Claiming Obama Care

I had the opportunity last night (March 15) to give a presentation to the LSU College Democrats as part of their "The Truth About ..." series.

The topic of the discussion was health care reform — The Affordable Care Act (ACA), officially; "Obama Care" according to many of the law's critics.

I believe critics of this law will regret the day that they decided to start referring to ACA as Obama Care as the reality of the law and its provisions set it. It is not anything like the hysterical claims of the opponents have alleged. It does, in fact, fall right in the great American tradition of incremental approaches to fixing the American model of health care, which is employment based health insurance coverage.

ACA is a last ditched effort to save the system from its excesses. This presentation helps explain why.

Presentations from Cecilia Education Issues Forum

Speakers who took part in the Education Issues Forum at Cecilia High School on Sunday have made their presentations available for download.

Click here to download the PDF version of the presentation delivered by Louisiana Retired Teachers Association's Graig Luscombe.

To download the PDF version of the presentation by Bambi Polotzola of the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council, click here.

Bryan Alleman provided great information regarding issues and concerns, as well as how to engage legislators on education issues in the session. You can download the PDF of his presentation by clicking here.

This summary includes links to resources that show the effectiveness (or lack of) for educational reforms, as well has how to stay on top of developments at the session.

NEWER! Here is the presentation by Parks Primary Principal Bonnie Thibodeaux on the Compass teacher evaluation system and its shortcomings. Ms. Thibodeaux's school is recognized as an excellent school by the State of Louisiana under its current grading system.

Jindal's Education Reforms: 'not about what works, but about his political ambitions'

BESE District 3 representative Lottie Beebe was one of the new members of the board who got steam rolled by the new majority on that board who voted to unilaterally amend the Louisiana Constitution by clearing the way for Minimum Foundation Formula (MFF) funds to be diverted to private schools. Beebe, unlike the new majority of the board, was not elected with money from a handful of wealthy individuals and Governor Jindal.

Shocked by the refusal of the board's bought and paid for majority to even allow a formal discussion of the momentous decision, Beebe decided to convene an education issues forum in Cecilia to inform the public about what is taking place.

On Sunday, March 4, more than 200 people gave up their afternoon on a beautiful day to hear a panel of speakers describe the current state of public education in Louisiana (including what is taking place in the Recovery School District), the politics driving the proposed changes, and why the changes will worsen, not improve, public education in Louisiana.

The speakers were: Beebe; Graig Luscombe, Executive Director of the Louisiana Retired Teachers Association; Bonnie Thibodeaux, principal of Parks Primary School in St. Martin Parish; Al Blanchard, a supervisor in St. Martin Parish; Karran Harper Royal, mother of students in the Recovery School District and a founder of the national public education advocacy program Parents Across America; Bambi Polotzola of the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council; Mike Deshotel, a retired teacher, former head of the Louisiana Association of Educators and now an education blogger; Lee Meyers, a teacher, a member of the Assumption Parish School Board, and a vice president of the Louisiana School Board Association; and Bryan Alleman of the Acadia Parish public school system.

The presentations lasted three hours. There was a question and answer session afterwards, but I did not stay for it.

Beebe told her audience that she was summoned to a special meeting of the BESE board the prior week and that the radical restructuring of the MFF to include the vouchers was included then. She asked for more time to discuss it in the meeting but her request was denied by newly appointed Superintendent of Education John White. So, with very little discussion, the plan to use public tax dollars to fund private schools — which many of the new members had been required to pledge to endorse in order to win financial support from Jindal, contractor Lane Grigsby and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — was approved and sent to the Legislature.

The Legislature (if they choose to adhere to the Louisiana Constitution that a majority of BESE members felt free to ignore) must either approve or disapprove the BESE funding scheme; they cannot modify it.

Luscombe said that most retirement legislation this year will not apply to K-12 employees, but as part of Jindal's divide to conquer strategy, that will wait until next year. Luscombe said he believes that this year's bills targeting the state employee retirement system and state workers will be the model for changes in the teacher retirement system that Jindal will pursue next year.

