the politicians' advice and consent on which school bus drivers must be hired or cafeteria workers promoted.
If micromanagement was the biggest problem that needed correcting, it should have been the main focus, if not the entirety, of the education change agenda. Instead, that issue was sidetracked by debate over term limits and pay limits for school board members, which made it easier for school board and teacher lobbyists to mobilize opposition to the whole package of bills, all of which failed.
Pastorek points out that it took seven years for education advocates to pass a bill against micromanagement in the Texas legislature, and that, despite attempts, a school board term-limits bill never passed there. So why even try a term-limits bill here if the distraction makes it harder to pass a micromanagement bill? Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.
As for the spat between Bobby and Tammie, the governor is now resigned to the fact that he appointed a loose cannon and now can't get rid of her. He has three appointments to BESE and eight members are elected, so her independence poses a challenge for the administration, but hardly an insurmountable one. McDaniel, a former teacher and principal, denies that she is for the status quo and insists that she most often supports Pastorek's policies in principle. She has the chance to prove it, especially now that Jindal has singled her out.
If personal differences can be set aside, BESE has work to do. An immediate challenge is to fashion a curriculum for the new career diploma track that doesn't make hash of the hard-won improvements in student accountability and ending social promotions. While the career track could help in reducing the dropout rate, it will hurt if it also reduces the graduation rate for the academic track. The danger is that many marginal students, who would otherwise tough it out for a real diploma, will choose the path of least resistance, toward a dead end. The Legislature didn't address those details; BESE must.
For their part, the governor and legislative leaders must play a stronger role on future legislation to change how public schools are governed and managed. Otherwise, they will just be spectators when the education community gets into another schoolyard brawl.
Whatever success Gov. Bobby Jindal may claim in the recent legislative session does not extend to his K-12 education agenda, which lawmakers trashed. Not only did the administration-backed package of bills to rein in the power of school boards fail to go anywhere, but passage of a controversial career diploma bill, which Pastorek opposed but the governor signed, could mark a big step backwards from the gains made in student accountability over the past decade.
So it's not surprising that the session barely ended before the blame games began—with emphasis on games, as played on schoolyards.
Legislators complained that state school Superintendent Paul Pastorek was abrasive and talked down to them.
Pastorek said the teacher unions and school boards badmouthed him in order to defeat bills that threatened them.
The governor said one of his appointees, Tammie McDaniel, was stirring up trouble on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and he asked her to resign.
She said no, because the constitution said she didn't have to.
McDaniel requested and was granted a meeting with the governor at the Mansion, but when she arrived, she found deputy chief of staff Steve Waguespack sitting in, which made her "uncomfortable." The governor explained that's how things are done in his office. She decided not to stay and drove back to Oak Ridge. The governor's staff leaked word to columnists that she walked out on him and that she was rude. Was not, she said.
Thankfully, the bell rang: recess over.
Now can we have a reasonable conversation about what needs to be changed with schools and school boards and how to get that done? Personalities will always play a role in how public policy is formed, but too often they are the excuses rather than real reasons for failure.
Whether or not Pastorek treated legislators and school board members with the deference they think they deserve obscures the point that he's right: that local school boards should stick to policy and let superintendents and principals run the schools, without the politicians' advice and consent on which school bus drivers must be hired or cafeteria workers promoted.
If micromanagement was the biggest problem that needed correcting, it should have been the main focus, if not the entirety, of the education change agenda. Instead, that issue was sidetracked by debate over term limits and pay limits for school board members, which made it easier for school board and teacher lobbyists to mobilize opposition to the whole package of bills, all of which failed.
Pastorek points out that it took seven years for education advocates to pass a bill against micromanagement in the Texas legislature, and that, despite attempts, a school board term-limits bill never passed there. So why even try a term-limits bill here if the distraction makes it harder to pass a micromanagement bill? Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.
As for the spat between Bobby and Tammie, the governor is now resigned to the fact that he appointed a loose cannon and now can't get rid of her. He has three appointments to BESE and eight members are elected, so her independence poses a challenge for the administration, but hardly an insurmountable one. McDaniel, a former teacher and principal, denies that she is for the status quo and insists that she most often supports Pastorek's policies in principle. She has the chance to prove it, especially now that Jindal has singled her out.
If personal differences can be set aside, BESE has work to do. An immediate challenge is to fashion a curriculum for the new career diploma track that doesn't make hash of the hard-won improvements in student accountability and ending social promotions. While the career track could help in reducing the dropout rate, it will hurt if it also reduces the graduation rate for the academic track. The danger is that many marginal students, who would otherwise tough it out for a real diploma, will choose the path of least resistance, toward a dead end. The Legislature didn't address those details; BESE must.
For their part, the governor and legislative leaders must play a stronger role on future legislation to change how public schools are governed and managed. Otherwise, they will just be spectators when the education community gets into another schoolyard brawl.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Moving Up by Staying Put
By John Maginnis
Simply by staying still, the political stars of the state's top two elected leaders are on the rise.
Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu announced last week he would not run for mayor of New Orleans next year, opting to stay in Baton Rouge, closer to his ultimate goal. Good choice. Even if he were to be elected mayor, hardly assured, the office historically is a dead end for political careers, even if he were to succeed in bringing the city together, also hardly assured. For his future, the best job is the one he has.
The same can be said for Gov. Bobby Jindal, for now anyway. His national star dimmed somewhat this year, but at least it didn't flame out, like those of now-former Republican presidential aspirants Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, both politically destroyed by their recently exposed extra-marital affairs. Their falls are significant because both had recently eclipsed Jindal, following his dreadful nationally televised speech in February, especially dynamic fellow Southerner Sanford.
On another front, Jindal, doing nothing again, also looked good compared to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who stunned Republicans and disturbed some too by announcing her resignation mid-term. She will make a fortune on the speaking circuit and can focus freely on a potential presidential bid, but some Republicans see her move as erratic and opportunistic.
It might seem like a low bar, but just by honoring his marriage and keeping his job, Bobby Jindal is looking better and better as a leader in the Republican Party.
Yet, unless things change drastically, he most likely is no rival to Palin for the presidential nomination in 2012, nor is he to others mentioned as top early contenders: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, even Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
The Louisiana governor, however, holds an important distinction compared to them all. Given Pawlenty's decision not to seek a third term in 2010, by then Jindal will be the only one of the above serving in public office. So much for the rap on him that he doesn't stay in any job for long. By 2012, seasoned by re-election, Jindal would make an attractive vice presidential candidate for any one of them.
