Showing posts with label Louisiana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Louisiana. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2013

BLOGGER REVEALS BOBBY JINDAL'S "FIXES" FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION IN LOUISIANA

Blogger, Lamar White, has done brilliant reporting, yes, real reporting, on Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and his gradual destruction of public education in Louisiana.  To all you professional journalists who mock the efforts of bloggers, and not all paid journalists do, my advice would be to learn from the likes of Lamar and other fine bloggers.  Lamar explores the results of the efforts of the out-of-towners whom Jindal has brought in and paid high salaries to "fix" public education in Louisiana.  I don't mean to imply that our education system did not and does not need fixing, but Jindal's failing gurus are most emphatically not doing the job of improving public education in Louisiana.
John White and his team at the Department of Education, in an effort to demonstrate how the public school system is failing Louisiana school children, are diverting millions in funding every year from public schools in order to enrich some of the worst schools in the United States– religious zealots posing as educators, fly-by-night operators who don’t even have the necessary infrastructure, and bigoted and religiously intolerant “church schools” that specialize in utilizing thoroughly debunked textbooks and materials to stifle dissent, schools that seek to enrich themselves with taxpayer dollars while reserving their right to expel any student on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation or religion.  
There you have it - the fix for public education by the well-paid out-of-towners, who are no more than flim-flam artists paid generous salaries by our flim-flam artist governor.  I am no xenophobe, but please, Governor Jindal, if you're going to bring in people from other states and pay them high salaries, even as you lay off thousands of state employees and raise the unemployment figures here in Louisiana, at the very least, hire people who are knowledgeable and competent in their jobs, and not the likes of John White and his cohorts.  

Thursday, March 7, 2013

NO SMOOTH TRANSITION FOR THE POOR AND UNINSURED

Staff levels at LSU’s Earl K. Long Medical Center and its clinics have declined so much that LSU officials have had to reduce both inpatient and outpatient clinic services to the poor and working uninsured in the Baton Rouge area.

The number of employees leaving picked up in late January when LSU officials moved the Earl K. Long facility’s closure date up to April 15 from its original November target and decided to turn over operation of its four free-standing clinics to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, locally called the Lake, instead of keeping them under LSU.

The Lake becomes home to LSU’s inpatient hospital care and medical education programs on April 15. The state employees lose their state jobs with the privatization move. Who would ever have expected...?  Me, for one.  Poor planning and hasty implementation of the transition to privatizing public hospitals and clinics resulted in poor outcomes.  But we're talking about the poor and working uninsured, and do they really count here in Louisiana?  Are they deserving of any kind of decent health care?
The impact is being felt more dramatically on the outpatient side, where current patients are having difficulty scheduling appointments and new patients are on waiting lists, he said. Surgical clinic activity has also been negatively affected.
So.  When sick people do not have access to primary care, they get sicker, and some end up in the emergency room to be treated at far greater expense.

Keep in mind that Bobby Jindal refuses to participate in Obamacare's Medicaid expansion plan, which could cover as many as 400,000 of the uninsured, even though adopting the plan would be a winner for Louisiana.
Reed said the reduction in patients also will affect physicians in training and medical student experiences needed for graduate medical education and degree programs during the transition.
With Louisiana's sterling history of falling at or near the bottom in educational surveys at every pre-university level, and budget cuts to the bone for public universities, including the flagship university Louisiana State University, why worry that medical education will be affected?  Fewer doctors and other medical staff in Louisiana will hit the most vulnerable among us the hardest, but it seems they don't really count.

How can I assign Governor Jindal any grade but F, graduate of an ivy league university and Rhodes Scholar though he may be?  How much more of the shenanigans of the governor and the obliging legislators can the state take before the entire house of cards erected by our leaders collapses? 