Luscombe singled out six bills (three really, but with separate House and Senate versions) that constitute the thrust of the Jindal changes.

HB 56 and SB 52 — will require state employees to contribut an additional 3% to their retirement fund. That money, though, is not going to go to close the gap in the unfunded accrued liability of the state employee retirement fund. Instead, the money from those higher contributions will go to the state general fund. The increased retirement contributions will be treated as general tax revenue of the state.


HB 55 and SB 51 will change the retirement eligibility age. If a state employee is not not 55 by June 30 of this year, he/she will have to work until 67 in order to be eligible to get their full retirement benefit.

Luscombe said the administration is also switching all new state employees to a defined contribution retirement program. Under these plans, individuals control the investment of their retirement money and it is paid out to them in a lump sum upon their retirement. He said he inquired as to the average balance of defined contribution retirement accounts that the state has made available to employees since the 1990s. He said he was told that it was $270,000.

"So, you'll get that money when you retire," Luscombe said. "God help you if you live too long and spend that money."

HB 61 and SB 53 will move state employees to a cash balance retirement account.

Luscombe said the Louisiana Teacher Retirement System earned 26% on its investments in recent years. "That's the best rate of return in the country, yet it is under attack," Luscombe said.

Thibodeaux, the Principal at Parks Primary focused on personnel evaluation program. She said that Compass, as it is called, is nothing new, but labeled it "busy work for someone else's agenda."

She said the evaluation system has a 23%to53% margin of error in evaluations. "This lack of accuracy would not suffice in the business world, yet being applied to public school teachers and principals."

"Teacher observation is not new," Thibodeaux said. "Compass not new." She then rattled off the list of its predecessors. LaTip, LaTap, LaTAAP, now Compass.

She pointed out that the Compass system is supposed to start in August, but noted that "the observation tools not developed yet. Yet we will be required to use it to decide effectiveness versus ineffectiveness of all education professionals."

She said that the overall tool is 40-page document and that it takes seven hours to administer, evaluate and complete. "I can tell you within seven minutes if I've got an effective teacher in my classrooms," Thibodeaux said.

Compass, she predicted, will produce same end result as prior systems but will consume more time.

She said the true measure of teacher effectiveness would not be the annual LEAP tests, but a test at the beginning of the year followed by one at the end of the year. That, she said, would give you a direct meaningful measure of the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom.

Blanchard provided an over view of the performance of charter schools in Louisiana.

He produced a spreadsheet which contained performance ratings of 82 of the 92 charter schools in Louisiana, including those in the Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Blanchard said that state figures show that 79% of RSD district schools were graded D or F. He said that a lower percentage of RSD schools received A grades than did the rest of the state's public schools.

He said that overall, 64% of all charters get D and F. Which is far higher  than the percentage of all Louisiana public schools, 44% of which received D or F grades in the state's school rating system.

Those charters getting "A" grades have selective admission, Blanchard said.

Under the Jindal reform package, students in schools graded C or lower would be eligible for vouchers.

Blanchard cited a 2009 Stanford study on charters which echoed his own review of Louisiana charters. Specifically, of the 17% of charters rated having superior performance than public schools, most have selective admission. Standford found that 35% of charter schools performed worse than traditional public schools with the remainder performing equal to that of public schools. "If only that small percentage are better — and they have to rely on special rules to get those outcomes — why is our state rushing in that direction?" Blanchard asked.

Ms. Royal, who has two children enrolled as students in the Recovery School District says the so-called New Orleans miracle is really "smoke and mirrors." She referred attendees to a Times-Picayune article on Jindal agenda.

In her experience, Royal said that New Orleans charter charge a lot of money in fees for what most parents would consider basic features of public schools.

She said most charters have select enrollment because "even those who can test in can't afford to stay in the schools."

Performance of the schools is skewed by rules that allow charters to not allow students with grade point averages below 2.0 to return to the school the following year.

"In New Orleans, we now have six variations of public schools," Royal said. "You need a guide book just to figure out who is responsible for what school. The decisions made about the operation of these schools are not local decisions, we have to agree to let a private board govern the school."