Although he passed on being considered for the second spot on John McCain's ticket last year, next time will be different. If tapped, win or lose, he would be the party's likely frontrunner for 2016 or 2020, when he's 45 or 49.
Over the next three years, Jindal's star need not rise so much as just hold steady, while he stays prepared. Meanwhile, nobody's star is hitched so closely to his as is Landrieu's.
Before his announcement, the lieutenant governor said his decision would be based on where he could do the most good, in City Hall or the State Capitol. So we have his answer. Many hope that means he will challenge Jindal's re-election in 2011. Already he has assumed leadership of the Democratic opposition, criticizing the governor's funding cuts to education and healthcare and his refusal to consider tax increases.
Yet it's a stretch to see Landrieu taking his fight to Jindal on the ballot. Unless the governor is much less popular in two years than he is now, Landrieu's long-term, even short-term prospects lie with the unique office he holds.
In 2010, if Jindal (though he says he won't) challenges and defeats U.S. Sen. David Vitter, and then wins the general election, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
In 2012 (assuming they are both re-elected), if Jindal is tapped to run for vice president, and the Republicans win, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
In 2014, if Jindal, late in his second term, challenges U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu—or she doesn't seek a fourth term—and he wins, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
If none of the above happens, in 2015, with Jindal leaving office, the political pendulum could well swing back to the Democrats. In which case, barring some upstart, at age 55, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
So, until then, why go anywhere? Patience and perseverance are not qualities ascribed to either man, but practicing such could get them both where they want to go.
Simply by staying still, the political stars of the state's top two elected leaders are on the rise.
Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu announced last week he would not run for mayor of New Orleans next year, opting to stay in Baton Rouge, closer to his ultimate goal. Good choice. Even if he were to be elected mayor, hardly assured, the office historically is a dead end for political careers, even if he were to succeed in bringing the city together, also hardly assured. For his future, the best job is the one he has.
The same can be said for Gov. Bobby Jindal, for now anyway. His national star dimmed somewhat this year, but at least it didn't flame out, like those of now-former Republican presidential aspirants Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, both politically destroyed by their recently exposed extra-marital affairs. Their falls are significant because both had recently eclipsed Jindal, following his dreadful nationally televised speech in February, especially dynamic fellow Southerner Sanford.
On another front, Jindal, doing nothing again, also looked good compared to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who stunned Republicans and disturbed some too by announcing her resignation mid-term. She will make a fortune on the speaking circuit and can focus freely on a potential presidential bid, but some Republicans see her move as erratic and opportunistic.
It might seem like a low bar, but just by honoring his marriage and keeping his job, Bobby Jindal is looking better and better as a leader in the Republican Party.
Yet, unless things change drastically, he most likely is no rival to Palin for the presidential nomination in 2012, nor is he to others mentioned as top early contenders: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, even Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
The Louisiana governor, however, holds an important distinction compared to them all. Given Pawlenty's decision not to seek a third term in 2010, by then Jindal will be the only one of the above serving in public office. So much for the rap on him that he doesn't stay in any job for long. By 2012, seasoned by re-election, Jindal would make an attractive vice presidential candidate for any one of them.
Although he passed on being considered for the second spot on John McCain's ticket last year, next time will be different. If tapped, win or lose, he would be the party's likely frontrunner for 2016 or 2020, when he's 45 or 49.
Over the next three years, Jindal's star need not rise so much as just hold steady, while he stays prepared. Meanwhile, nobody's star is hitched so closely to his as is Landrieu's.
Before his announcement, the lieutenant governor said his decision would be based on where he could do the most good, in City Hall or the State Capitol. So we have his answer. Many hope that means he will challenge Jindal's re-election in 2011. Already he has assumed leadership of the Democratic opposition, criticizing the governor's funding cuts to education and healthcare and his refusal to consider tax increases.
Yet it's a stretch to see Landrieu taking his fight to Jindal on the ballot. Unless the governor is much less popular in two years than he is now, Landrieu's long-term, even short-term prospects lie with the unique office he holds.
In 2010, if Jindal (though he says he won't) challenges and defeats U.S. Sen. David Vitter, and then wins the general election, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
In 2012 (assuming they are both re-elected), if Jindal is tapped to run for vice president, and the Republicans win, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
In 2014, if Jindal, late in his second term, challenges U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu—or she doesn't seek a fourth term—and he wins, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
If none of the above happens, in 2015, with Jindal leaving office, the political pendulum could well swing back to the Democrats. In which case, barring some upstart, at age 55, Mitch Landrieu is the next governor.
So, until then, why go anywhere? Patience and perseverance are not qualities ascribed to either man, but practicing such could get them both where they want to go.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wit and Wisdom of the Louisiana Legislature
by John Maginnis
"Everything starts from a beginning," explained Rep. Henry Burns, which might seem like an obvious statement, except for legislators who learned to take nothing for granted in the recently adjourned legislative session, which was light on substance but slippery on process.
During it, first-term legislators learned a new word: "rookie-doo," a variation of "fugaboo," both used to express the schnookering of a member or the whole body. Such occurred when Rep. Avon Honey nonchalantly got the House to approve a "routine amendment," which effectively accepted the $98 million federal stimulus unemployment benefits that Gov. Bobby Jindal and his Republican legislative allies had vowed to reject.
Or when committee approval of a cigarette tax bill was foiled for lack of a quorum because two Republican members, Reps. Steve Carter and Frank Hoffman, hid out in the governor's office.
Incidents like that characterize a session, instead of soaring speeches and courageous votes, which didn't happen. Rather, it was the passing comment, the flip rejoinder, the clueless remark that defined this meeting of lawmakers and showcased the wit and wisdom of the 2009 Louisiana Legislature.
It started ominously, when a ceremonial delegation of legislators, sent to inform the governor that the Legislature had convened, didn't find Jindal in his office. Sen. Jody Amedee shrugged it off: "He was probably at a fundraiser."
The overriding and overwhelming issue of the gaping budget shortfall prompted an opening-day fashion statement from Sen. Lydia Jackson: "I'm wearing red so the bleeding won't show as much."
Looming deep budget cuts and the need to restore funding drew department heads to the Capitol on an almost daily basis, as Speaker Jim Tucker noted to Agriculture Commissioner and former legislator Mike Strain: "You've been here more than when you were here."