Monday, March 4, 2013

ZACK KOPPLIN WITH BILL MOYERS


From the time he was a high school senior in his home state of Louisiana, Kopplin has been speaking, debating, cornering politicians and winning the active support of 78 Nobel Laureates, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New Orleans City Council, and tens of thousands of students, teachers and others around the country. The Rice University history major joins Bill to talk about fighting the creep of creationist curricula into public school science classes and publicly funded vouchers that end up supporting creationist instruction.
I'm very proud of this young man who cared enough about science education to take on the political establishment and those who drive them to allow teaching nonsense science in taxpayer-funded schools in Louisiana. Zack gathered his own scientific establishment to rebut the scientific ignorance of the creationists - the young-earthers and deniers of the evolutionary process.  Believe whatever you wish, but if it's faith and not science, don't insist that it be taught in science class.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

WHY IS SHE SMILING?

Kristy Nichols
The Jindal administration kicked off a months-long state budget debate Friday by presenting a $24.7 billion budget that relies on the finalization of contracts involving public hospitals, property sales and other unresolved issues.

College tuition will increase, many parents will be required to make a co-payment for their children to receive therapy for developmental delays and the elderly no longer will get help receiving free prescription drugs.

“We’re proud of this budget even though this budget certainly has been a challenge,” Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols told members of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget.
Ms Nichols is smiling because she says the Jindal administration presented a balanced budget to the Louisiana Legislature and the people of the state.  Nevermind that the budget includes one-time revenues that will not be available in future years.  Fiscal hawks in the legislature are upset about the use of the funds for programs that go beyond the coming fiscal year.

Nevermind that Jindal will turn over care of the poor to private hospitals, which he says will save money for the state, although all the contracts have not yet been signed, even as the administration phases out the operations of public hospitals.  Who will treat the poor and low-income people in Louisiana if the contracts are not completed? 
Several thousand state government workers could be out of a job....More than $1 million would be saved by no longer helping the elderly apply for free medicine through pharmaceutical company programs.
And what will be the consequences of the budget of which Ms Nichols is so proud?  Will the economy of the state grow in leaps and bounds?  Will unemployment numbers drop despite the thousands of state workers thrown into the ranks of the unemployed?  Where will the people who have lost their jobs find work in the weak economy?

What if the elderly can't afford their medications?  Too bad for them if they expect help from the state.

I hope the legislators keep in mind that Jindal's approval rating is at 37%.  The governor will veto any legislation that raises taxes, should such laws make it through the legislative process, and the chances of a legislative override are nil.  So what is a legislator to do?

Friday, February 15, 2013

IS OUR GOVERNOR LEARNING?


A new national poll focused on Louisiana shows Gov. Bobby Jindal with only a 37 percent approval rating and it also indicates that Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., leads several potential opponents in her 2014 re-election bid.

The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling, of North Carolina, which conducts polls for Democrats and progressives, focused on Landrieu’s re-election chances, but also took note of Jindal, whom the firm polled at a 58 percent approval rating in 2010. The poll was not done for the Landrieu campaign.

The new poll that places Jindal at a 37 percent approval rating was conducted Friday to Tuesday by surveying 603 Louisiana voters through automated telephone interviews. Jindal had a 57 percent disapproval rating in the new poll.
From the Advocate today:
Gov. Bobby Jindal said Thursday everything is on the table as he tries to develop a plan that eliminates personal and corporate income taxes in a “revenue neutral” way.

“We don’t have a proposal yet,” Jindal said.

Jindal met briefly with local reporters following an event at the Governor’s Mansion honoring couples who had been married in excess of 70 years.

He fielded a half-dozen questions in his first availability to State Capitol reporters in about four months.  (My emphasis)
 Perhaps his low poll numbers got the governor's attention, and he decided to throw a bone to the local media and meet with them briefly and answer a few questions.

