Facts Check for Jindal's Claims

In response to yet another poll of Louisianans indicating strong disapproval of Jindal as governor, he responded by stating that he doesn’t care about polls because the only numbers that matter are jobs created, graduation rates, student test scores, and the number of kids formerly trapped in failing schools who are getting the opportunity for a good education.  Bobby firmly stated, and I quote, “Those are the numbers that matter to me and the people of Louisiana.”

Talk is cheap and our governor is never at loss when it comes to stretching the truth.

Let’s examine the facts regarding those numbers that matter to Governor Jindal:

Jobs Created:  Louisiana’s unemployment rate has risen sharply since Jindal took office, from 3.8 percent in January, 2008 to 6.8 percent in May, 2013.   To be fair, the national unemployment rate has also risen during that time, from 5 percent to 7.6 percent, but not as fast as Louisiana’s.

Graduation Rates:  Rates are rising.  But the figures are a lie.  With his massive budget cuts Jindal has done little to improve public education.  What he calls educational reform is nothing more than striking a deal with our colleges and universities whereby they could raise their tuitions by 10% if they raised their admission standards, and eliminated freshman remedial courses for students not fully prepared for some course work.  On paper the graduation rates rise,  but beneath those stats the crappy high schools that failed to properly educate these students still exist.  He hasn't attack the root cause of why more students aren't better prepared so they can attend and graduate from college.  The only accomplishment of Jindal's education reform plan is that more students are now being pushed out of a chance to attend a four year college, and instead into trade schools that don’t count in the nationally reported state graduation figures.  He is simply shifting the students around.

Student Test Scores:  In the most recent national assessment of the 50 states for 4^th and 8^th graders our 4^th grade students tied for last place in math skills, and ranked 48^th in reading skills.  Eight graders  were tied for 48^th in math and reading.

Voucher  Program , or as Jindal defines  it, the number of kids trapped in failing schools who are now getting the opportunity for a good education:  The most recent figures available from the Louisiana Department of Education indicated at least 45% of the nearly 5,000 students participating in the voucher program last year transferred from their assigned neighborhood schools into schools rated a “D” of “F” on the state’s rating scale.  I wouldn’t classify this as evidence of  an increase in an opportunity to get a good education.

Unfortunately,  the real facts of Jindal’s failures as a governor seldom leave the confines  of our state so Jindal is able to continue to push these areas and others as examples of his  great reforms to the national audience in his quest for president.

It is becoming more and more apparent to me that you have to be somewhat delusional to be a good politician.

Hypocrisy at its Finest

I ran across an editorial this week discussing the controversy surrounding the Duck Dynasty hero, Phil Robertson, regarding some remarks he made about African-Americans and Gays when interviewed by a popular magazine.

Governor Jindal and Sarah Palin both jumped on the fact that the TV station, A&E, was infringing on Robertson’s first amendment rights by suspending him from the Duck Dynasty show for his remarks.

It’s odd that a man of Jindal’s intelligence, and one who works so hard to foster his national image as a staunch constitutionalist would completely misinterpret this amendment.  The first amendment allows free speech without government or legal sanctions being directed towards those individuals for their actions.

The Duck Dynasty cast member received no such governmental or legal sanctions such as fines, arrest and/or imprisonment for what he said, which occurs quite often in some other countries throughout the world such as Russia and China.   Instead, a corporation decided to dismiss an individual whose professed thoughts ran contrary to theirs.  Granted, A&E was probably more worried about the loss of sponsorship revenues rather than anything else, but they had the right to suspend Robertson under our free enterprise, corporate system.

We, as consumers, have the right to disagree with this action and punish A&E by boycotting the station.