Lobbyists were there every day, though some recognized the futility of stopping budget-cutting measures advanced by the administration. "I'm here performing the armadillo form of lobbying," said Derrell Cohoon, representing highway contractors. "Stand in the middle of the road and get run over by a big truck."
A member rising for a point of order is to be recognized, or not, as when Rep. Hunter Greene, presiding, responded to a query: "I couldn't hear you, but the answer is no."
Sen. Joe McPherson saw a silver lining in an amendment, conceding, "It was a horrible bill to begin with. It's just a bad bill now."
The bill to ban smoking in bars went too far for Rep. Robert Johnson, who said his constituents told him, "We've elected you to represent us, not to babysit us."
Prolonged debate on the matter just made Senate President Joel Chaisson II thirsty. "All this talk about bars and restaurants," he said. "I think we should hurry up and get to one."
One of the weirder bills of the session, to prohibit experimentation with human-animal hybrids, brought a congratulatory note to the author from Speaker Tucker: "Sen. Martiny, your bill pa-a-a-ssed."
Also, the speaker left nothing to chance in planning the annual House-Senate basketball game, telling members. "An ambulance will be there. A doctor will be there. Come on out, it's going to be a lot of fun."
Rep. Karen Peterson thought she needed a doctor after a cabinet secretary, who earlier had tested positive for the swine flu virus, coughed on her in committee. She showed up the next day wearing a surgical mask. Rep. Jared Brossett offered the adjournment motion: "Mr. Speaker, I move the House stand adjourned until it is fully quarantined."
House-Senate relations, as usual, deteriorated in the closing days, to the point where Rep. Bodi White was hooted out of the Senate when he brought a message asking the upper chamber to rescind its amendment to freeze income tax deductions. Sen. Rob Marionneaux told him, "Take that missile that's halfway through your torso" back to the House.
Even differences were elusive, as when Rep. Kirk Talbot concluded, "We'll just have to disagree to disagree."
Prior to final adjournment, the House delegation sent to notify the governor returned to announce he indeed was there this time, and that, as a bonus, they also found Reps. Carter and Hoffman.
"Everything starts from a beginning," explained Rep. Henry Burns, which might seem like an obvious statement, except for legislators who learned to take nothing for granted in the recently adjourned legislative session, which was light on substance but slippery on process.
During it, first-term legislators learned a new word: "rookie-doo," a variation of "fugaboo," both used to express the schnookering of a member or the whole body. Such occurred when Rep. Avon Honey nonchalantly got the House to approve a "routine amendment," which effectively accepted the $98 million federal stimulus unemployment benefits that Gov. Bobby Jindal and his Republican legislative allies had vowed to reject.
Or when committee approval of a cigarette tax bill was foiled for lack of a quorum because two Republican members, Reps. Steve Carter and Frank Hoffman, hid out in the governor's office.
Incidents like that characterize a session, instead of soaring speeches and courageous votes, which didn't happen. Rather, it was the passing comment, the flip rejoinder, the clueless remark that defined this meeting of lawmakers and showcased the wit and wisdom of the 2009 Louisiana Legislature.
It started ominously, when a ceremonial delegation of legislators, sent to inform the governor that the Legislature had convened, didn't find Jindal in his office. Sen. Jody Amedee shrugged it off: "He was probably at a fundraiser."
The overriding and overwhelming issue of the gaping budget shortfall prompted an opening-day fashion statement from Sen. Lydia Jackson: "I'm wearing red so the bleeding won't show as much."
Looming deep budget cuts and the need to restore funding drew department heads to the Capitol on an almost daily basis, as Speaker Jim Tucker noted to Agriculture Commissioner and former legislator Mike Strain: "You've been here more than when you were here."
Lobbyists were there every day, though some recognized the futility of stopping budget-cutting measures advanced by the administration. "I'm here performing the armadillo form of lobbying," said Derrell Cohoon, representing highway contractors. "Stand in the middle of the road and get run over by a big truck."
A member rising for a point of order is to be recognized, or not, as when Rep. Hunter Greene, presiding, responded to a query: "I couldn't hear you, but the answer is no."
Sen. Joe McPherson saw a silver lining in an amendment, conceding, "It was a horrible bill to begin with. It's just a bad bill now."
The bill to ban smoking in bars went too far for Rep. Robert Johnson, who said his constituents told him, "We've elected you to represent us, not to babysit us."
Prolonged debate on the matter just made Senate President Joel Chaisson II thirsty. "All this talk about bars and restaurants," he said. "I think we should hurry up and get to one."
One of the weirder bills of the session, to prohibit experimentation with human-animal hybrids, brought a congratulatory note to the author from Speaker Tucker: "Sen. Martiny, your bill pa-a-a-ssed."
Also, the speaker left nothing to chance in planning the annual House-Senate basketball game, telling members. "An ambulance will be there. A doctor will be there. Come on out, it's going to be a lot of fun."
Rep. Karen Peterson thought she needed a doctor after a cabinet secretary, who earlier had tested positive for the swine flu virus, coughed on her in committee. She showed up the next day wearing a surgical mask. Rep. Jared Brossett offered the adjournment motion: "Mr. Speaker, I move the House stand adjourned until it is fully quarantined."
House-Senate relations, as usual, deteriorated in the closing days, to the point where Rep. Bodi White was hooted out of the Senate when he brought a message asking the upper chamber to rescind its amendment to freeze income tax deductions. Sen. Rob Marionneaux told him, "Take that missile that's halfway through your torso" back to the House.
Even differences were elusive, as when Rep. Kirk Talbot concluded, "We'll just have to disagree to disagree."
Prior to final adjournment, the House delegation sent to notify the governor returned to announce he indeed was there this time, and that, as a bonus, they also found Reps. Carter and Hoffman.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Democrats Size Up Senate Race
JUNE 22, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
Congressman Charlie Melancon has confirmed that he is actively considering challenging U.S. Sen. David Vitter for re-election next year. According to a statement from a campaign aide, the Democrat from Napoleonville is talking it all over with his wife and kids and plans to make an announcement in a few weeks.
Several political sources say he has been more definite with national Democratic campaign officials, telling them he plans to run.
While Melancon earlier this year seemed to have ruled out a Senate challenge, a renewed press by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, armed with a poll showing Vitter's vulnerability, got the three-term congressman to reconsider.
