For his part, the governor told lawmakers that his agenda would fundamentally remake primary and secondary education in Louisiana for the better. “In America, we don’t believe that everyone has the right to equal outcomes,” Jindal said. “We do believe that everyone has the right to equal opportunity.”
The proceedings began amid a circus-like atmosphere, with more than 1,000 teachers on the Capitol steps while Jindal testified before an administration-friendly committee. The session ended in a quiet Capitol, with the committee room dominated mostly by the lobbyists for business groups, nonpartisan advocacy concerns and the “school-choice” movement exchanging weary congratulations with Jindal lieutenants and his legislative allies. As the room cleared, Jindal’s chief of staff, Stephen Waguespack mused to no one in particular, “Democracy at work.”
But the comments from Waguespack completely contradict those of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who sent out a press release Tuesday publicly criticizing the fast pace of the legislation Jindal is pushing.
"A good reform package will survive a thorough review, because it will survive on its merits," she says in the release.
Despite her support for much of Jindal’s reform legislation (she’s against a statewide expansion of private school vouchers), Landrieu tells The Advocate in a phone interview Tuesday that Jindal’s plan of action “is not the way to be a leader of reform.”
“This is a democracy; this is not a dictatorship,” she tells The Advocate.
The Senate Education Committee began taking up Jindal’s reform measures at 9 a.m. today. The hearing was still in progress when this blog was published late Thursday morning.
Read more here and here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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"A good reform package will survive a thorough review, because it will survive on its merits," she says in the release.
Kind of sounds like how Obamacare got pushed through. As Nancy Pelosi once said, and I'm paraphrasing, "We'll find out what's in it after we pass the bill."