Note that Jindal's new tax plan is not yet ready.  The next regular session of the Louisiana Legislature will convene on April 8, 2013.  Will the tax plan be presented to the lawmakers at the eleventh hour and rushed through without giving the legislators time to examine the plan closely, as was the voucher bill for private schools, the financing of which has already been called into question by the State District Court?
Judge Timothy Kelley of State District Court ruled that the way in which the state finances its new voucher program violates the state Constitution, as it relies on money intended in “plain and unambiguous” terms solely for public schools.
As Jindal's minions in the legislature speeded the voucher bill through, Louisiana legislators, with few exceptions, meekly went along.  What could they do in the face of Jindal's awesomeness?  We'll see what happens to the tax plan.  When the lawmakers see the poll results for Jindal, they may begin to think for themselves when the time comes time to vote for a massive restructuring of the tax system in Louisiana.  Since the ideas of Jindal and his admirers in the legislature seem not to be firmly planted in reality, I don't see a good outcome if the tax restructuring plan, whatever it is, passes in the legislature and becomes law.    

Thursday, January 17, 2013

ZACK WILL GO FAR IN LIFE

For Zack Kopplin, it all started back in 2008 with the passing of the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill made it considerably easier for teachers to introduce creationist textbooks into the classroom. Outraged, he wrote a research paper about it for a high school English class. Nearly five years later, the 19-year-old Kopplin has become one of the fiercest — and most feared — advocates for education reform in Louisiana. We recently spoke to him to learn more about how he's making a difference.

Kopplin, who is studying history at Rice University, had good reason to be upset after the passing of the LSEA — an insidious piece of legislation that allows teachers to bring in their own supplemental materials when discussing politically controversial topics like evolution or climate change. Soon after the act was passed, some of his teachers began to not just supplement existing texts, but to rid the classroom of established science books altogether. It was during the process to adopt a new life science textbook in 2010 that creationists barraged Louisiana's State Board of Education with complaints about the evidence-based science texts. Suddenly, it appeared that they were going to be successful in throwing out science textbooks.
Below is a video of Zack on Hardball in 2011



What courage and determination in one so young.  I'm so very proud of Zack and what he has accomplished.  Sadly, the ignorance displayed by the reverend who objected to science textbooks that are biased in favor of evolution is not so rare amongst the citizens of the Gret Stet.  Govermor Bobby Jindal, a major force behind the Louisiana Science Education Act, surely knows better with his major in biology from Brown University, but he is the consummate opportunist.

Following his success in halting the practice of removing science textbooks from the classrooms, Zack plans to focus his attention next on voucher schools, religious fundamentalist schools that use supplemental materials in science classes to teach young-earth creationism to their students, whose numbers include those whose tuition is paid with state vouchers.  Zack has paid a price: he's been called the Anti-Christ and accused of causing Hurricane Katrina. (Multiple eye rolls)   Geaux Zack! 

H/T to my Facebook friend Chris H and others for the link to the article.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

CAUTION!

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposal to eliminate state income and corporate taxes and shift the funding of Louisiana government toward higher sales taxes is a “huge change” that needs to be approached “very, very slowly,” said an LSU economics professor who closely monitors tax revenue.
....

“There are certain things you can say from the beginning,” said Jim Richardson, an LSU professor and member of the Revenue Estimating Conference, which decides how much state government can spend. “There will be a redistribution of who pays for state government. Unless there are some real different clauses built into the law, it will change the burden from higher-income to middle- or lower-income.”
Aside from removing the burden of taxation from the mostly polluting large industries in Louisiana, which are partly to blame for the state's place at the top of the lists of unhealthy places to live, along with removing the tax burden from wealthy individuals and placing it on the shoulders of the poor and middle class, what could possibly go wrong with Jindal's plan in place?

Well, the citizens of Louisiana who live near the border of another state with a sales tax less than a possible 12.5%, say Mississippi, with a tax of 7%, might decide to shop across the border, and how will local businesses accommodate themselves to the loss of revenue?  Of course, the out-of-state purchases will also reduce state sales tax revenue.  Or folks may decide to shop online more frequently.  By law, we are required to total sales taxes on online purchases on our income tax forms, though not everyone is scrupulous in this regard, but, if there is no income tax and no tax form, then how will we pay?

The high sales taxes will limit the efforts of parishes and municipalities to raise revenue for schools, libraries, etc. through sales taxes. Of course, local governments already rely too much on sales taxes for revenue, even as property taxes remain quite low compared to other states, but such is the way in Louisiana.