"I have never defended status quo," Royal said, "But these reforms are not about public education. It's about politics and the erosion of the democratic process. Corporate America has launched attack on public education."

She said much of the Jindal education agenda can be traced to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has been working to undermine public education for decades.

"These reforms don't make any sense," Royal said. "They don't make sense because it's not about education. It's about politics and power. It's about implementing the ALEC agenda."

She said that Jindal, John White and their allies are hiding the fact that Recovery School District schools are being outperformed by traditional public schools in Louisiana by the very measure they use to condemn the performance of public education.

"The only way to fight this is that you must get involved now," Royal said. "These people don't intend for our kids to get a quality education, their intent is to defund public education."

In her abbreviated comments, Polotzolla (who has an autistic son) said that 91% of charters don't have students with multiple disabilities, while 59% don't have students with autism.

She said she wants to force charters to take students with disabilities. Charters currently ask parents to waive rights. Selective admission systems at charters create a segregated system where only least desirable students from an educational achievement standpoint will be left to be educated in traditional public schools.

Mike Deshotel said the school grading system guiding the state's evaluation process is unreliable and unfair. He pointed out that all alternative schools in the state are graded F even though those schools are providing students with work skills and the basics they will need to make a living in the world.

Deshotel said that the root cause of Louisiana's educational problems is poverty. No amount of reform that fails to take this into account will ever succeed.

Deshotel singled out two bills to watch HB 976 and SB 597.

"In my 45 years in public education, these are the worst bills I've ever seen," Deshotel said. "They are terrible and very dangerous legislation.

The bills will vastly expand the use of charter schools and vouchers with public education dollars.

Lee Meyer said the new MFF funding recently approved by BESE actually results in support reductions for 35 of the state's public school districts.

"They added in 8,000 voucher students to the MFF at expense of the other districts," Meyer said.

Alleman of Acadia Parish documented the failure of charter schools and the Recovery School District to improve education, but noted that they do succeed in diverting badly needed resources from public school districts that must serve every student.

Greenstein Officially Replaces Levine as Jindal's Healthcare Hack

Bruce Greenstein replaced Alan Levine as Bobby Jindal's Secretary of the Department of Health & Hospitals (DHH) in 2010, but it wasn't until the second week of 2012 that Greenstein succeeded Levine as Jindal's partisan hack on healthcare.

The official coming out event in Greenstein's transition from technocrat to political operative was Greenstein's full-out attack on the Louisiana Budget Project (LBP) for their having pointed out the obvious — namely, that there are a lot of jobs tied to the state's $7 billion Medicaid program.

In a statement to Gannett's Capitol Buruea, Greenstein went ballistic.

"It's a fallacy to say reductions in Medicaid rates impact the economy," Greenstein said. "The liberal Louisiana Budget Project is simply making the same tired case for raising taxes and maintaining the status quo that has gotten us 49th in health outcomes.

It's not clear what about the LBP report so upset Greenstein. After all, the LBP report only echoes claims being made by the Louisiana Hospital Association (LHA) for a number of years, dating back to the period before Greenstein's arrival at DHH.

In reports the LHA issued in 2009 and 2011 on the economic impact of hospitals and healthcare in Louisiana, the LHA quantified the number of hospital jobs tied to Medicaid spending by region and by member hospitals.

In 2009, when the Jindal/Levine regime was threatening cuts of $300 million or more due to budget deficits caused primarily by the repeal of portions of the Stelly Plan, the LHA detailed the importance of Medicaid to hospital and healthcare employment by region and by hospital in a report entitled "Hospitals: Economic Agents in the Louisiana Economy" (PDF).

Included in both reports is information on the size of the healthcare segment in Louisiana — more than 250,000 workers employed in more than 11,000 locations, with an annual aggregate payroll in excess of $8 billion.

The LHA 2009 report declares, "The payroll of the healthcare sector in Louisiana is larger than the payroll of any other industrial classification in the state."

