Overtested

Good to see the tide might finally be turning here.

But he (John White) said there is too much duplication of tests in public high schools, and decisions have to be made on yearly testing for social studies in grades 3-11, which is not required by the federal government.

"That is a question I am frankly wrestling with," White said.

Scott Richard, executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association, has complained previously about the number of tests given students in Louisiana.

"I am glad you pointed out Louisiana law requires more tests than the feds require," Richard said.

The hearing in Lafayette was the first of eight statewide on how education regulations should be changed in light of the 2015 federal law, which replaced No Child Left Behind.

Would be nice if bad policymaking didn't just happen according to group think trends we euphemistically call "best practices" so generations of people wouldn't suffer while we wait them out. But that's a bigger issue.

There will be plenty time to fire John White later

Right now they just don't have the votes. It's as simple as that.

Edwards’ new stance stems in part from the fact that self-styled education reformers, who often clash with Edwards’ political allies, retained control of BESE after last year’s elections.

It would take eight votes on the 11-member board to replace White and eight to hire a new superintendent. No such supermajorities exist now.

Update: I missed this commentary from Crazy Crawfish a few weeks back.  He points out that the Edwards people may already have to many wolves in the hen house and that Edwards has already traded BESE away to "ed reformers" in exchange for help with the upcoming budget session.  That sounds like bad strategy. 

John Bel, I was told if I wrote a blog about this, you would never ever see it and that I needed to go through the proper channels (like the ones that have already failed me to date).

Let’s see if that’s true or another lie.

It appears to many on the outside that you seem to have taken the side of education reformers, and taken great pains to include them in your Kumbaya moment while also excluding around 50% of the population that hates Common Core and John White and his policies.

We were screwed over by corporations and billionaires from out of state and we looked to you to help make it right.  That’s not what many of us see happening.  I feel my trust has been abused, but to be fair I have not spoken to you and you may not be aware things aren’t being seen as going smoothly outside your circle.

Day One

Governor elect Edwards announced some appointments today. Among those was the new head of DHH.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - An LSU public health professor is Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards' choice to lead Louisiana's health department, the largest agency in state government.

Dr. Rebekah Gee was named Tuesday as Edwards' secretary for the Department of Health and Hospitals.

In that role, she'll oversee a $9.7 billion agency that accounts for more than one-third of the state's budget. She'll also be the figurehead for Edwards' plan to expand Louisiana's Medicaid program as allowed under the federal health care law.

This will draw attention not only because of how important it is in and of itself but also because of its political significance. Edwards' commitment to immediate Medicaid expansion was a major campaign promise which differentiated him from every other candidate. It’s is crucial that this promise be kept.

The good news is it looks like they're taking that seriously.

Dr Gee says La will expand Medicaid on first day of the Edwards administration

— Mark Ballard (@MarkBallardCnb) January 5, 2016

Update:  On the other hand, another major campaign promise of Edwards's involved "firing" John White.  His new BESE appointees appear to be crawfishing a bit.

In an interview Edwards' three BESE appointees all said they would be "open" to working with White, but didn't outright endorse him. Two of three appointees have an existing relationship with White, because they are already active in primary and secondary education.

Always give em something to vote against

LA Governor's Election 2015: Angelle, Dardenne, Edwards, and Vitter. pic.twitter.com/hdtNtyAfA3

— skooks (@skooks) May 24, 2015

You might not feel very enthusiastic about voting for any of the candidates for Governor, but does that mean you should stay home?  Hell no! It's always fun to go vote against someone. John Bel Edwards suggests go vote against John White.

Democrat John Bel Edwards said Sunday night that, if he is elected governor, he would oppose state Superintendent of Education John White remaining in his post.

“I have no intention of allowing John White, who isn’t qualified to be a middle school principal, to remain as superintendent when I am governor,” Edwards said in a prepared statement.

“We have so many highly qualified candidates right here in Louisiana that we don’t need to go looking in New York City for our next head of K-12 education,” he said.

Makes it even more fun since now you have some BESE members to vote against too. 

Horticultural creationism

Another day, another Jindal budget feud.

During a discussion on programs and the governor’s proposed budget for the coming year, assistant superintendent Dave ‘Lefty’ Lefkowith noted deep cuts that the Jindal administration has recommended for the Education Department’s executive budget — heavily implying that the cuts are a response to the political battle between Jindal and Superintendent of Education John White.