This plan is another of Jindal's mad schemes, which may have taken form with advice from his good friend Rick Perry, the governor of Texas.  I'm told there's no chance that the plan will make it into law, but Jindal's mad schemes have done so previously, because a majority of spineless legislators routinely give the governor what he wants.

UPDATE: Lamar White has a brilliant post on Bobby Jindal and his latest scheme, that should be required reading for all Louisianians.  Sadly, those who most need to know (I'm looking at you, members of the Louisiana State Legislature) will not read Lamar's words, or they will read and dismiss them.
This all may sound too biting, too personal. But, yes, it is personal: Louisiana is my home state. As his newest proposal should forcefully demonstrate to anyone in Louisiana with a working brain, it should be clear, Governor Bobby Jindal doesn’t give a damn about the overwhelming majority of Louisianans. He’s hoping that we’re all too stupid to realize that eliminating taxes for corporations and eliminating the state’s personal income tax may sound awesome, but in a state as poor as Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana, it merely shifts the tax burden to those who can least afford it. Over 39% of Louisianans don’t even make enough money to qualify to pay income taxes, and the overwhelming majority of those who do qualify don’t pay much.

If you care about Louisiana, you should be sickened and insulted by Jindal’s proposal. It’s cronyism at its worst, a sure-fire formula to establish a banana republic.
Bravo, Lamar!

H/T to Adrastos at First Draft for the link to Lamar.

Friday, November 30, 2012

NOT SO FAST BOBBY

State District Judge Tim Kelley ruled Friday that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s expanded voucher program unconstitutionally diverts public money to send some public school students to private and parochial schools.

Kelley said that both Act 2 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 99 unlawfully divert tax dollars for nonpublic educational purposes.

Kelly heard closing arguments Friday morning from attorneys for the state, teacher unions, school boards and school-choice advocates.
Of course, the decision will be appealed, and who knows what will happen on appeal, but the news for now is good.  The voucher system transfers state funds, dedicated by law to public school systems, to private schools, which are not held to the same standards as public schools. However, the decision is not about unequal standards, which is a whole other matter, but about following the Louisiana Constitution.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?


It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.

Over the last two years, Congressional Republicans have forced a 43 percent reduction in the primary FEMA grants that pay for disaster preparedness. Representatives Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and other House Republicans have repeatedly tried to refuse FEMA’s budget requests when disasters are more expensive than predicted, or have demanded that other valuable programs be cut to pay for them. The Ryan budget, which Mr. Romney praised as “an excellent piece of work,” would result in severe cutbacks to the agency, as would the Republican-instigated sequester, which would cut disaster relief by 8.2 percent on top of earlier reductions.
What's wrong with the Republican Party?   I live in Louisiana, and I shudder to think what it would be like here to be on our own. Our governor, Bobby Jindal, one of the bright stars in the Republican political firmament, is in the process of privatizing or dismantling as many of our public institutions as possible before he moves on to what he hopes is a prominent role on the national scene. He will leave wreckage behind that will require decades to rebuild, if there is even the will to rebuild.  The most recent havoc is in medical education, the training of doctors, which, because it is in such a state of disarray, is causing consternation amongst doctors, hospitals, and anyone in the state who cares and is paying attention. 

The Republicans of today are ruthless social Darwinians with a dog-eat-dog mentality and no concept of the common good, no conscience for a government that cares for those amongst us who are in distress.  If you are poor, or sick without health insurance, or trying to recover from a disaster with little or no resources, then you are on your own, because your plight is your own fault, and you don't deserve to be helped by the government.  

What I don't understand is that many Republicans profess themselves Christians and claim to be pro-life.  From what I see, many of them are pro-life only for life in the womb and to hell with you after that.  Oh, and when you're at death's door, and your illness is terminal and irreversible, and you have left directives not to be kept alive on machines, they just may take up your cause in Congress and pass a law ordering that you must be kept alive at all costs, despite your expressed wishes.

What is wrong with these people?  Do we want their leaders, Romney and Ryan, running the country?   

