What has LSU football become?

How much longer will Les Miles continue to use the LSU football team as a rehabilitation center for wayward youth? I was appalled to read that Miles is allowing Anthony Jennings and three other arrested players, one of whom was booked with domestic abuse battery with strangulation, to return to the team because their arrests, “will soon be resolved.” 

This is not the first instance of LSU players running afoul of the law and not being held justifiably responsible for their actions by Miles and LSU.  Most of them receive just a few weeks of suspension and back on the job, even for repeat offenders. 

Miles needs to stop pandering to the thug mentality.

Maybe he should review the mission statement of the department he serves.  It reads, “The Louisiana State University Department of Athletics seeks to inspire academic and athletic excellence in student-athletes by challenging them to achieve the highest level of intellectual and personal development.  LSU seeks to create an environment conducive to the development of student-athletes with strong core values and personal integrity that will contribute to success throughout their lives and to provide the resources necessary to pursue championships, to graduate and to become productive citizens.”

Miles’ actions are a disservice to the rest of the team members who serve as examples of fine citizens and role models for our youth.  In fact, they are a disservice to all men and women that participate in team sports at LSU.  But then again it’s all about the win at any cost for Miles rather than promoting and rewarding the ethical behavior of young men.

Remember the days when collegian football use to be about the building of character along with the win.  Sadly, it is no more and Miles is just another example of what it has become.  Geaux Tigers!

Where was the LABI for seven years? With Jindal.

I found the recently penned opinion in the Hammond Star by Stephen Waguspeck, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, criticizing the just ended legislative session as being detrimental to Louisiana‘s economy, quite interesting.

He attempts to make a case about how legislators’ recent votes to reduce some of the business tax breaks will devastate the Louisiana economy.  What Mr. Waguspeck fails to point out is that he, along with his organization, sat by for SEVEN years and let Jindal devastate the educational system in this state.  A far more serious blow to the state’s economy than the miniscule business tax changes recently voted in by our legislators.   However, unlike the permanent educational funding cuts, the increases in business taxes are FOR ONE YEAR ONLY and expire in 2016.

Since LABI claims to be focused on improving the economic climate of Louisiana through the support of sound economic-boosting legislation, where was the LABI’s opposition to the years of deep budget cuts imposed on higher education? Where was LABI’s overall plan to prevent Jindal and lawmakers from starving our colleges and universities?  Where was LABI’s program to strengthen Louisiana’s economy by increasing the number of college graduates?

One would have assumed that the state’s largest business organization would have wretched at the methodological destruction of the educational system in our state since college graduates help drive the Louisiana economy.  Instead, in the most recent legislative session, LABI was more concerned about ending automatic payroll deductions of union dues and increasing school voucher opportunities.

However, perhaps the real reason for turning a blind eye to the educational funding problem lies with fact that  LABI president, Stephen Waguespeck, was one of Jindal’s former chiefs of staff and for the past seven years both Jindal and the LABI were, for the most part, strongly  aligned.  Only during this most recent legislative session did the alliance suffer resulting in the penned commentary.

A crack in the budget plan?

While our legislators are touring our state immersed in re-election mantra consisting of how they successfully solved the most recent $1.6 billion budget deficit crisis, there are indicators that a crack may already be developing in their grand plan.  Last week Jindal imposed a state hiring freeze. He ordered executive branch agencies to freeze non-essential spending and hiring, and banned any spending on travel, operating services, supplies, professional services, acquisitions, and major repairs in the executive branch.  

While I’m all in favor of cutting government spending, past experience has shown that Jindal never engages in such behavior unless something is seriously amiss.

Even State Treasurer, John Kennedy, finds the timing of such an edict, immediately following the close of the legislative session, to be quite odd.  His response to this latest Jindal maneuver was, “I think there's a very real possibility that we're going to have mid-year budget cuts, (and) I think the budget is very precariously balanced.  In fact, I'm not sure it's balanced at all."

If the legislator-created budget starts to unravel BEFORE re-election time, it would be a political disaster for our esteemed representatives, but hopefully serve as a wakeup call to the voters of this state and cause them to pause before putting these same folks back in our state capital for another four years.

Let’s remember that our present legislators had 7 years to prevent this mess and supported Jindal in his “kick the can down the road’ budget policies.  In fact, they did that yet AGAIN with their latest budget which creates an over $1 billion short fall for the next fiscal year which begins July 1, 2016.

It’s time for sweeping changes at our state capital.  Don’t let candidates run unopposed and get automatically re-elected.  This is already happening in the Hammond area.  Step up and get involved!

Historically black colleges' plan is a disservice to students

Louisiana had a great idea.  There, I said it.  Followers of my commentaries might conclude that I think our fine state never does anything noteworthy, but this time they had a great plan.  It was a way for students not quite ready for university work to test the waters and see if by hard study they could succeed at pursuing a bachelor's degree.   In Louisiana the ACT is given to all high school seniors and is used by universities to help predict the success students would have in graduating with a degree.  Of course there are other factors to consider besides just a test score to measure success, but basically it does provide a general reference, and does provide a cautionary flag to be considered.   In our state, students earning below an 18 on the English subtest of the ACT or below 19 on the Math subtest are not permitted entrance to a four year public college or university, but instead, in a progressive move by the educators in this state, can apply for admission to a junior college and take remedial courses.  If successful they can transfer the earned credits to a four year school if they wished to further their education. 

The system was really working.  However, recent changes brought about by pressure from the historically black colleges and universities in this state, Southern University, Southern University New Orleans, and Grambling State University have scuttled this plan for their student body in an attempt to direct more money to these institutions’ operating budgets.

For 2013-2014 the average yearly tuition cost for a two-year public college in Louisiana was $3,047 compared to an average of $10,372 for a four-year public college or university.

In an apparent attempt to financially fill their coffers, the Louisiana historically black colleges and universities pressured the Louisiana Board of Regents to allow them to return to the old days and accept students with an ACT of 17 and BELOW in English and 18 and BELOW in Math, financially benefiting the schools, but a financial disaster for the students.  A student receiving a 17 on the ACT English section indicates that 6 out of 10 students have better English skills than that particular student; a skill factored into college success.  A two point drop in score to 15 indicates more than 7 out of ten students have better skills.   Predictions for math skills are similar.

Under the revised standards, many of these students may not be eligible for TOPS and they will be forced to seek student loans burdening them with costs totaling more than THREE times the amount of a community college fee.   Those that are eligible for TOPS will cost the taxpayers the additional monies. 

Since, initially, successful graduation is stacked against these students, it seems unconscionable that these historically black public institutions would enact such a disservice to their students.  But then again the students’ success in college seems of little concern to these institutions because the real benefit for them comes from their ability to accept more students thereby increasing the income generated by tuition and college fees no matter what the outcome for the students. 

I hope that the students served by these institution see this revised plan for what it really is.  It’s not out of concern for them to receive a college degree, because a much more beneficial system was already in place.