“Let’s just be adults about this,” Lefkowith said.

 Stafford Palmieri, Jindal’s chief of staff, denied that the cuts are politically motivated.

“All of the departments are taking cuts like that this year,” she shot back. “That’s just the reality of a $1.6 billion shortfall.”

“I wish I could grow money on trees, but I can’t,” she added, drawing laughter in the room, which had grown quiet in the back-and-forth.

One would think, though, that given this Education Department's creative approach to science instruction, they might still figure out a way to do that.  As long as the money doesn't evolve from the tree, it should work out OK.

Failing upward

We've been speculating about John White's next move up the Very Important Administrator ladder for some time.  Nothing we said about it back in May is any different now.

Here's his latest letter of recommendation.

Louisiana Education Superintendent John White gets a shout-out from national education analyst Andy Smarick, a partner at Bellwether Education Partners, senior policy fellow with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and former deputy education commissioner in New Jersey. Here's what Smarick wrote of White on his blog Tuesday:

"I'm convinced he should (and will) be the next U.S. secretary of education."

In case you're wondering how this system works, yes, Smarick's consulting group does count the LA Dept of Education among its clients. 

Kopplin v. White

Just another public records lawsuit against the Louisiana State Secretary of Education.

Update: Some freshly tweeted details about the suit.

.@ZackKopplin's lawsuit is over the Dept of Ed's failure to provide public records on school vouchers, teacher evaluation methods... (1/2)
— Mark Moseley (@moseleylensnola) September 10, 2013

... Louisiana Science Education Act, lobbyist influence on policymaking, and policies related to retention & destruction of records. (2/2)
— Mark Moseley (@moseleylensnola) September 10, 2013

Last year, Zack Kopplin appeared on this Rising Tide discussion panel about education reform in Louisiana. It was a highlight of the day.

Rising Tide 7 - The Education Experiment - Petri Dish Reform in New Orleans and Louisiana from Jason Berry on Vimeo.

This year's, RT will once again  look at local schools this time from a government accountability perspective. 

Are charter schools in New Orleans more or less responsive to democratic principles than our old School Boards, and how can we address the access and accountability issues for the present and future of New Orleans?

As 80% of our public schools are now Charter Schools, the business of covering charter schools has moved from weekly Parish-wide school board meetings to a variable number of meetings by a much larger number of Boards, which leaves the coverage up to more flexible news organizations like The Lens and Uptown Messenger. Charter schools and these reporters often tussle over the exceptions to open meetings laws, public records requests and other access issues. Do parents have similar issues? What is the parent’s recourse if they are not happy with how their charter school is run?

Did I mention RT is this Saturday?

Letters

Lamar corrects the Times-Picayune's reporting on the voucher audits:
 

Ironically, the only reason New Living Word School was kicked out of the program is because it was one of the few schools that actually maintained a separate account for its voucher funds and one of only two schools in the entire program subjected to rigorous scrutiny.

Superintendent White's spin on this story is brazenly disingenuous; the two audits did not demonstrate the Department of Education's commitment to "accountability." If anything, in claiming that 116 of the 117 audited schools were in compliance, Superintendent White is implicitly promoting a system devoid of accountability and ripe for abuse. If New Living Word School had been savvy, it would have simply deposited its voucher money into its general account, and no one would be the wiser.

Why can't Jimmy read?

James Varney doesn't know how to read an audit. Writes a column about it anyway.

Mr. Varney obviously didn’t bother to read the audits. It was far easier for him to take Superintendent White’s word for it, shine up some fuzzy math, and recite a litany of conservative talking points on “school choice” than it was for him to actually do his homework. After reading the audits and then reading Mr. Varney’s column, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for the guy. 

You'd think that, as an educator, White wouldn't have wanted to encourage this behavior. 

He should be about ready to jump anyway

How long has John White been with us now? We've already agreed that he's a bureaucrat of the traveling carnie variety; always looking to leap to the next gig before the consequences of his current grift become too apparent.  

 Back in May, Tom Aswell was speculating that White might be about ready to take the next step on up that ladder. Here's Lamar calling for his resignation anyway just in case that isn't what he already had planned.

I’m not trying to be purposely evocative or confrontational here, though I recognize I’m doing precisely that. Either way, Superintendent John White provided a stunningly naive understanding of these issues, a reflexive and patently dishonest reaction to his own negligent laissez-faire escapade on school vouchers: All they had to do was apply. No real auditing. No accountability or transparency. The mission was simple: Attract as many schools as possible, accept them into program, and answer questions later.