Sunday, September 16, 2012

TEACHING SCIENCE IN LOUISIANA

See A Doonesbury Retrospective.
The successful defense last week of a three-year-old Louisiana law is casting a spotlight on how conservative groups are seeking to circumvent a federal ban on the teaching of creationism in public schools.

The Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows teaching contrary to science on the grounds it promotes critical thinking, is increasingly serving as an inspiration to religious conservatives in other states. Its defenders decry the “censorship” of nonscientific ideas and advocate allowing teachers to teach “both sides” on certain scientific theories.
....

With the law intact, Louisiana is the state that has gone the furthest in approving legislation that opens the door to allowing alternatives to science taught in its schools
 The text of the Louisiana Science Education Act

At least, Louisiana teachers are not forced to teach non-science.  

Thursday, August 30, 2012

NOT QUITE YET


Did I say Tropical Storm Isaac had passed over us? Another storm band came through with winds and more rain. Upper Lafourche (that is us) is still under a tropical storm warning and flash flood watch.

Areas in New Orleans and Jefferson are flooded, but the new levees held. Neighborhoods in Slidell and LaPlace are flooded, and communities north of Lake Pontchartrain are threatened by a dam on Lake Tangipahoa that is in danger of breaking. Isaac has and will cause much devastation. 

WWL-TV's website
has good information, but I have difficulty navigating the site because of a slow internet connection.
 

Sorry about all the misinformation, which is probably due, in part, to wishful thinking.

Monday, August 27, 2012

IT'S THE UNCERTAINTY, THE WAITING...


...and if Isaac, which the experts say will soon be a hurricane, comes our way, then it's the hurricane, loss of power, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.   After the last hurricane struck in our area, I vowed that the next scare would send me flying somewhere out of reach.  But the uncertainly is seductive in its own way, as I'm drawn to think, "Well, maybe I'll leave for nothing if the storm lands somewhere else."  So.  Here I am in sunny Thibodaux today.  We have a two-story house and a boat, so we will not be in danger of drowning.

Just look at the spread in the computer models in the illustration above.  The possible landfall for Isaac lies anywhere from the Louisiana/Mississippi border to the Louisiana/Texas border and all places in between.  Obviously, the places in between are all in Louisiana, including my place.   Sooo...we prepare, and we wait.

Image from Wunderground, which, to my sorrow, was sold to The Weather Channel.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

BOBBY, WE HARDLY KNOW YE

Governor Bobby Jindal joined the Republican governor rogues gallery in a debate at the Aspen Institute.  Michelle Millhollon reports on the gathering which was mainly a closed affair, but...
For a $15 admission price, the public could grab a seat on the Aspen Institute’s campus Wednesday night to listen to a panel discussion featuring Jindal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The talk was broadcast on Aspen’s public radio station and was streamed on the Internet.
Ha!  How about that lineup?
Jindal apologized several times for talking fast during the event, explaining that he wanted to fit in several points. Christie ribbed him for his bullet-point approach.
I've heard Jindal speak, and I vouch for the fact that he talks fast.  After a while, I stopped trying to keep up and switched off.
Jindal rapidly described the changes he successfully proposed for Louisiana’s public school system, racing from teacher tenure to the scholarships that use public dollars to send children to private or parochial schools.

“Basically vouchers,” Isaacson interjected to put a new name to the scholarships.

“We call it scholarships. The teacher unions call it four-letter words,” Jindal retorted.
Har-de-har-har.  Jindal made a funny.   And then is it back home to Louisiana for the governor?  Indeed not.  Jindal is off to Washington DC for meetings.  Bobby, we hardly know ye. 

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

STATE WILL PAY SCHOOLS TO TEACH CREATIONISM

Taxpayer dollars in Louisiana’s new voucher program will be paying to send children to schools that teach creationism and reject evolution, promoting a religious doctrine that challenges the lessons central to public school science classrooms.