However, let’s not forget that Jindal‘s actions of removing individuals who disagree with his governing philosophy are the mirror image of A&E’s.   During his reign of terror he has ousted, or systematically removed individuals  from the LSU Board of Supervisors, the LSU system president position, positions that provide over site for the university’s public hospitals, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), department heads, legislative committee chairmanships, etc.  The list goes on and on.  In fact, he has been one of the most successful governors in recent history in implementing the philosophy of ‘it’s my way or the highway.’  You might have to go all the way back to Huey Long to find someone who has out done him. 

These individuals made no 'politically incorrect' statements to magazines.  Their only fault being that they disagreed with some of Jindal's plans.  Where were the public outcries regarding these firings?

Oh, I forgot, they're not TV stars, just average Joes.

From Jindal’s past actions it is readily apparent that once again he has seen an opportunity to promote himself nationally by misapplying the first amendment argument to  actions initiated by a corporation; actions, which he strictly adheres to himself.  It seems like the old adage 'People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones' certainly applies to Governor Jindal in this situation. 

Louisiana needs to stick with Common Core

I can’t believe the continued ruckus about the Common Core Standards.  The concept for Common Core State Standards originated from state governors of BOTH parties.  They were developed by a collaboration of teachers, school administrators, and educational experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.

The standards were formulating using the highest, most effective models from STATES across our country and countries around the world, and provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn.  Consistent standards will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live.

The Common Core Standards are benchmarks, NOT a curriculum. They simply state what students should be able do after teachers finish teaching them. How you get to that goal is still the job of each state.  No one at the federal level is telling anyone how to teach, or requiring teachers to use a specific curriculum or learning materials.

Contrary to the misinformation being published, feedback from parents across the nation was collected during the development process. 

However, now all of a sudden we have ‘experts’, including school boards,  from all over Louisiana telling everyone that the  standards are all wrong and are somehow a plot by the federal government to control our children’s mind in  a George Orwell type of way.

Just for the record, if you were developing educational standards,  would you believe any ‘expert’ from a state that ranks in the BOTTOM five in every educational measure known to man?  If Louisiana did provide feedback on the Common Core, I certainly wouldn’t put too much faith in what they suggested.

For decades Louisiana has been depriving its young people of an excellent education, and now all of a sudden we know what’s best for our students.  Just when did this sudden burst of enlightenment occur?

New Orleans Needs to Take Heed

New Orleans may be the fun capital of Louisiana, but Baton Rouge is on the fast track to be the economic capital.  The Standard and Poor’s Rating Service just upgraded Baton Rouge’s credit rating to ‘AAA’, the highest in the state.

While New Orleans has chosen to rely almost entirely on tourism to support its economy, Baton Rouge has chosen to take a more realistic, diversified business approach.  One less influenced by the whims of the national economy.

Even though Baton Rouge is our capital city, it has always played second fiddle to New Orleans.  However that appears to be changing.  While Standard and Poor’s assigns a lower rating of ‘A’ to New Orleans, the Finch Rating Service just recently downgraded New Orleans to the negative category of ‘A-‘.  This negative outlook is based on the city's finances, which remains a credit weakness.  Efforts by the current Landrieu administration to regain structural budgetary balance have shown gains, but new challenges in the form of jail and police mandated spending, and fireman pension contributions place additional pressure on the city’s operations.

Additionally, the city continues to depend heavily on federal recovery monies from Katrina to help finance its infrastructure needs.   Soon these funds will cease.

While the residents of New Orleans continue to feverishly defend their city as the best city for partying and eating in the world,  maybe it’s time for them to pull their heads out of the sand and face the realities of our present day economic system for city survival.

Presently, New Orleans relies disproportionately on federal grants for its budgetary needs.  A funding source destined to be drastically reduced due to the present political agendas operating at the national level.

Bottom line, New Orleans can no longer continue to survive on a t-shirt, tourism economy.  As repulsive as this may sound to New Orleans, it’s time to take a lesson from Baton Rouge.  