Besides conferring with the family, a final piece of unfinished business for Melancon would be a sit-down with businessman and fellow Democrat Jim Bernhard, who also has considered running. A friend of the Shaw Group chairman said he has been at his North Carolina retreat for two weeks making his own final decision on the race.
Yet Bernhard has been mulling this over for a year or more, to the impatience of state and national Democrats seeking a formidable challenger. Melancon fills that bill as an experienced lawmaker, a strong fundraiser and a proven natural campaigner.
Another factor driving Melancon's final decision is the alternative: he faces a tough re-election in 2010 in a House district that might not exist after the 2011 reapportionment.
Rep. Nickie Monica, R-LaPlace, is expected to announce his campaign for Congress in the 3rd District some time after the Legislature adjourns this week. Monica says he's been getting encouragement from business people and conservatives unhappy with the congressman's votes for the federal stimulus package and President Obama's first budget.
Beyond that, with the state likely to lose a congressional district after the next census, the 3rd, in the bayou region, could be cut up among other south Louisiana districts. Even if the 3rd remains intact, it stands to lose many of its African-American voters in the river parishes--Melancon's base--in order to maintain a minority district based in New Orleans.
Even if polls show Vitter, recovering from his sex scandal, having electability problems, a Democrat running for the Senate in the South in 2010 would have his own. Vitter has emerged as the principled opponent of nearly every Obama administration policy so far. He would try to tie Melancon to national Democrats' quest for a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority.
A leader of the moderate Blue Dog caucus in the House, Melancon would need to create some separation between himself and the liberal Democratic leadership. But he has left his flank exposed on an issue crucial to business interests. He will have to answer for his sponsorship of the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as card check, which would allow labor unions to organize workplaces through signed petitions instead of secret-ballot elections.
Vitter already is highlighting his virulent opposition to the legislation. National business groups plan to spend millions hammering away at the issue. By when they're through, card check will sound worse than adultery.
Republicans want to make this an election about national issues instead of a personal referendum on Vitter. Rather than a Blue Dog, critics already paint Melancon as a lapdog for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The GOP will warn that Melancon, if elected, will fall in behind the president and Senate Democrats on sweeping energy and healthcare legislation.
Which is why some local Democrats are hesitant to push Bernhard aside. His profile as a civic-minded, successful entrepreneur and his lack of a voting record would make him appealing to voters across the board and a moving target for GOP attacks. That independent streak, however, is problematic for Senate leaders not interested in dealing with a Democrat in name only.
Until the two Democratic heavyweights meet and emerge with one holding the other's fist up high, this race is not yet set.
Nor is it on the Republican side. Though Vitter is working to close party ranks, an attractive primary challenger to the incumbent could turn this election upside down, upsetting best-laid plans all around.
Should that come to pass, what an irony and a bummer it would be for Democrats to agree on the candidate they want, only to lose the opponent they need.
Congressman Charlie Melancon has confirmed that he is actively considering challenging U.S. Sen. David Vitter for re-election next year. According to a statement from a campaign aide, the Democrat from Napoleonville is talking it all over with his wife and kids and plans to make an announcement in a few weeks.
Several political sources say he has been more definite with national Democratic campaign officials, telling them he plans to run.
While Melancon earlier this year seemed to have ruled out a Senate challenge, a renewed press by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, armed with a poll showing Vitter's vulnerability, got the three-term congressman to reconsider.
Besides conferring with the family, a final piece of unfinished business for Melancon would be a sit-down with businessman and fellow Democrat Jim Bernhard, who also has considered running. A friend of the Shaw Group chairman said he has been at his North Carolina retreat for two weeks making his own final decision on the race.
Yet Bernhard has been mulling this over for a year or more, to the impatience of state and national Democrats seeking a formidable challenger. Melancon fills that bill as an experienced lawmaker, a strong fundraiser and a proven natural campaigner.
Another factor driving Melancon's final decision is the alternative: he faces a tough re-election in 2010 in a House district that might not exist after the 2011 reapportionment.
Rep. Nickie Monica, R-LaPlace, is expected to announce his campaign for Congress in the 3rd District some time after the Legislature adjourns this week. Monica says he's been getting encouragement from business people and conservatives unhappy with the congressman's votes for the federal stimulus package and President Obama's first budget.
Beyond that, with the state likely to lose a congressional district after the next census, the 3rd, in the bayou region, could be cut up among other south Louisiana districts. Even if the 3rd remains intact, it stands to lose many of its African-American voters in the river parishes--Melancon's base--in order to maintain a minority district based in New Orleans.
Even if polls show Vitter, recovering from his sex scandal, having electability problems, a Democrat running for the Senate in the South in 2010 would have his own. Vitter has emerged as the principled opponent of nearly every Obama administration policy so far. He would try to tie Melancon to national Democrats' quest for a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority.
A leader of the moderate Blue Dog caucus in the House, Melancon would need to create some separation between himself and the liberal Democratic leadership. But he has left his flank exposed on an issue crucial to business interests. He will have to answer for his sponsorship of the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as card check, which would allow labor unions to organize workplaces through signed petitions instead of secret-ballot elections.
Vitter already is highlighting his virulent opposition to the legislation. National business groups plan to spend millions hammering away at the issue. By when they're through, card check will sound worse than adultery.
Republicans want to make this an election about national issues instead of a personal referendum on Vitter. Rather than a Blue Dog, critics already paint Melancon as a lapdog for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The GOP will warn that Melancon, if elected, will fall in behind the president and Senate Democrats on sweeping energy and healthcare legislation.
Which is why some local Democrats are hesitant to push Bernhard aside. His profile as a civic-minded, successful entrepreneur and his lack of a voting record would make him appealing to voters across the board and a moving target for GOP attacks. That independent streak, however, is problematic for Senate leaders not interested in dealing with a Democrat in name only.
Until the two Democratic heavyweights meet and emerge with one holding the other's fist up high, this race is not yet set.
Nor is it on the Republican side. Though Vitter is working to close party ranks, an attractive primary challenger to the incumbent could turn this election upside down, upsetting best-laid plans all around.
Should that come to pass, what an irony and a bummer it would be for Democrats to agree on the candidate they want, only to lose the opponent they need.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
LSU Struggles with Hospital Power Plays
JUNE 8, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
Providing tickets for legislators to purchase for the national collegiate baseball tournament series at LSU last weekend was the least that school officials could do, given how much tumult, hostility and fear the university's issues have caused at the Capitol this spring.