Usually the plan is to be on off to the next job before the questions get too annoying.

Mission accomplished

There's a class of itinerant professional administrators who spend entire careers jumping from place to place selling new policy gimmicks to public institutions and then bailing before they have to deal with the question of whether or not their product actually benefited anyone.  All that matters is that they've implemented a program and gotten their name everywhere. Then it's off to start over at the next gig. 

Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White is certainly one of these people.  And now "rumor has it"  his tour of duty in Louisiana  is coming to an end as bigger and better resume padding opportunities loom.

Rumors have persisted for several days now that White would be leaving his post at the end of the current legislative session, which must adjourn by June 6.

Those rumors reached a new pitch on Wednesday with word that White would be headed “for Duncanland” in June.

For those unfamiliar with the Obama cabinet, “Duncanland” would be Washington where Arne Duncan serves as Secretary of Education.

Before joining the Obama administration, Duncan served as chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools whence controversial former Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas came.

Course Choice is the new "con-profit"

All you need is a list of names and SSNs, apparently. And neither seems all that hard to get thanks to John White. 

More than 1,100 Caddo and Webster students have signed up to participate in what some say are questionable Course Choice programs. According to parents, students, and Webster and Caddo education officials, FastPath Learning is signing up some students it shouldn’t — in many cases without parent or student knowledge.

A free tablet computer is offered to those who enroll, and some educators believe that’s all the potential enrollees hear. Money to pay for the courses comes from each school district’s state-provided Minimum Foundation Program funding.

Ethicsyness

Bobby Jindal has run the most ethicsy administration ever.  Thank goodness the voters responded to his 2007 campaign's call to slay the dragon of non-ethicsyness. The state continues to reap the bounty of that movement.

The state Department of Education’s heavy reliance on contracts rather than
doing the work in-house merits scrutiny, the chairman of the Louisiana House Appropriations Committee said Tuesday.

“I am wondering where the oversight comes,” said state Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro.

The issue, which Fannin has raised in the past, surfaced during a budget review of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which sets policies for more than 700,000 public school students statewide.

Pro Bono Privato

Rex Organization donates half a million dollars to local efforts to privatize education, hosts a party for union-busting Teach For America members because.. well.. because they are Rex and that's the sort of thing they do.

In a related matter, here's a link to last week's Frontline on education reform con-artist Michelle Rhee in case you missed it.

One moment that stands out is this bit where Rhee makes a mockery of the practice of open government.

JOHN MERROW: With no time to waste, Rhee had been criss-crossing the district, talking about ways to improve the schools. But she kept her most controversial proposal under wraps, closing two dozen half-empty schools, schools that were draining the system of resources.

MICHELLE RHEE: It would have been extraordinarily unwise of me to have started this process by saying, “So I’m going to close some schools. What do you all think?” I would lose faith immediately in that person. You have to have a vision. You have to have a strategy. You have to have methodology, and then data. Then people can react to that once it’s laid out.

JOHN MERROW: But her proposal was leaked to The Washington Post. The next six weeks were all about damage control as Rhee tried to explain the proposed closures to angry parents.

MICHELLE RHEE: The bottom line is that we made the proposal, which was a proposal. We wanted to have a number of community forums during which we could hear people’s input.

A lot of the decisions that I’m going to be making, as long as I’m chancellor, are going to raise this kind of opposition. For me, it’s about the fact that if we make these decisions now, and we take on the people who are not in favor of it now, what it will result in is greater resources quicker for kids in classrooms. And that to me is way more important than how many nights I have to sit around getting yelled at.

Obviously Rhee doesn't actually value any of the "input" she's soliciting at the forums if she is withholding relevant information up front.  We see this sort of empty outreach PR exercise all the time.  Mayor Landrieu's community budget hearings are a good local example. We also see Rhee's arrogant style emulated in Louisiana Education Superintendent John White's use of "deliberative process privilege" exception to state open records law.

The proliferation of such arrogance depends, in part, on belief in a "Great Man/Woman" theory of government where one righteous sounding butt kicker enters into an arena full of incompetents and evildoers and "fixes" everything through force of will.