Commom Core Standards in Louisiana

In the Spring of 1989, the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) was begun.  It was created to revolutionize the educational system in Louisiana which for years remained at the bottom of the list nationally in educational preparedness for the students it served.  Classroom curriculums were rewritten to address the standards incorporated as part of the LEAP paradigm.   A series of high stakes tests was developed to assess the success of the overall program.  Specifically, these tests were given at the 4^th and 8th grades, and children were held back if not performing at a specified level.  Also, students had to master another test at the senior high level known as the Graduation Exit Exam (GEE) to receive a high school diploma..

Over the years public relation blitzes abounded showing continuous improvement in LEAP test scores.  With the advent of Charter schools, even more fantastic performance gains on the LEAP tests were reported.

Soon a system of letter grades was developed to give parents a clearer understanding of the quality of education provided at each public school.

Once again the Louisiana Department of  Education  issued  media blitzes filled with examples of tremendous shifts in schools moving from a rating of ‘F’ to ‘C’s, ‘B’s and ‘A’s based in part upon LEAP scores.

After years of holding students back and denying graduation to seniors, we find that in the latest measure of how states perform nationally in the areas of reading and math skills, Louisiana is still almost dead last. 

The latest results showed out of the 50 states tested nationally that Louisiana was:

Tied for 50^th in fourth grade math

48^th in fourth grade reading

Tied for 48^th in eight grade math

Tied for 48^th in eight grade reading

After 24 years this is what the public got from the various educational gurus that existed in this state, and now some are clamoring that we should abandon the recently state adopted Common Core Standards, because these are not ‘appropriate’ for our students.  From past performance, I doubt that these educational experts even have a clue as to what is ‘appropriate’ for our students, or, for that matter, have the ability to develop educational standards that should serve as a guide to educate our youth.

However, the Common Core Standards do provide such a guide and were created to be used in developing curriculum for students.  Despite all the misinformation now circulating among  small factions of citizens throughout the state, the core simply serve as benchmarks of what children are expected to know at specific times throughout the educational process.   In actuality, the Common Core Standards concept was originally proposed by state governors of BOTH political parties.  They were developed by a collaboration of teachers, school administrators, and educational experts throughout the nation, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce, and to prevent what has happened in our state (educational fraud) by insuring that children get a good education no matter where they live.   They are NOT a curriculum, as some would have us believe.  Curriculum development is still the responsibility of each local school system as was the case before the adoption of the core standards. 

Louisiana needs to ignore the naysayers with little credibility and proceed with the Common Core adoption.

New Orleans May Never be the Same

I did not write this piece, but it expresses so well what I have been trying to come to grips with regarding the city of New Orleans.   My biggest complaint about the city is summarized in the first paragraph.  I grew so tired of its diehard defenders talking about its 'unique culture' that no outsider could understand.  My reply was always, a city can have a 'unique culture' and still be progressive and proactive, something N.O. was not.  In fact, it had become a ward of the federal government. Unless it received federal funds no major infrastructure or other large resident-oriented projects took place.  It couldn't even fund a police force without the assistance of federal monies.  And once these federally funded projects were completed, there were no local funds to maintain the changes so they again fell into disarray.  This cycle continues over and over.  It was becoming  more and more obvious that these federal funds would start to dry up and the city needed to adapt to these changes.  However, because of its residents' complacency regarding implementation of long range planning and their desire to maintain their 'unique culture', the status quo, a different type of external force for change has begun and should be a cause of great concern among the 'diehards.' 

Below appears an excellent assessment of the problem New Orleans now faces:

Before Katrina, I dreamed of a day when our precious city would be discovered by the best and brightest, who could come and save us from years of complacency to our political corruption, institutional racism, Third World economy and decaying infrastructure.

But even as the elite and educated newcomers flock to our great city, the recent migration has not caused the catalytic change I hoped for. The NOPD is a shrinking mess, while babies are being killed at an alarming new rate. Streets are crumbling faster than we can fix them with our soon-to-be dried up federal money. And the gap between rich and poor widens as the homeless beg for money at nearly every major intersection.

