John Bel Edwards Ready to Buy Teacher Votes for 2019

After listening to Governor John Bel Edwards rant and rail about Louisiana's fiscal cliff all spring, and after listening to Louisiana politicians wrangle over a single penny for months, now things have changed.  Now we are looking at an election year and Edwards wants to buy teacher votes to ensure his re-election in 2019.

The budget crisis gripped the state all spring and into the summer: old people in nursing homes got letters of eviction; every program imaginable was threatened with loss of funding from TOPS scholarships to food stamps.  Eventually, after scaring everyone in the state to death, legislators agreed on a 4.45% sales tax rate to save the day, plus some other shell game moves.

The crisis averted, the governor now looks toward re-election in 2019 and where else to start loading his votes but on the backs of teachers. This plan worked so well for him in his initial run as his wife, a former music teacher, appeared on television asking all of her brethren to vote for her husband because he knows what teachers go through.  He believes in teachers, she said.

That may be so, but we still have John White as our State Superintendent of Education and because of that we still have canned, scripted lessons in our classrooms and for that I hold John Bel Edwards responsible.

Granted, Edwards did not hire White; that distinction belongs to Bobby Jindal.  And Edwards has at times seemed interested in questioning White's job security:

In a renewal of tensions, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Wednesday his office is reviewing state Superintendent of Education John White's job status.  

Edwards, in his statewide radio show, said White should have faced state Senate confirmation during the 2017 regular legislative session, which did not happen. "He needed to be confirmed to continue to serve," the governor said. "We are looking at that situation."  

Edwards, an attorney, said the issue may need to be litigated but that he was not prepared to make an announcement.

That was over a year ago.

Efforts through the courts to remove White have failed due to lack of standing; the efforts have not come from Edwards who, according to the court, is one of only four people who could challenge White's contract.

As a teacher, it's probably not in my best interest to criticize John White, but as a human being I do think that the current curriculum that White has implemented across the state is a failure, a mess, and is dangerous to the future of our students.

I know students who used to love reading and love English who now hate it.  This is true.

I will never, ever be a fan of a canned, scripted curriculum that strips autonomy from teachers, that removes the teachable moment from the classroom, that requires teachers to read from scripts, annotate thick binders of scripted teacher notes, produce said annotations on demand, display canned PowerPoint slides, or that requires students to read the same non-fiction speeches and texts over and over and over and fill out the same graphic organizers over and over and  over for each one.

I could go on, but I'll stop with that.

And for this, I hold John Bel Edwards responsible.

It is almost without exception that each election cycle the politicians use educators and first responders as pawns to get themselves back into office.  The only time anyone ever seems to care about paying teachers or police officers an adequate salary is during an election year.  Otherwise they threaten old people with loss of health insurance coverage and terrify college kids with loss of scholarships unless they get more tax dollars with which they can continue spending lavishly on pet programs.

It's no wonder I've lost my taste for political blogging.

I don't know who is running against Edwards yet, but I'll be looking their way and listening to what they have to say about curriculum in our public schools.

They can keep their bribe money; I just want my classroom back.


Further Reading:
Louisiana's Future First Lady Donna Edwards has her Husband's Ear on Education Issues (NOLA, January 5, 2016)
Louisiana House Approves Compromise Sales Tax (NOLA, June 22, 2018)
With Cuts Near, Edwards Says Time for Solutions is Now (U.S. News, June 18, 2018)
What is a Scripted Curriculum and How Flexible is it? (SIGIS, May 30, 2018)
The Effects of Student-Teacher Relationships: Social and Academic Outcomes of Low-Income Middle and High School Students (Opus; NYU, 2013)
Meet John White (La DOE)
Teacher Slams Scripted Common Core Lessons that Must be Taught Word for Word (Washington Post, November 30, 2013)

Louisiana's Criminal Justice Reform: Sheriff Prator Expresses Concern

Last week Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator visited with Erin McCarty and Robert J. Wright on 710 KEEL radio about Governor John Bel Edwards touted Criminal Justice Reform.

The bipartisan legislation revamping the way Louisiana deals with criminals and crime was passed in 2017 in an attempt to lower Louisiana’s notoriously high incarceration rate. The reform bill was authored by six Republicans, two Democrats, and one Independent. Those designations mean little though; in Louisiana all you have to do to get re-elected to the other side of the legislative chamber is change your political affiliation, if not your beliefs.