Several religious schools that will be educating taxpayer-subsidized students tout their creationist views. Some schools question whether the universe is more than a few thousand years old, openly defying reams of scientific evidence to the contrary
.
Even as public schools go wanting, and public universities lay off staff.
"What they’re going to be getting financed with public money is phony science. They’re going to be getting religion instead of science,” said Barbara Forrest, a founder of the Louisiana Coalition for Science and a philosophy professor who has written about the clashes between religion and science.
Yes, but we are not to worry.
Superintendent of Education John White says annual science tests required of all voucher students in the third through 11th grades will determine if children are getting the appropriate science education in the private school classrooms.

“If students are failing the test, we’re going to intervene, and the test measures evolution,” White said.
After hundreds of thousands or even millions of state dollars have been given to schools that teach nonsensical science and leave their students ignorant.
[Governor] Jindal, who holds a college degree in biology, has supported the teaching of creationism, saying the theory of evolution has “flaws and gaps.”
Jindal was also a Rhodes scholar, and how he made his way from his studies for a degree in biology from Brown University and his studies at the University of Oxford to his present opinion in support of creationism is a mystery.

How will the schools that teach creationism coach the students at testing time?  Will the teachers say something like, "Well, you have to say that evolution is correct on the test, while you keep in mind that it's not really true";  in other words, will they coach the students to lie on the test?  Or will they encourage the students to give back what they've been taught and risk not meeting state standards?

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

BUYER'S REMORSE?

Republican and Democratic legislators said Monday they are skeptical of Jindal administration claims that health care would not suffer with more than $320 million in cuts to the LSU hospital system.

LSU’s 10-hospital system would bear 60 percent of some $522.5 million in health care spending reductions outlined so far in response to an unexpected cut in federal funding.

Gov. Bobby Jindal is counting on surplus revenues materializing to close the rest of an $859 million congressionally created hole in the Medicaid program for the state fiscal year that began this month.
Come on guys, you just passed the Jindal budget and now you're scared by a lil' ole unexpected $859 million hole in the Medicaid program and a lil' $522.5 million cut to LSU's hospital system?  Heavens to Betsy!  Don't you ever look ahead and plan for the unexpected?  Now you may have to start looking at generating some revenues.  Some of you want a special session to address the budget hole, but the guvna says that won't be necessary because he's counting on surplus revenues to materialize.  You believed his hokus-pokus before, but now you're beginning to doubt?  Iizzy-wizzy, let's get busy; there's a charm for that.

You see, LSU's hospital system is talking of goring oxen - er - closing down clinics and hospitals that treat the uninsured and poor, and the other hospitals in those areas fear lines around the block of people wanting treatment in their emergency rooms.
“I just worry how do we take care of those people if some of these doomsday scenarios happen?” [Sen. Ronnie] Johns responded. “The private hospital sector is absolutely fearful of people showing up on the steps of their emergency room.”
What we have here is a mess on our hands, but what?  Me worry?   Indeed not!  The surplus revenues will materialize...out of thin air, if necessary.   The guvna says so.  Besides, everything must be OK in the Gret Stet, because the guvna is mostly not here in Loosiana.  He's busy campaigning around the country.  I'm not sure what he's campaigning for, but he's very busy.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

WHAT STANDARDS?

Tests and other oversight for voucher students will be less stringent than rules for public school students, officials predicted Monday. 

...officials familiar with the issue said they are not expecting White to recommend voucher policies that mirror those governing public schools, including letter grades and high-stakes tests for fourth- and eighth-graders. 

The rules requirement stems from a bill pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, and approved by the Legislature in April, that expands Louisiana’s voucher program statewide, not just in New Orleans. 

Students who have attended schools rated C, D and F by the state, and who meet income requirements, can apply for state-funded vouchers to offset most costs to attend private and parochial schools. 
So.  If your child attended a public school rated C, D, or F by the state, and you meet the income requirements, Louisiana will pay your child's tuition in a private school, which will not be held to the same standards as public schools and will not be graded by letter grades.
Michael Falk, president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, has met with White in small groups of superintendents to discuss the issue.

He said Monday he does not expect White to require voucher students to face high-stakes tests, which means they have to pass them to move to the next grade.