During the past two years, however, these harsh realities have not deterred the rich and famous from making New Orleans their new playground. City leaders are gushing over the new demographic and planning new ways to keep them here while attracting more.
Meanwhile, I see working-class jobs being replaced by recently settled college graduates, homes being bought up by out-of-towners who are out-bidding locals with outrageous amounts of cash, developers scooping up hot properties and demanding zoning changes to build out-of-scale and out-of-character businesses. And our public schools and hospitals are being privatized right under our noses.

Our leaders say we need all this to save our economy and our city. While some natives are being dazzled by the “shiny new trinkets and glass beads,” if we are not cautious, we could be robbed of our “gold.” I welcome all newcomers as a healthy addition to our city, but decry them as replacements for those of us here before the big K. As we wake up in the “boutique city”forecast right after Katrina, perhaps we should beware of all that glitters.

This unprecedented growth may seem like a utopia to some, but for many native New Orleanians, living in the new New Orleans has already become unattainable.

Cheryl Gerber
photographer
New Orleans

Common Core Standards Victim of Political Fear-Mongering

Once again the publicity seekers are flooding the air waves with misinformation and grand-standing to promote themselves in the national arena.  Mostly these are legislators who have failed to provide any notable legislation during their careers and seek recognition in order to legitimize themselves as productive legislators.

The misinformation they seek to spread is that the recently proposed Common Core Standards were created by the federal government and fall into the popular anti-government interference fad.

In reality, the move toward a set of standards for the goals of public education began not with the federal government, but with state educators, more than a decade ago.  Common Core is the  final result of the brainchild of state educators, NOT a federal power grab for kid’s minds as some political zealots would have you believe.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a STATE-LED effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.   The standards were developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.

 

These standards received initial feedback on the draft standards from national organizations representing, but not limited to, teachers, post-secondary educators (including community colleges), civil rights groups, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Following the initial round of feedback, the draft standards were opened for public comment, receiving nearly 10,000 responses.

The standards were formulating using the highest, most effective models from STATES across the country and countries around the world, and provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn. Consistent standards will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live.

The Common Core Standards are benchmarks, NOT a curriculum. They simply state what students should be able do after teachers finish teaching them. How you get to that goal is still the job of each state.  In our state that is BESE’s responsibility.  No one at the federal level is telling anyone how to teach, or requiring teachers to use a specific curriculum or learning materials.

It is obvious from national assessment test data that the standards Louisiana had formulated in the past for its students were inadequate.  Students would perform well on LEAP tests, which were designed within Louisiana, but did poorly when compared to students in other states throughout the country.

The question each parent needs ask is “Why should my child receive a substandard education simply because of where I live?” In fact, isn’t this the justification for Jindal’s school voucher system in Louisiana?

The United States is an extremely mobile society, and its citizens deserve the right to be able to move from one locality to the next without the fear of settling in an area with a lousy educational system.

The long range goal of the Core Standards is to eradicate this problem by the formulation of benchmarks that:

·         Are aligned with college and work expectations;

·         Are clear, understandable and consistent;

·         Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;

·         Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;

·         Are informed by other top performing countries,so that all students are             prepared to succeed in our global economy and society;and

·         Are evidence-based.

The intention of the Common Core Standards is to stem the continuing downward spiral of our nation’s educational standing worldwide.   It is a shame that they have been turned into political fear-mongering by uninformed, publicity- seeking members of our political parties.

Even Governor Jindal had no problems with these standards until it became fashionable to do so.

However, now that these standards have become politicized and a great propaganda tool, I suspect BESE , the State Superintendent of Education, and our legislators will dutifully follow Jindal’s lead and withdraw their initial support of this project.  Hypocritical to say the least!

Bottom line-Let’s stop lying about the origin of the Common Core Standards, it was not a Fed’s project!