The flagship's budget woes, leading those of all higher education, have been a source of rancor and tension between lawmakers and the administration. On top of that, an intense power struggle over the size, site and control of LSU's proposed teaching hospital and medical center in New Orleans has landed in the middle of the legislative session. With it comes the renewed bitter rivalry between LSU and Tulane, marked by some condescending statements about the city from the LSU president, veiled threats that the medical school might pull up stakes and an old-fashioned hallway shouting match between the state treasurer and a school official.
The controversy might be worth the unpleasantness if it had something to do with shaping the future of public healthcare and hospitals in Louisiana, but the state overall seems headed in the opposite direction from what it's trying to do in New Orleans. Yet, at $1.2 billion, the fate of the project commands the interest of legislators statewide.
LSU's proposal to build alongside a planned Veterans Administration hospital on a 70-block tract in the middle of the city is opposed by preservationists, some doctors and community groups that want it to rebuild the old hospital, which they argue is the faster, cheaper alternative for restoring a vital health asset. Supportive of their cause is Tulane University, whose medical center would be left isolated downtown if LSU and the VA relocated across elevated Interstate 10.
LSU officials are adamant it will not re-occupy the old building as long as it is responsible for public healthcare in New Orleans. That could change with passage of legislation by Speaker of the House Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, which would remove LSU from control of the medical complex and turn that over to an independent board of community stakeholders, including all local universities involved in medical education.
Tucker says he is not opposed to the new hospital complex, but wants LSU to stick to running its medical education program. He gets quiet support on that score from within the LSU community, where there are those who believe its healthcare responsibilities detract from its higher education mission.
Gov. Bobby Jindal supports the medical complex, but says he would sign Tucker's bill if it passes. What the governor really wants, he says, is for LSU to agree to have Tulane and other schools represented on the board of the non-profit governing corporation still to be formed. LSU, at first strongly opposed to power-sharing with Tulane, is becoming more amenable under pressure. If the two schools reach some accord, even at the point of the governor's shotgun, the larger challenge would be reaching a hurricane damage settlement on the old building with FEMA and selling Wall Street on its financial plan--some very big ifs.
That might leave the preservationists feeling jilted, but state and school officials agree that the iconic 1939 structure will be saved and put to new use.
The plan for the new medical complex, given its broad economic development potential, might sound like the future of public healthcare in Louisiana, but it more likely will be the last hospital the state ever builds. LSU has given up on erecting a new hospital in Baton Rouge and instead is forging a partnership with Our Lady of the Lake to train doctors and provide indigent care. The Jindal administration envisions gradually doing the same in other parts of the state. Except in Shreveport, where the high-quality University Medical Center is the model that LSU hopes to emulate in New Orleans.
The state's most forward-looking public hospital--which is ironic, given its original name, Confederate Memorial--trains LSU doctors, treats both private-pay patients and the uninsured, and turns a profit. It also is to its city what LSU had better learn to be in New Orleans, a responsive and respected member of the community.
Providing tickets for legislators to purchase for the national collegiate baseball tournament series at LSU last weekend was the least that school officials could do, given how much tumult, hostility and fear the university's issues have caused at the Capitol this spring.
The flagship's budget woes, leading those of all higher education, have been a source of rancor and tension between lawmakers and the administration. On top of that, an intense power struggle over the size, site and control of LSU's proposed teaching hospital and medical center in New Orleans has landed in the middle of the legislative session. With it comes the renewed bitter rivalry between LSU and Tulane, marked by some condescending statements about the city from the LSU president, veiled threats that the medical school might pull up stakes and an old-fashioned hallway shouting match between the state treasurer and a school official.
The controversy might be worth the unpleasantness if it had something to do with shaping the future of public healthcare and hospitals in Louisiana, but the state overall seems headed in the opposite direction from what it's trying to do in New Orleans. Yet, at $1.2 billion, the fate of the project commands the interest of legislators statewide.
LSU's proposal to build alongside a planned Veterans Administration hospital on a 70-block tract in the middle of the city is opposed by preservationists, some doctors and community groups that want it to rebuild the old hospital, which they argue is the faster, cheaper alternative for restoring a vital health asset. Supportive of their cause is Tulane University, whose medical center would be left isolated downtown if LSU and the VA relocated across elevated Interstate 10.
LSU officials are adamant it will not re-occupy the old building as long as it is responsible for public healthcare in New Orleans. That could change with passage of legislation by Speaker of the House Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, which would remove LSU from control of the medical complex and turn that over to an independent board of community stakeholders, including all local universities involved in medical education.
Tucker says he is not opposed to the new hospital complex, but wants LSU to stick to running its medical education program. He gets quiet support on that score from within the LSU community, where there are those who believe its healthcare responsibilities detract from its higher education mission.
Gov. Bobby Jindal supports the medical complex, but says he would sign Tucker's bill if it passes. What the governor really wants, he says, is for LSU to agree to have Tulane and other schools represented on the board of the non-profit governing corporation still to be formed. LSU, at first strongly opposed to power-sharing with Tulane, is becoming more amenable under pressure. If the two schools reach some accord, even at the point of the governor's shotgun, the larger challenge would be reaching a hurricane damage settlement on the old building with FEMA and selling Wall Street on its financial plan--some very big ifs.
That might leave the preservationists feeling jilted, but state and school officials agree that the iconic 1939 structure will be saved and put to new use.
The plan for the new medical complex, given its broad economic development potential, might sound like the future of public healthcare in Louisiana, but it more likely will be the last hospital the state ever builds. LSU has given up on erecting a new hospital in Baton Rouge and instead is forging a partnership with Our Lady of the Lake to train doctors and provide indigent care. The Jindal administration envisions gradually doing the same in other parts of the state. Except in Shreveport, where the high-quality University Medical Center is the model that LSU hopes to emulate in New Orleans.
The state's most forward-looking public hospital--which is ironic, given its original name, Confederate Memorial--trains LSU doctors, treats both private-pay patients and the uninsured, and turns a profit. It also is to its city what LSU had better learn to be in New Orleans, a responsive and respected member of the community.
Vitter Haunts Dardenne's Election Bill
JUNE 1, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
Call him paranoid, but Sen. David Vitter is taking no chances with any change in the law that could threaten his re-election next year--that is, more than he already has threatened it by his past association with an escort service in Washington, D.C.