The LHA's 2011 report, "Hospitals and the Louisiana Economy, 2011" (PDF), makes the Medicaid/jobs link explicit and detailed: "In Louisiana, approximately 19% of net revenues are Medicaid- related. Medicaid-related expenditures lead to the creation of 47,483 jobs with personal earnings of $1.8 billion." (Page 6 of the 44-page PDF).

The LBP declaring that there is a link between Medicaid spending and job creation, then, is not radical or liberal. It is just a restatement of established fact made so by the industry that has first-hand knowledge of the impact of that funding — the hospital industry.

Sure, the LHA has a lot of skins in the game but that didn't seem to be a concern when Jindal, the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association (LOGA) and their cronies were whipping up the anti-moratorium hysteria back in the summer of 2010.

Greenstein's claim that there is no connection between jobs and the flow of more than $7 billion through the state's economy in the form of Medicaid-paid healthcare delivery is ludicrous on its face. In effect, he's arguing that there is no connection between the revenue that hospitals, clinics and doctors have and the number of people they employ.

That's not a fallacy. That's a delusion.

A Call for True Believers

Qualifying for state and local Democratic party positions opens today across Louisiana and the future of the party is riding on who among us will step forward to lead the effort to build this party.

Build is right word because there has never really been a Democratic Party in Louisiana. There has been a Democratic banner under which candidates have run for office, but there has never been much of anything resembling an actual party organization. There have been factions and organizations built around personalities, but there has not been a party organization per sé.

That is one reason why the Louisiana Democratic Party is in shambles today. It has never been more than a device to aid in the election of the top Democrat on the ticket in any particular election year. This year, there was no Democrat at the top of a statewide ticket — in fact, there was not a statewide ticket. There were House and Senate caucuses that managed to stave off Republican efforts to win veto-proof majorities in the Legislature, but there was no party behind any of those efforts. The state party was a mailing permit and a checking account.

This is just what the party was in 2010, only this time there were no statewide Democratic candidates on the ballot that could in any way be considered to have been standards bearers of what passed for the party this year.

The qualifying that opens today provides the opening to begin to change that.

The 210 seats on the State Central Committee are open for qualifying as are the 986 or so seats on the various parish Democratic Executive Committees.

These are the bodies charged with building and maintaining the party at the state and local levels. Based on the results over the last four years, the leadership at the state level has been an abject failure. That failure has many sources, but none more glaring than the fact that the party has not appeared to stand for anything; or, if it did, it could not articulate it. As a result, the party sat in silence as what passed for public policy debates took place (can there really be a debate when only one side is talking?).

For the Democratic Party to have a future in this state, we need committed Democrats to turn out at Clerk of Courts offices across the state and qualify to fill those state and parish party committee seats.

But, not just any Democrats need apply.

What we need now are true believers. Democrats who burn with a passion for our party and its principles (see "What It Means To Be A Democrat" for some ideas). Democrats who stand ready to build a political organization that will provide the boots on the ground for Democratic candidates at the local, state and federal levels. Democrats who will fight the Republican assault on working families, minorities, teachers, public employees and others rather than seek an accommodation with those who are out to dismantle the essential public services that are the pathways to social mobility in this state and this country.

We need zealous Democrats to turn out to qualify for these positions, run strong Democratic campaigns for those seats, and then to engage in the work of party building after those elections are settled in March.


In the church that is the Democratic Party, the state central committee and the parish executive committees are akin to the clergy. They are the keepers of the flame of the party, where the passion must be the greatest and the belief must be the strongest. Why? Because the members of those respective committees swear oaths of office to promote and build the Democratic Party in this state.

As in religions, there are many levels of faith and conviction in our party as is the case in other political organizations.

But, when it comes to party committees, the job calls for the efforts to be focused on building the party and advancing its mission — not in finding middle ground with our opponents.

That is the work of elected officials who serve in the Legislature and other government positions.