In a meeting with President Donald Trump in early August, Governor John Bel Edwards said, "In Louisiana, we're proud of the work we've done. It's been sentencing reform, prison reform, and a real focus on reentry and for the first time in 20 years, I can tell you Louisiana does not have the highest incarceration rate in the nation today."

In 2017, U.S. News and World Report listed the top ten states with the highest incarceration rate in the nation and Louisiana was number one, and designated the prison capital of the world.

Everyone agrees there is a problem here but consensus begins to diverge when we begin to nail down what those problems are and how to solve them. Senator John Kennedy, (R-LA) is one of those voices against the new reforms: “Well, the governor and I just disagree,” said Kennedy. “He thinks our problem in Louisiana is we have too many prisoners. I think our problem is we have too many people committing crimes.”

Sheriff Prator is more specific. In his visit on KEEL radio last week he enumerated several changes he believes are problematic. One of his concerns is that the re-entry programs that are supposed to help the newly released acclimate into society are not yet in place. “We’re designing the bus while we’re driving the bus,” he said, “and somebody is gonna get killed, and people are getting killed…”.

Sheriff Prator is referring to two prisoners who were arrested on drug charges that were released in November, who have now committed murder, and have been rearrested. One of these was in Ouachita Parish and the other in Bossier Parish.

These re-entry programs are supposed to be funded in part by the savings gained from lowering the incarceration rate. Sheriff Prator directs citizens to page 38 of the Practitioners Guide for the new reforms which explains that in the first year, 35% of the savings will go to the Office of Juvenile Justice for Strategic Investments and to the Department of corrections for the same purpose. Nobody has said what those strategic investments are; Sheriff Prator did not know.

Still in the first year, 14% of the savings will go to Victims’ services (this number drops to 10% after the first year.) Twenty-one percent goes to “Grants: community-based programs” (drops to 15% after year 1) and 30% of the savings from early release goes to the General Fund to be spent at legislators’ discretion.

What concerns Sheriff Prator a great deal can be found on pages 6 and 7 of the Practitioner’s Guide which outlines new thresholds and penalties for non-violent crimes. Apparently, we are not all in agreement on what “non-violent” means. For example, under the new law, a person could barge into my home with a firearm and could be free the very next day. This is now a probationary offense.

Specifically, the former penalty for this was mandatory five to thirty years. Now it is 1-30 years and the one year is not mandatory, according to Sheriff Prator.

 Another example: no longer considered a violent crime is “mingling harmful substances”; in other words, if someone drops a date rape drug in your drink, this is a non-violent offense. So is extortion and a drive-by shooting if you happen to miss hitting a person. See page 7 of the Practitioners Guide for these.

Here is the chart found on page 7 of the Guide:

Reducing Minimum and Maximum Sentences, p. 7

 Penalties for crimes have been drastically altered as well, such as debt forgiveness. One scenario described by Sheriff Prator would be that of a repeat offender for theft, for example. If the judge orders that person to reimburse the victim, the most they have to pay back is the equivalent of one day’s wage per month, and if they do that for one year the balance of the debt is forgiven.

 Additionally, third and fourth DWI offenses are now backed down to probation and may qualify for diversion, which means that it is not recidivism if it never happened. At least on record.

Nobody, not even Sheriff Prator, thinks our prison system was without fault before these reforms. Everyone agrees that change was needed. But perhaps we have once again passed a bill without really knowing what is in it. At the very least, we have passed a bill that releases prisoners without the safety net to keep them from reoffending. Those programs simply do not exist yet and that is not a good situation for the citizens of Louisiana or the newly released.

Read the Practitioner’s Guide; it’s not a complicated document. You can find it here.

Further Reading:
U.S.News and World Report:  10 States with Highest Incarceration Rates (7/26/17)
Two Louisiana Inmates released early under reform accused of murder: The Advocate (8/2/18)
Louisiana's Criminal Justice Reforms 2017: Pew Research Group (3/1/18)
Governor Edwards Meets with President Trump: WAFB (8/10/18)
Disputes over La. Criminal Justice Reform Continue: KTBS (8/16/18)
Sheriff Steve Prator Highly Critical Of Prison Reform Efforts KEEL Radio (8/22/18)
Louisiana's Justice Reinvestment Reforms Practitioner's Guide (8/1/17)
Equal Justice Initiative

Louisiana is now Taxing Pretty Much Everything

As of April 1, appropriately, Louisiana now has the highest sales tax in the nation.  We now pay five-cents on the dollar in state sales tax. Add that to your parish and city taxes and in some places you're paying 10.5% in tax on your purchase.