The junior senator's acute sense of survival drew his attention to a seemingly harmless legislative bill concerning minor political parties that was offered by Secretary of State Jay Dardenne. While the bill, on its surface, had no effect on his candidacy, Vitter and Republican supporters approached it like it was the first skirmish of next year's election. For those keeping score, he won.
Dardenne was trying to avert an unforeseen consequence of the state's return to party primaries in congressional elections. His office crafted a bill that, in effect, would require the state to conduct primary elections for only the two major parties and not for the three other officially recognized but minor parties: Libertarian, Green and Reform. Combined they have about 5,000 members statewide.
Say, for example, a power struggle breaks out in the Libertarian Party, and two of its members decide to run for the U.S. Senate. Assuming multiple Democrats and Republicans ran, the ballot would list candidates under three separate party primaries. Trouble is, the state has invested in new computerized voting machines that only display two sets of primaries. Dardenne estimates it would cost $38 million to reprogram all the voting machines and to train voting commissioners on the lockout procedures, which, even as they now stand, proved to be confusing to voters and commissioners in last fall's elections.
Rather than go through all that, under the proposed law, if two minor party rivals could not settle their differences beforehand, both their names would appear on the general election ballot in November.
Enter Sen. Vitter, who cares not a whit about Secretary Dardenne's software concerns but seemed leery of his ulterior motives. Dardenne has said he is considering challenging Vitter in next year's Republican primary. According to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, Vitter called him a half dozen times to express concern that Dardenne would later try to have the bill amended to allow independents to vote in either party's primary. That would not suit the senator at all.
When the Legislature reinstated party primaries for congressional elections, it let the parties’ governing bodies determine which voters could participate in each. The Democrats opened their primary to independent voters, those unaffiliated with either party, while Republicans closed theirs to members only.
Vitter much prefers a closed GOP primary, because that would not give pesky independents the opportunity to vote against him should Dardenne or some other Republican challenge him.
Rep. Waddell wasn't the only one Vitter called. After the author and Dardenne explained the bill to the House & Governmental Affairs Committee and pledged to entertain no amendments, Rep. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, said he had received phone calls from individuals he did not name who were still concerned about the legislation.
That got a rise from assistant secretary Tom Schedler, who said no one contacted him or Dardenne about the bill. "We cannot respond to a ghost," said Schedler. "Let the ghost call me."
Ellington said he was satisfied with Dardenne's explanation, but asked to delay voting on the bill, saying, "It would give me some time to talk to the ghost. . . . It's a big ghost."
The delay was granted, but the damage was done. Spooked Republicans may have trusted Dardenne, but they have seen enough slippery maneuvers in this session--"rookiedoos," in legislative parlance--to be wary of what could happen to the bill once it left the committee.
Democrats on the committee, perhaps delighting in the GOP squabble, seized the opportunity to defend the voting rights of the minor parties. The following week, the bill was deferred and is presumed dead.
Vitter and the status quo prevailed. Dardenne didn't exactly lose, but now that he has drawn attention to the possibility of a minor party primary, it is ever more likely he will have to conduct one next year.
Call him paranoid, but Sen. David Vitter is taking no chances with any change in the law that could threaten his re-election next year--that is, more than he already has threatened it by his past association with an escort service in Washington, D.C.
The junior senator's acute sense of survival drew his attention to a seemingly harmless legislative bill concerning minor political parties that was offered by Secretary of State Jay Dardenne. While the bill, on its surface, had no effect on his candidacy, Vitter and Republican supporters approached it like it was the first skirmish of next year's election. For those keeping score, he won.
Dardenne was trying to avert an unforeseen consequence of the state's return to party primaries in congressional elections. His office crafted a bill that, in effect, would require the state to conduct primary elections for only the two major parties and not for the three other officially recognized but minor parties: Libertarian, Green and Reform. Combined they have about 5,000 members statewide.
Say, for example, a power struggle breaks out in the Libertarian Party, and two of its members decide to run for the U.S. Senate. Assuming multiple Democrats and Republicans ran, the ballot would list candidates under three separate party primaries. Trouble is, the state has invested in new computerized voting machines that only display two sets of primaries. Dardenne estimates it would cost $38 million to reprogram all the voting machines and to train voting commissioners on the lockout procedures, which, even as they now stand, proved to be confusing to voters and commissioners in last fall's elections.
Rather than go through all that, under the proposed law, if two minor party rivals could not settle their differences beforehand, both their names would appear on the general election ballot in November.
Enter Sen. Vitter, who cares not a whit about Secretary Dardenne's software concerns but seemed leery of his ulterior motives. Dardenne has said he is considering challenging Vitter in next year's Republican primary. According to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, Vitter called him a half dozen times to express concern that Dardenne would later try to have the bill amended to allow independents to vote in either party's primary. That would not suit the senator at all.
When the Legislature reinstated party primaries for congressional elections, it let the parties’ governing bodies determine which voters could participate in each. The Democrats opened their primary to independent voters, those unaffiliated with either party, while Republicans closed theirs to members only.
Vitter much prefers a closed GOP primary, because that would not give pesky independents the opportunity to vote against him should Dardenne or some other Republican challenge him.
Rep. Waddell wasn't the only one Vitter called. After the author and Dardenne explained the bill to the House & Governmental Affairs Committee and pledged to entertain no amendments, Rep. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, said he had received phone calls from individuals he did not name who were still concerned about the legislation.
That got a rise from assistant secretary Tom Schedler, who said no one contacted him or Dardenne about the bill. "We cannot respond to a ghost," said Schedler. "Let the ghost call me."
Ellington said he was satisfied with Dardenne's explanation, but asked to delay voting on the bill, saying, "It would give me some time to talk to the ghost. . . . It's a big ghost."
The delay was granted, but the damage was done. Spooked Republicans may have trusted Dardenne, but they have seen enough slippery maneuvers in this session--"rookiedoos," in legislative parlance--to be wary of what could happen to the bill once it left the committee.
Democrats on the committee, perhaps delighting in the GOP squabble, seized the opportunity to defend the voting rights of the minor parties. The following week, the bill was deferred and is presumed dead.