We need to look no further than our opponents to catch a glimpse of what the role of party organizations are relative to elected officials — parties put the stake in the ground on issues; elected officials find the middle ground that is somewhere inside of where their party put that stake. One problem with our side is that our party has not put often enough and thus ceded the defining of the terms of the argument (the framing, if you will) to the other side. A result of that has been a radicalization of the other side because not enough of their crazy ideas have been challenged.

Democrats who care about the future of this state, who care about the future of the middle class here, about access to public education, about access to public services, about the ability of their children to find rewarding and challenging work in this state, need to commit to at least four years of work aimed at protecting those things that encompass what we have long stood for as a party and as a people.

We need you to turn out to qualify. We need you to commit your time, effort, and creativity to the task of building a political organization that can first stem, then turn the tide of greed-driven anti-social behavior that masquerades as public policy that spews like an uncapped gusher from our opponents in the party that now appears dominant in our state.

We did not get in this mess overnight. We won't get out of it overnight either. But, if we commit to work harder and smarter to reverse this we can, because as a great American once said, "the arc of moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."

If you're ready to fight for your party and your state, go qualify for a party position this week — and let's get to work!

What It Means To Be A Democrat

 (This is a speech delivered at the Lafayette Parish Democratic Executive Committee's fourth annual Lifetime Achievement Awards Banquet which was held on October 6, 2011. I got to deliver the speech by virtue of the fact I was the Democratic candidate for Lafayette City-Parish President.)

There are a lot of people thinking about this these days, particularly in our state and in our parish. Our state party was not able to field a single well-funded candidate for statewide office this year. The so-called smart money has abandoned us. Republicans have achieved the kind of dominance on the state level that some in this room have come to accept to here in Lafayette.

While conventional wisdom has it that these are bad times to be a Democrat, I believe we are exactly where we need to be in order to put our party in working order. There is no recognizable advantage to being a Democrat, so the opportunists have left us for greener pastures.

Clearly, for our party, the time has come to get back to basics. With most of the deadwood out of the way, we can now get down to the work of rebuilding our party.

In preparing for this speech, I went back to the very basics, starting with the root word “demos” in an effort to understand literally what it means to be a democrat.

The dictionary defines “demos” as being the common people of an ancient Greek state.

But, in the centuries since it originated, Demos has come to mean “the common people” in any political unit.

That form of government based on the notion of power flowing from the consent of the governed is called Democracy. Again, based on demos.

Democracy is defined as government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

The United States and Canada are democracies, although there are some in our own country who are working hard to restrict the right to participate in our elections. They are anti-democratic in both the little “D” and big “D” meanings of the word.

Democracy is also defined as a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges. That is, there is only one set of rules that we all agree to play by and that those rules produce a level playing field where your chances for success rest at least as much on what you know as  who you know.

There can be no privileged class in a democracy. We are all equal in terms of rights, duties and privileges.

So, demos is the common people. Democracy is rule by the common people, in a place having free elections, and where people have equality based on rights and privileges.

A democrat is an advocate of democracy.

That is, a Democrat is a person who believes in the political or social equality of all people.

We know this is an accurate definition, because for the past five decades in the South, our friends in the other party have used our commitment to equality as a wedge to turn some people away from our party. It worked so well on race, that our friends in the other party have tried to turn our support for equality for women, gays and others into wedges that they can use not just here but across the country.

In Louisiana, a state where we have 32% African American population and 37% total minority population, this tactic has worked to some extent, but has no long term chances for success here, so long as we remain true to our roots.

Our party, you might have read, no longer constitutes more than 50% of all registered voters in the state. We’ve known for a long time that not all people who are registered as Democrats actually support or event vote for Democrats.

The key to rebuilding our party is to embrace who we are and to run with it.

That is, to return to our great Democratic tradition of standing up for equality for all people. We stand for equality for women, for African Americans, for Asians, for Hispanics. We stand for equality of gays. We stand up for those who cannot defend themselves. The poor. The elderly. The infirm.

But also for the people who are the foundation upon which the wealth of this nation was built and continues to be produced. The people who build our roads; who clean our schools and offices; the people who wash those fancy cars; who mow those beautiful lawns; who work two or three jobs to ensure that the lives of their kids will be better than their own; those who teach our children; who work in the oil patch; those people who work countless hours trying to turn their small businesses into a bigger one.