Buried in the twenty-five pages of revisions to the sales tax statutes you will find an astounding array of new and increased taxes.

In addition to the penny added to the state sales tax, getting the most press are the usual sin taxes: alcohol and cigarettes. The tax on cigarettes went up twenty-two cents for a new total of $1.08 tax per pack.  Taxes on beer, wine, and liquor are also up.

Our legislators have found ways to tax just about everything this time around though, and reading through the twenty-five pages of revisions is enlightening.  For example, we are now taxing Mardi Gras beads at five-percent; the purchases by krewes for those Mardi Gras throws had been previously exempt but no more.

We are also now taxing athletic events at schools now.  The old statute:

(b)(i) The sale of admissions to places of amusement, to athletic entertainment other than that of schools, colleges, and universities, and recreational events, and the furnishing, for dues, fees, or other consideration of the privilege of access to clubs or the privilege of having access to or the use of amusement, entertainment, athletic, or recreational facilities; but the term "sales of services" shall not include membership fees or dues of nonprofit, civic organizations, including by way of illustration and not of limitation the Young Men's Christian Association, the Catholic Youth Organization, and the Young Women's Christian Association.

But that statute is now revised to include taxes on admission charges to athletic events of schools, colleges, and universities (see page nine). That tax will start out at 5% and run until June 30, 2016 and then will drop to 3% for the next two years, and supposedly will expire in July 2018.  This is a terrible thing for public schools who quite often barely support their athletic programs at all. We all know that schools are always involved in one fund-raiser after another to support these programs. Car washes, candy sales, gift-wrap fundraisers, cookie dough fundraisers...it goes on and on.

Where will the extra manpower come from in collecting and accounting for these taxes at the school level?  The ripple effect of this one is disheartening.

Also now taxable at a rate of 5% are your membership fees and dues to civic organizations like the American Legion, YMCA, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Daughters of the American Revolution, local historical societies, etc.  That one is going to hit me on several fronts.

There's a new 5% tax on admission to art museums and science museums.

That non-profit camp you were going to this summer?  Now taxed at five-percent -- unless you go in July and then it's 3%.

Eyeglasses, prosthetic devices, contact lenses, and wheelchairs will be taxed at 5% as will your purchase of a dialysis machine.

Ticket sales by non-profits?  Five-percent.  So, that American Legion Style Show fundraiser?  You'll be paying taxes on that ticket.

Do you shop at the thrift shop at Barksdale or other military installation?  There's a new 5% tax on your purchase.

And you've got to wonder what they're thinking here: "Sales by blind persons who operate certain small businesses."  Five-percent.

Tickets to dance, drama or performing arts performance sponsored by domestic nonprofit organizations: Five percent.

And if you purchase a of one-of-a-kind work of art from an established location within a cultural products district, there's now a 5% tax.

But hey, it's not all bad. If you own a racehorse in a claiming race, you don't have to pay tax!

And you don't have to pay taxes on your food stamp purchases.

And you don't have to pay tax on your crawfish bait.

Most of these taxes decrease in July back down to 3% and the finally expire again in two years, but it is safe to say that Louisiana lawmakers have figured out how to tax just about everything.

Not only that, but because of the new tax on internet sales, Amazon Associates has ended its program in Louisiana. Those links to books or merchandise that used to be in my sidebar and at the end of some posts? Gone with the wind. I no longer earn revenue from those.

The debate on how we got to this situation is another story - there is plenty of blame to go around and it's certain that Bobby Jindal's shell game bookkeeping didn't help us, but neither political party is without blame.  One would hope however that Governor Edwards would consider top level pay cuts or suspension of his own pay, perhaps, rather than the salary increases he doled out upon his election. Instead we are putting the burden on the backs of those that can least afford it.

Crisis in Louisiana

Here's a snip of my latest post at DaTechGuy blog: 

 When news broke this past Thursday that John Bel Edwards had halted all payments to the enormously popular college scholarship program, you could feel the panic and desperation throughout the state.  

 Thursday afternoon, February 11, word came down about the program via NOLA:  

Gov. John Bel Edwards' budget chief, Jay Dardenne, said the state will have to leave TOPS approximately $28 million short of what it would take to fully fund the program through the end of the semester. He said all public universities will be informed that they would not receive all their TOPS payment this spring. 