Vitter and the status quo prevailed. Dardenne didn't exactly lose, but now that he has drawn attention to the possibility of a minor party primary, it is ever more likely he will have to conduct one next year.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Legislators, Educators Clash on Solutions
MAY 18, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
Preparing for the legislative session, state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek concluded that the biggest problem facing public schools was parish school boards. Its members served too long, were paid too much and meddled in day-to-day matters that should be left to parish superintendents.
To change all that, he got behind a package of legislative bills to impose term limits on school board members, to restrict their pay to $50 per meeting and to prohibit them from trying to influence administrators' hiring and firing decisions.
A couple of North Louisiana legislators had a different view of the most pressing problem with education, the same that has plagued Louisiana for decades: that nearly 40 percent of high schoolers drop out or fail to graduate within four years.
Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro, and Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, came up with a not-so-new solution, an alternative curriculum track that would focus more on vocational training instead of college preparatory courses and thus would encourage struggling students to stay in school.
But the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at first opposed the career track plan because it relaxed promotion requirements and watered down course work so as to not meaningfully prepare students for work or life.
Supporters of both approaches, one to crack down on school boards and the other to ease up on potential dropouts, set off to the Capitol to make their cases.
There, not so surprisingly, the Pastorek plan quickly ran into trouble. The term-limits bill was squashed in committee and the pay-cut proposal was deemed dead on arrival. The so-called micromanagement bill has had trouble getting a full hearing and faces stout opposition from school boards.
Meanwhile, identical House and Senate anti-dropout bills have struck a chord with lawmakers and are breezing through both bodies. They even gained the qualified support of BESE and Pastorek by requiring four years of both English and math.
But the big sticking point remains that the bills lower the LEAP test threshold for eighth graders to advance to the ninth grade and to enter the career diploma track. Instead of meeting the current promotion requirement of scoring "basic" in either English or math and "approaching basic" on the other, career track students would only have to achieve "approaching basic" on either. That means, as ninth graders, they could almost read or almost do math.
BESE members fear, rightly so, that the relaxed eighth-grade standard would wreck the hard-won accountability system by taking pressure off of students, teachers and parents after the fourth-grade LEAP test. In effect, remediation of many struggling students would end and the informal career-tracking of them would begin in the fifth grade. That's way too early to give up on the prospects of kids going to college.
If an acceptable compromise can be reached on standards for promotion, most BESE members could support the legislators' plan for reducing dropouts. Especially since it would not be that different from anti-dropout policies that the state has in place today.
There is a law on the books, largely ignored, requiring local school districts to develop a five-year curriculum plan, whether career-based or college prep, for every student.
The state also has developed a highly successful dropout prevention program called Jobs for America's Graduates, which is heavy on remediation and which partners with businesses to give students work experience while completing high school. JAG has a 90 percent graduation rate, but only 13 of 70 school districts offer it throughout the high school grades.
The state can develop anti-dropout and career option programs and make some funds available, but it is up to local school boards to make them happen.
"If every district were doing what they should be doing for the last ten years, we wouldn't be here," says BESE member Penny Dastugue. Even the Kostelka-Fannin bills allow school boards to opt out of the career diploma plan.
If school boards don't put the effort and resources into dropout intervention, there is not a lot BESE and the Legislature can do. So perhaps instead of the Legislature setting education policy, it should let BESE do that, while--coming full circle--it should also insist that local school boards do their jobs and not meddle with those of their superintendents.
Preparing for the legislative session, state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek concluded that the biggest problem facing public schools was parish school boards. Its members served too long, were paid too much and meddled in day-to-day matters that should be left to parish superintendents.
To change all that, he got behind a package of legislative bills to impose term limits on school board members, to restrict their pay to $50 per meeting and to prohibit them from trying to influence administrators' hiring and firing decisions.
A couple of North Louisiana legislators had a different view of the most pressing problem with education, the same that has plagued Louisiana for decades: that nearly 40 percent of high schoolers drop out or fail to graduate within four years.
Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro, and Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, came up with a not-so-new solution, an alternative curriculum track that would focus more on vocational training instead of college preparatory courses and thus would encourage struggling students to stay in school.
But the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at first opposed the career track plan because it relaxed promotion requirements and watered down course work so as to not meaningfully prepare students for work or life.
Supporters of both approaches, one to crack down on school boards and the other to ease up on potential dropouts, set off to the Capitol to make their cases.
There, not so surprisingly, the Pastorek plan quickly ran into trouble. The term-limits bill was squashed in committee and the pay-cut proposal was deemed dead on arrival. The so-called micromanagement bill has had trouble getting a full hearing and faces stout opposition from school boards.
Meanwhile, identical House and Senate anti-dropout bills have struck a chord with lawmakers and are breezing through both bodies. They even gained the qualified support of BESE and Pastorek by requiring four years of both English and math.
But the big sticking point remains that the bills lower the LEAP test threshold for eighth graders to advance to the ninth grade and to enter the career diploma track. Instead of meeting the current promotion requirement of scoring "basic" in either English or math and "approaching basic" on the other, career track students would only have to achieve "approaching basic" on either. That means, as ninth graders, they could almost read or almost do math.
BESE members fear, rightly so, that the relaxed eighth-grade standard would wreck the hard-won accountability system by taking pressure off of students, teachers and parents after the fourth-grade LEAP test. In effect, remediation of many struggling students would end and the informal career-tracking of them would begin in the fifth grade. That's way too early to give up on the prospects of kids going to college.
If an acceptable compromise can be reached on standards for promotion, most BESE members could support the legislators' plan for reducing dropouts. Especially since it would not be that different from anti-dropout policies that the state has in place today.
There is a law on the books, largely ignored, requiring local school districts to develop a five-year curriculum plan, whether career-based or college prep, for every student.
The state also has developed a highly successful dropout prevention program called Jobs for America's Graduates, which is heavy on remediation and which partners with businesses to give students work experience while completing high school. JAG has a 90 percent graduation rate, but only 13 of 70 school districts offer it throughout the high school grades.
The state can develop anti-dropout and career option programs and make some funds available, but it is up to local school boards to make them happen.
"If every district were doing what they should be doing for the last ten years, we wouldn't be here," says BESE member Penny Dastugue. Even the Kostelka-Fannin bills allow school boards to opt out of the career diploma plan.
If school boards don't put the effort and resources into dropout intervention, there is not a lot BESE and the Legislature can do. So perhaps instead of the Legislature setting education policy, it should let BESE do that, while--coming full circle--it should also insist that local school boards do their jobs and not meddle with those of their superintendents.