Standing up for those people is the work that once defined us as a party. And that history shows the way up off the canvass and back into the fight.

Our friends in the other party like to defend the people they call “the job creators.” Fair enough — although they don't seem to be doing it very well now. But, let’s call the hard working people that we defend by their true name — They are the wealth creators. Nothing more and damned sure nothing less. These are our people — The people Democrats need to stand up for, to defend, to protect and to champion.

It is the work that we were called into being to do. It is the work upon which our future depends. If this is work that you are not willing to do, then you’re in the wrong party.

This is the work that makes calling ourselves Democrats meaningful. I'm Mike Stagg and this is what being a Democrat means to me — and I hope to you, as well.

Laying Claim to Louisiana

 

Progressives and Democrats from across Louisiana will gather in Alexandria on Saturday, August 27, to unite behind a strategy to plug grassroots activists into Democratic legislative campaigns this fall.

The event -- "Laying Claim to Louisiana"-- is the first part of a 500-day strategy to renew and revitalize the Louisiana Democratic Party and change the course of electoral politics in the state.

At the core of the strategy is the belief that all politics is local and that the key to renewing the state party is to harness the enthusiasm and passion of Democratic activists who have been motivated and engaged primarily by national campaigns and national issues.

The organizers of the event include officers and members of the Louisiana Democratic Party at the state and parish levels, traditional Democratic constituencies, and the in-state leaders of organizations active in national Democratic campaigns.

The goal is to build a new, working coalition that begins with electoral politics but extends beyond that into joint work on legislative and public policy issues.

The redistricting process completed earlier this year by the Legislature provides a new map from which the leadership of the Louisiana Democratic Party will be elected next year (qualifying is in early December). The state party leadership is going to change because the legislative map has changed.

We will plug in these activists into that new map to bring new vitality and energy into the state party through the election of members to the state party central committee, as well as to parish Democratic executive committees. The aim is to utilize the structure of the Democratic Party to channel the efforts and enthusiasm of the activist base into Louisiana state and local politics. We want to build a functioning political party that can provide resources, technical skills, and people to help Democratic candidates win election across the state.

It's a model that has been shown to work for Democratic parties in other states. Hell, it's worked for the Republican Party in Louisiana.

The election calendar provides the road map to guide this effort. The October 22 primary election and the November 18 runoff provide great opportunities for activists to connect with Democratic legislators and their allies to help those legislators stave off the attacks coming at them from Republicans led by David Vitter and Bobby Jindal.

Many of the activists who have been drawn to politics by national campaigns have not been as active in Louisiana politics. They have been turned off by Democrats who tended to run 'Republican-lite' campaigns. The exodus from the party of many of those candidates combined with the explicit targeting of Democrats by Vitter and his operatives, Democratic candidates must now follow the model of their Republican peers and understand that winning campaigns begin by securing their base — not in trying to themselves from it.

In Alexandria, there will be a list of targeted races presented where activists will be asked to help Democrats win election. That cooperation can serve as the springboard to greater cooperation between the activist wing of the party and legislators who, prior to this year, tended to operate independent campaigns with little or no regard for party.

The explicit external threat posed by Vitter's Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority has produced a willingness to engage the party's activist base among Democratic legislators that did not heretofore exist.

That opportunity to cooperate shows the path forward for the entire party, not just the legislators.

The entire 500-day plan will be discussed in detail in Alexandria. Keynote speaker Melissa Harris-Perry will put our fight in the national context of other fights in places like Wisconsin and Ohio (the same anti-labor, anti-women, anti-democratic forces at work there, are working with Vitter and Jindal here).

The days of Democrats being able to hide their party label are over -- Vitter and the Republicans have seen to that. The path forward is to embrace to our party. We are the only multi-racial, pro-middle class, pro-education, pro-small business party in our state.

If we lay claim to our party, we can once again lay claim to our state.

See you in Alexandria on Saturday!