Dardenne added that TOPS could only be fully funded this year if the Legislature agreed to raise taxes a lot -- over a half a billion dollars -- in the next couple of months. Even then, the Edwards administration would likely prioritize filling a shortfall in the Medicaid program before the college scholarship program would receive the money it needs.

The TOPS program began in 1989 and, in brief, it pays college tuition to in-state universities for Louisiana students who score a certain percentage on the ACT and who maintain a certain GPA. The intent was to keep our kids here in the state. Through the years the requirements have been tweaked with the GPA requirement now at 2.5 and the ACT score now at 20. You can read more specifics here.  

Now, there are a couple of things to look at in those two paragraphs from NOLA: first, Dardenne said basically that those students already enrolled in the spring semester are on the hook for the balance of the tuition they had been told would be paid through their scholarship. Literally what he said was that the colleges would “absorb” the cost of the unpaid balance. Recall that higher education throughout the state has already been decimated by Bobby Jindal and there is no room to “absorb” anything.  

Students across the state went to bed Thursday night anticipating bills for the balances to hit their mailboxes any moment. 

The second thing to note from that NOLA quote is that Dardenne indicated that even if the money to fund TOPS was found, it would instead go toward funding Medicaid rather than satisfying the promised TOPS debt.

Go to DaTechGuy to read the whole thing.

Everywhere I've been over the past few days you can hear worried, subdued conversations about the tax increases and the proposed cuts. Edwards has the entire state under emotional blackmail.

And now we have the race card. Can we just stop already with the racial division?

The Special Session has begun and it is already contentious.  Whatever lawmakers ultimately decide to do, you can be certain that you'll be paying higher taxes on everything, and new taxes on things you don't pay taxes on now, and that the TOPS program will be decimated with cuts up to 80%.

Dark days ahead.

Added:  

It gets worse.

And worse. The deficit has grown an additional $17 million.

Voter Apathy Killed Louisiana

I am disgusted by the apathy in yesterday's election here in Louisiana.  As I understand it, the early numbers show about a 39.7% turnout, only slightly higher than the October primary.  As of this writing, official numbers are not yet compiled.

In general, I am disgusted with the outcome.  Louisiana has returned a Democrat to the gubernatorial mansion primarily based on the fact that the Republican candidate was embroiled in the DC Madam scandal in 2007. Republicans I talked to just couldn't vote for Senator Vitter because he committed adultery and they couldn't find it in their Christian hearts to forgive him or to look at his conservative political record.  They either stayed home or voted for the Democrat.

John Bel Edwards won the election by a 56% to 43% margin.  Edwards campaigned as a moderate Democrat; he is an Obama supporter.  One of the first things Governor Edwards will do is to accept the Louisiana Medicaid expansion portion of Obamacare.

Another problem I saw with Edwards is that he is in the pocket of the trial lawyers and would do little to support the tort reform that is contributing to the anti-business climate in this state.  The business climate in this state is dismal...that is unless all you want to come in is more chain restaurants and tattoo parlors.  Not much else is happening here.

Edwards also wants to raise the minimum wage -- another anti-business move.

I also find it unsettling that Edwards seems to have no clear position on whether or not he would accept more Syrian refugees into Louisiana and that he has been obfuscating his earlier positions on this for what is apparently a more popular stance.  The Hayride outlined this word-juggling here.  Initially, Edwards posted on Facebook that he would be an "active participant" in talks with the feds so that "we can be partners in the effort to accommodate refugees...".  Well, if we can forgive Vitter for adultery eight years ago, (as his wife did, by the way), certainly we can forgive Edwards a little verbal nuance, no?  Everyone's entitled to change their mind, except when they lie about it.

Initially, Edwards want to accommodate and assist the Syrian refugees coming into Louisiana.  After his Facebook posts advocating this position, and the grief he took for it in the comments, he changed his mind.  Curious.

Both campaigns manipulated language and positions to enhance themselves; that is the nature of modern politics.  David Vitter was a flawed candidate and it looks like in general, Republicans just opted for the Democrat or else stayed home just to punish the Republican party for such sorry offerings.  The collateral damage of that is that good men like Henry Burns lost their elections.