Under current rules, fourth- and eighth-graders at public schools have to pass a skills test called LEAP to move to the next grade.
I have my reservations about the LEAP tests, which so often result in teaching to the tests, but how will we know if the private schools do a better job of educating students?  With our state money going to private schools, it would seem only fair to hold the schools to the same standards as public schools, whose already depleted coffers are being emptied further by funds going to private schools.
Last month U. S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said private and parochial schools that accept voucher students should get letter grades from the state.
The senator is right.
Critics contend that any such grade would be distorted, mostly because voucher students will make up a small percentage of any school’s population.
I'm afraid I have to call BS on that excuse.

All too often, the Louisiana Legislature and the governor, especially this governor, seem not to have thoroughly thought through to the consequences of the legislation they passed and signed into law.  And the full effects of lower standards will not be seen until far in the future, when the damage to the students may have already been done.

I wonder how much governing Jindal can do from afar, since he spends a good part of his time traveling around the country campaigning, supposedly for Republican candidates.  Or is he campaigning for the position as Romney's vice-presidential candidate?   Or for a major position in the Romney administration?  What makes Bobby run? One sure thing, if Romney is looking for someone with even less charisma than himself, so as not to outshine him in the personality contest, then Jindal is his man.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

DASTARDLY DEEDS

The Jindal administration is preparing to roll out about $860 million in cuts to the government’s insurance program that delivers health care to Louisiana’s poor — the result of newly authorized federal Medicaid funding reductions critics call disastrous.

Major health care providers said Friday they are preparing for something they know cannot be good for them or the poor, elderly and disabled once the funds are stripped from the $7.7 billion Medicaid program.

One association that provides community services to the developmentally disabled is already calling for a special legislative session to generate revenues to offset more cuts in the fiscal year that began Sunday.

Another association executive wondered whether the state could still have a viable program that meets federal Medicaid “access to care” requirements.
Jindal will have his balanced budget on the backs of the poor, the ill, the disabled, the suffering, because we can never, ever raise taxes on the rich.  In fact, we can never raise taxes on anyone.
  
But wait!  Jindal has a plan, which has not yet been announced.  What will it be?  Stretchers in the streets to save hospital costs?  Will the administration close down the primary care clinics, so that the poor will have to wait until they are so sick that they go to the emergency room, and the state and the rest of us will pay for care that's far more costly than primary care in a clinic?
“There’s not a lot of good choices,” said state Senate Health and Welfare chairman David Heitmeier, D-New Orleans, who said discussions can begin once the plan is laid out.

“It’s going to be devastating. There’s no way to sugar- coat it,” said Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Scott Simon, R-Abita Springs.
....
Louisiana State Medical Society Executive Vice President Jeff Williams said whatever the administration comes up with is going to have to be system-wide and a systemic change.

Williams said a provision in the federal law that requires reimbursement rates to physicians and other providers to be sufficient enough to ensure Medicaid patients have the same access to health care as a private-pay patient.
Whatever the proposed plan, it will not solve the looming catastrophe that will result from the severe budget cuts in state Medicaid services.  Perhaps Jindal counts on supernatural help to solve the state's budget problems, as he did in his university days when he performed an exorcism on his friend.

Note: You have to pay to read the entire article on the exorcism, but you get the idea from the first page.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

THINGS THAT DEPRESS ME

As many as 500,000 Louisiana residents — mainly working adults — won’t get government health insurance as a result of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s decision to reject a Medicaid expansion in the law overhauling the federal health care system.

Jindal has said on national television that the new health care law recently found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court is too costly and allows government to intrude too much into private lives.
Executives of the LSU-run and community hospitals voiced concern that Louisiana could suffer a “double whammy” because the new law decreases money to pay for the care of the uninsured, while increasing funding for Medicaid coverage for many of those same people. Jindal opposes state expansion of Medicaid.

Insurance executives also say they’re worried about Jindal’s opposition to setting up a state-run clearinghouse that allows consumers to shop and compare policies, according to Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
....

DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein, who is Jindal’s chief public health lieutenant, declined comment again Monday.