Friday, May 15, 2009
What Payback? Jindal Gets His Way
MAY 11, 2009 POLITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS
Oh, the world of hurt Bobby Jindal was supposed to be in by now.
A month ago, his constant coast-to-coast fundraising was straining the patience of even his friends, who wished aloud that he were spending more time at home dealing with the state's problems. And there were plenty of those, mostly linked to a gaping budget deficit, which promised to make his first legislative fiscal session a miserable one. Add to that, lawmakers, still harboring grudges for his vetoes of their pay raise and scores of local projects last year, were said to be lying in wait for payback.
It looked like an ominous session indeed for the governor, until it began, when the scene at the Capitol snapped back to the old reality. In the first two weeks, the governor's staff efficiently snuffed out or sidetracked bills the administration opposed, advanced ones it liked and easily fended off legislators' initial budget raids on his economic development mega fund.
He also demonstrated a grasp for the art of the deal by proposing creative terms for a new long-term contract with the New Orleans Saints while at the same time pushing approval of spending $50 million to save a chicken processing plant in Northeast Louisiana. The two are not connected, but politically they are wed, with regional support for each neutralizing opposition to the other. The unspoken linkage of the two makes for a pretty slick deal, worthy of Edwin Edwards, and it's even legal.
What did Jindal do to reassert his influence and authority over a resentful Legislature? Why, he showed up, which is pretty much all that's needed in a political system that affords so much power to a governor when he acts like one.
Democrats outnumber his Republicans, especially in the Senate, but partisanship has yet to come into play in this session. The most direct challenge to Gov. Jindal's fiscal policy, the proposed cigarette tax to restore healthcare cuts, has not unified Democrats.
They will band together more to challenge his refusal to accept $98 million in added unemployment benefits from the federal stimulus package, but supporters concede it won't be enough to overcome his promised veto.
The issue that is causing Jindal the most trouble, at least in the public prints, comes at the hands of two Republicans. He has strongly opposed identical bills by Rep. Wayne Waddell of Shreveport and Sen. Robert Adley of Benton to make public more records in the governor's office, which is currently rated among the least transparent in the nation.
The governor's broad exemption from the public records act predates Jindal, but it perfectly suits his control personality that is reflected in his protective, insular staff.
Legislators and his contributors learned quickly not to expect return phone calls from the governor. He talks to people when he needs them, not the other way around.
Formalizing any more access to his office is not in his interest. The legal contortions New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is going through fighting the release of his schedule and e-mail probably makes the governor all the more careful to not let down his public records shield.
Now if legislators were truly seeking revenge for Jindal's veto of their payraise, they would pass a public records law opening up his office like a sardine can.
That they haven't suggests the notion of veto payback is vastly overstated. Legislators may still resent his nixing their raises, but some concede he did them a favor. What if they were pulling down $50,000+ in total compensation while considering big budget cuts that would force layoffs in higher education and healthcare? Half of them would be facing recall petitions and harboring little hope of re-election. The mistake he and they both made was in forming their secret pact, which intense public anger, acting as a force majeure, nullified.
Lawmakers might still pass a public records bill Jindal doesn't like, or find some other vote on which to stick him. But most of them, when it gets right down to it, want to stay in the governor's good graces, even if he ignores them most of the time.
Oh, the world of hurt Bobby Jindal was supposed to be in by now.
A month ago, his constant coast-to-coast fundraising was straining the patience of even his friends, who wished aloud that he were spending more time at home dealing with the state's problems. And there were plenty of those, mostly linked to a gaping budget deficit, which promised to make his first legislative fiscal session a miserable one. Add to that, lawmakers, still harboring grudges for his vetoes of their pay raise and scores of local projects last year, were said to be lying in wait for payback.
It looked like an ominous session indeed for the governor, until it began, when the scene at the Capitol snapped back to the old reality. In the first two weeks, the governor's staff efficiently snuffed out or sidetracked bills the administration opposed, advanced ones it liked and easily fended off legislators' initial budget raids on his economic development mega fund.
He also demonstrated a grasp for the art of the deal by proposing creative terms for a new long-term contract with the New Orleans Saints while at the same time pushing approval of spending $50 million to save a chicken processing plant in Northeast Louisiana. The two are not connected, but politically they are wed, with regional support for each neutralizing opposition to the other. The unspoken linkage of the two makes for a pretty slick deal, worthy of Edwin Edwards, and it's even legal.
What did Jindal do to reassert his influence and authority over a resentful Legislature? Why, he showed up, which is pretty much all that's needed in a political system that affords so much power to a governor when he acts like one.
Democrats outnumber his Republicans, especially in the Senate, but partisanship has yet to come into play in this session. The most direct challenge to Gov. Jindal's fiscal policy, the proposed cigarette tax to restore healthcare cuts, has not unified Democrats.
They will band together more to challenge his refusal to accept $98 million in added unemployment benefits from the federal stimulus package, but supporters concede it won't be enough to overcome his promised veto.
The issue that is causing Jindal the most trouble, at least in the public prints, comes at the hands of two Republicans. He has strongly opposed identical bills by Rep. Wayne Waddell of Shreveport and Sen. Robert Adley of Benton to make public more records in the governor's office, which is currently rated among the least transparent in the nation.
The governor's broad exemption from the public records act predates Jindal, but it perfectly suits his control personality that is reflected in his protective, insular staff.
Legislators and his contributors learned quickly not to expect return phone calls from the governor. He talks to people when he needs them, not the other way around.
Formalizing any more access to his office is not in his interest. The legal contortions New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is going through fighting the release of his schedule and e-mail probably makes the governor all the more careful to not let down his public records shield.
Now if legislators were truly seeking revenge for Jindal's veto of their payraise, they would pass a public records law opening up his office like a sardine can.
That they haven't suggests the notion of veto payback is vastly overstated. Legislators may still resent his nixing their raises, but some concede he did them a favor. What if they were pulling down $50,000+ in total compensation while considering big budget cuts that would force layoffs in higher education and healthcare? Half of them would be facing recall petitions and harboring little hope of re-election. The mistake he and they both made was in forming their secret pact, which intense public anger, acting as a force majeure, nullified.
Lawmakers might still pass a public records bill Jindal doesn't like, or find some other vote on which to stick him. But most of them, when it gets right down to it, want to stay in the governor's good graces, even if he ignores them most of the time.
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