Despite the stereotypes and prejudices we've developed in recent years, front line employees are not overwhelmingly incompetent or evil.  But the "Great Person" who trades on those prejudices is almost always a grifter. Rhee's con revolves around using standardized test scores as a pretense to abuse as many bogeyman teachers as possible.  She may say it's all about "greater resources quicker for kids in classrooms" but that doesn't seem to be the overriding factor for her in measuring results.

The placing of these two states (Louisiana and Florida) at the top of the list is curious. StudentsFirst gave higher ratings to states that emphasized the use of charter schools and teacher evaluations based on high-stakes testing. But her organization ignored actual results. For example, it gave a “D” rating — the second-worst — to Massachusetts, which has some of the highest test scores on the  National Assessment of Educational Progress exam.

There is one thing that Florida and Louisiana have in common — they are among the worst states for teacher compensation. Florida in 2011 ranked 47th in the country for teacher salaries. Louisiana’s average teacher salary is 42nd in the country.

By and large what we currently call a "reform" movement in education is funded by elites, executed by grifters, and aimed, not at improving this essential public service but at looting it.  Much of what's being looted is coming directly out of the pockets of teachers. Which is one reason you see so many of them trying to escape now.

Oh and also, the private schools suck

Which, in and of itself, is the hilarious punch line to all this.

Lamar:

The incontroverible truth is that private schools in Louisiana are, on the whole, significantly worse than public schools, and Governor Bobby Jindal and Superintendent John White, along with the support of the majority of the Louisiana legislature, have decided, as a matter of policy, to strip public funding away from struggling public schools and give taxpayer money to unaccountable, underperforming, and fly-by-night private schools. Stated another way, their policy, as public servants, is to take money away from publicly-owned assets and institutions, and provide those resources to failing and unaccountable religious institutions.

The Louisiana voucher program isn’t concerned with saving education; it’s primarily focused on using public funds to build and promote radical fundamentalist churches.

 There's much more. I won't waste your time with jokes. Just go read.

Update: Also  tomorrow in Baton Rouge there is a mandatory BESE public hearing on John White's proposed new rules for evaluating schools who wish to participate in the voucher program. Should be a lot of fun considering the remarkable week John White has had.

Lamar told me to do my homework

But my eyes are tired from staring at screens all day so I don't wanna.  Instead I'm using it as an excuse to do nothing tonight on the grounds that none of these the things I could post will be.. um.. homeworked enough to publish until tomorrow.

I've got three unfinished drafts right now.  One is about Civil Service reform, one is a Rising Tide panel review, and one is about football.  But they all are too much work to finish right now.  So, instead, here's Lamar's Ashley acceptance speech where he tells us all to do our homework.

Rising Tide 7 - Ashley Award - Lamar White - Cenlamar blog from Jason Berry on Vimeo.

Oh and speaking of Lamar and homework, here he is explaining that John White is cribbing his from a $12,000 per month PR flack.

Isn't John White's homework overdue now anyway?

Didn't he say these so-called "tougher standards" for deciding which apostles, mythical creatures, and DVD players Louisiana will consider educational enough to receive voucher students were coming out sometime after September 1?

We're starting to get into significant "after September 1" territory now and John White's tough standards have yet to emerge.

But, as Lamar explains here, if White wants to "toughen" the standards for private schools in a way that conforms with the specific directives of the state constitution, he's going to have a hard time passing out vouchers this year.

There is no possible way that Superintendent White or any other elected or appointed official can honestly argue that schools like New Living Word in Ruston or Cenla Christian Academy in Pineville, among others, offer a curriculum “as strong as the state’s,” regardless of the “accrediting body” upon which they may rely. Schools that offer ACE, Bob Jones University, and/or ABeka curricula are inherently, indeed purposely, not as strong or as rigorous. Considering that the vast majority of private colleges and universities in the country and the entire public university system in the State of California can, by law, reject college applicants on the basis of the strength and merits of the coursework they took in high school, many of the schools that Superintendent John White approved for taxpayer funding under Bobby Jindal’s voucher program are in violation of the Louisiana State Constitution.
It’s open and shut.

And that, I imagine, is why Superintendent White is now frantically attempting to change the standards for private schools, to make it appear to the media and the public as if he has suddenly decided to get “tougher.”

Maybe we should give him an extension. 

Update: Well he's got partial credit since he just announced this voucher auditing policy.

Besides auditing funds, the state is considering tougher standards for approving private and parochial schools. Since the schools come up for annual review, the new standards would apply to new schools and ones that already have state approval.

BESE is expected to adopt the tougher standards at its October meeting.