He has refused a dozen requests for an interview about the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, since June 28.

If Louisiana expanded Medicaid, the federal government would pay 100 percent of costs for the first three years, then 95 percent for the following three years and 90 percent after that, under the provisions of the ACA. (My emphasis throughout)
So tell me how Jindal's decision not to participate in expanding Medicaid makes any %#@&*$ sense at all.  Why is the secretary of the DHH in hiding and refusing to comment?  Greenstein will have to say something sometime.  What will he say? 

The man who has the title of governor is running around the country, making a fool of himself trying to get Mitt Romney elected, and, in the meantime, leaving the Gret Stet of Loosiana in the hands of surrogates to run...the Gret Stet, which is at the bottom of the surveys in all the positives and at the top in all the negatives, and who, when he does take action, runs the state further to the ground.  By the time Jindal finishes his term, the state will be underground.

Monday, June 27, 2011

WHAT GOVERNOR JINDAL AND HIS HELPERS DID FOR LOUISIANA

From the Editor's Column in the summer issue of Louisiana Cultural Vistas:
Inventing America and Destroying Louisiana

It was Washington's generation that had to invent America and all its institutions and envision what a great nation ought to be. It was Washington and his contemporaries, foremost among them Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, who understood that a national government had to secure revenue for its institutions, and was obligated not only to provide for the national defense and the delivery of mail, but also to found libraries and universities, and to promote exploration, learning, and a civil society.

So how bitter it is for us to descend to the present political movement in Louisiana, of an infantile populism that imagines it can have a democracy and not and not have taxes adequate to provide for the commonwealth, that would savage by a loss of $300 million a year to a higher education system that had just barely gained the ranks of respectability, that incarcerates its own citizens at the highest rate in the free world, that has a high school graduation rate of of 59 percent, that slashes its arts programs 60 percent in a single year and completely eliminates funding for humanities? It is a barbarism we are imposing on ourselves, a dark that descends from the head of the stairs.

To put it in more colloquial terms, imagine that Louisiana was a football team in a 50-team league and finished perennially, year after year, in 49th or 50th place. Would we not be firing its coaches and running them out of town rather than even contemplating re-appointing them? Would the citizens really care that the tickets cost only a nickel and clamor to see such a team play? And yet politically, that is the low bar we have set for ourselves: in education, in health care, in literacy, in the humanities and culture. And it is not being imposed by Washington or people from New Jersey; we have done it to ourselves.

The complete loss of the state appropriation for the humanities, just recently at $2 million annually, will cost the state $14 million annually in economic impact, increase our illiteracy...and diminish the quality of life incalculably. I could delineate this in detail but I will suffice to illustrate the result as Laurence Sterne might have in his prescient post-modern novel "Tristram Shandy":

as a black hole.

Martin Sartisky, Ph. D.
Editor-in-Chief
There you have it. We have done it to ourselves. And Bobby Jindal is very likely to be reelected on his platform of no new taxes and ridding ourselves of the old taxes. Governance by slash and burn. Unfortunately, if I said, "Only in Louisiana!" I would not speak truth. We are surely at the extreme of the spectrum, but the same sort of madness is spread throughout the land.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

DROUGHT! I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU


From the Baton Rouge Advocate:
A statewide burn ban takes effect at 9 a.m. Wednesday, an order issued because of persistently dry weather that has caused severe to exceptional drought over 90 percent of Louisiana, state officials said.
....

The ban takes effect on the first day of the June 1-Nov. 30 hurricane season and after weeks of flooding fears from the swollen Mississippi River.

The paradoxical mix of climatic threats raises the possibility of simultaneous federal declarations for both flood and drought in some parishes now coping with Morganza Spillway inundations, state and federal officials said.

Land in these areas may be either in severe or extreme drought conditions or inundated, depending on what side of the levees it lies, the officials said.

I've never known a time when we have gone for months without rain in south Louisiana. About a month ago, we had two brief showers, which the dry ground soaked up immediately and which helped the situation not at all.

I believe in climate change.