State Representative Henry Burns was in a run-off with Bossier City attorney Ryan Gatti.  Burns lost that race by less than 100 votes.  That race wasn't in my district and I don't know much about Mr. Gatti; both candidates are Republicans.  I know Henry Burns though, and I know there is no finer, kinder man.  I've witnessed the work he's done for and with veterans and for this area.  He was a small business owner and understands the needs and responsibilities of the working man trying to make a living.  He's had an exemplary record in the House and I've never heard a negative word about him.  The only reason he lost his race is voter apathy.  What a shame.

My district BESE race didn't turn out as I wished either.  We had a choice between an educator and a non-educator in that one.  A choice between a woman who has been in education for 27 years and has been a school principal, who opposed Common Core, and a man that supports Common Core and has never worked in education.  The Tony Davis campaign released a photoshopped picture of his opponent, Mary Harris, with Governor Bobby Jindal in a heart-shaped frame to make the claim that Harris would be a "rubber-stamp" for Gov. Bobby Jindal (who won't be in office after January).  That the Davis campaign took the photo of Harris, which originally was on her Facebook page and was of her with Dr. John Fleming -- not Jindal, and photoshopped it to further their own campaign is just dirty politics.

But that's what Louisiana elected last night.

In the Caddo Parish District Attorney's race, we elected the candidate that accepted the George Soros money.  Judge Stewart may be a fine man and a fair judge, but I couldn't vote for Soros money.

All in all, it's a sad lot of affairs.

Elliot Stonecipher's new article offers a few pinpricks of optimistic light this morning.  We did elect Billy Nungesser as Lt. Governor over the Democrat Kip Holden, and we did elect Jeff Landry as Attorney General.

And by the end of the night, Senator Vitter declared that he won't run for re-election to the Senate which opens that slot up to some excellent candidates such as Rob Maness, Charles Boustany, and John Fleming.  There will be a strong Republican field for that seat.

It was a disappointing night for conservatives in Louisiana, but overall it was the apathy that killed us.  If we don't care about our political leaders any more than 39%, we deserve what we get.  We deserve the Common Core, the Syrian refugees, Obamacare, jacked up minimum wage, anti-business climate, and all of the other liberal dreck that comes with it.

On Holding Our Noses to Vote in the Gubernatorial Election

What am I missing here?

In the Louisiana gubernatorial election coming up on November 21 many of my very conservative friends are voting for John Bel Edwards.  I generally consider myself pretty politically astute and so this mystifies me.  Why?

The only reason I am getting is that they can't stand Vitter and believe he is morally corrupt.

There may be more to it, but I'm mystified.

I don't love David Vitter; his voice grates on my nerves and I think he looks smug most of the time, but given a choice between him and John Bel Edwards, I have to go with Vitter.

As far as I can tell, both candidates appear to be the same on some issues:  both oppose same sex marriage although Edwards would allow it because it's the law.  Both oppose Common Core and are against abortion.  Both are pro-Second Amendment.

Where they differ: Edwards wants to raise the minimum wage (a move that I oppose) while Vitter thinks that would inhibit job creation.

Edwards supports medical marijuana, Vitter does not.

Edwards wants to expand Louisiana's Medicaid rolls, and Vitter, while willing to consider Medicaid expansion, wants to be sure the state can afford it.  He wants a clear plan and that those receiving the benefit are actually working.

Vitter and Edwards disagree on education: Edwards opposes charter schools and Vitter is for them.  I disagree with Vitter on this one.  This is my position on "school choice" and I know I'm probably not in the majority here: I think we already have school choice.  You don't like your neighborhood school, then you can go to a private school or move to another neighborhood.  Expensive?  Sure is.  My position is that we should work to improve the schools we have.  Elect strong school board members, work in the PTA, volunteer as a mentor in your school.  Support the bond issues that come up locally to improve your schools such as those to upgrade technology.  There are things we can do to improve local schools beyond government vouchers to pay for sending kids to out of district schools.

I know - I'm going to get blasted for that.  I know I differ from many of my conservative friends on that issue.

But the clincher for me is that John Bel Edwards supports Barack Obama and can be seen in the crowd endorsing him for president in the video below.  My opposition to Obama is well documented and I can't support Edwards based just on that if it comes down to nothing but that.



Add to the list that the liberal Edwards received a failing grade from The Louisiana Family Forum.

And this attack ad from Edwards?  Beyond the pale.

So, the remaining days until the election will certainly get ugly, but I hope we don't end up with a liberal Democrat at the end of the day.  That's the last thing we need in Louisiana.