White said one factor that will play a more significant role is whether the academic curriculum is “equal to what is expected of public schools.” Also, teaching methods and effectiveness will play a more significant role.

Yes, well, we hope the state's constitutional standard will play a "significant role."  But um... "BESE is expected to adopt" something in October that hasn't even seen the light of day yet. 

Apostle Lucas still in line to pick up his check from John White

TPM runs a comprehensive summary of Louisiana Secretary of Education John White's non-existent vetting process for private schools receiving public funds via Governor Jindal's new voucher program. The post cites work Louisiana blogs CenLamar and American Zombie have done digging into some of the more questionable voucher recipients. It also quotes this bit from a recent James Gill column.

James Gill, columnist with New Orleans’ Times-Picayune, noted that he believes the approved schools likely received little to no vetting whatsoever. “Evidently the Louisiana education department hasn’t heard that ‘Don’t confuse them with the facts’ is supposed to be a joke,” wrote Gill.

White has promised us a revision of the voucher standards is currently being formulated.  We won't be able to see any details about it until the school year has already begun, of course. So for now we're left to determine what the new limitations might be by trial and error.

Today I coughed up three particularly dense hairballs.I am applying to @louisianasupe for vouchers to educate them.
— Biscuit ForLA (@Biscuit4LA) August 24, 2012

And the great Louisiana Education Experiment continues.

Fuzzy Math

We already knew Bobby Jindal and John White's school voucher program endorsed some funny ideas about the natural sciences curriculum.  Turns out they've got some goofy mathematics mixed in there as well.

A Louisiana judge won’t stop the state’s controversial school voucher system from going into effect next month. District Judge Tim Kelley ruled that he did not have jurisdiction to provide the injunction sought by the voucher program’s opponents, citing a Louisiana law prohibiting injunctions that state officials claim will create a deficit.

Superintendent John White and Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater made just such a claim, saying that enacting an injunction on the voucher program, for which 8,000 students have already applied, would lead to a $3.4 billion hole in the state’s education budget.

The figure stems from the $3.4 billion Louisiana currently spends on state aid for school operations via the Minimum Foundation Program. Jimmy Faircloth, who represented the state during Tuesday’s hearing, said it was “unavoidable and factually inescapable” that the proposed injunction would lead to the ten-figure deficit. “It’s just indisputable,” he said, according to Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate.

However, as Brian Blackwell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said, “That’s just kind of crazy. … There’s no way that not spending money can cause a deficit. When you don’t fund something, you can’t have a deficit. There’s no deficit if you can’t spend.” Blackwell pointed out that the funds have already been sent to the Department of Education and that an injunction would merely prevent the money from being distributed.

Link via CenLamar where Lamar points out that John White is compounding his bullshit about the operating deficit by also flat out lying about what the court ruling here was even about.

So while John White claims victory and suggests that Wednesday’s decision validates his position, the truth is that the Louisiana Supreme Court never ruled on the merits or the fact of this case. They’ve merely accepted Superintendent White’s sworn testimony. I hope readers understand the distinctions here, because the positions taken by both Jindal and White are obviously dishonest: There is no conceivable way that an injunction against the voucher program would result in deficit spending. The voucher program, by definition, is concerned with giving away taxpayer dollars, and most assuredly not about generating revenue for the Louisiana Department of Education.

Busy day. Here are some links

• Louisiana education department shielding voucher records


• New Orleans TE Jimmy Graham injures himself during Wednesday's practice
  I hate fake football season.


• Economists to Romney campaign: That’s not what our research says
  I guess it's no big surprise that candidates make up shit all the time. But sometimes it's fun to see precisely how they're doing that. In this article Ezra Klein contacts the economists cited by a Mitt campaign policy paper and asks them about its assertions. They all say Mitt is misrepresenting their research. This, by the way, is precisely the sort of thing all political reporters should be doing. But gets drowned out by a sea of much easier stories which simply parrot the candidate's claims qualified only by a "Romeny campaign says.."


• Public Transit Tuesdays: Lake Forest
  Quote of the Day:

  "Now you know why dem two St. Claudes passed, huh?"
  "No...why?"
  "Because all dem white people movin' out there!"
  "Ohhh. Mmmm hmmm."
  "Yeah! And that's all the time! Wasn't like that before all the white people moved over in the 9th Ward after Katrina."

And that's all I got right now. In the meantime keep an eye out for any city planners on the loose.