Whenever
comic icon Lucille Ball got into farcical trouble on the old I Love Lucy series, husband Desi Arnaz
would exclaim, “Lucy, you got some ‘splaining to do!”
The
Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is having a Lucy moment this week, being
called to explain multiple follies, mostly committed in the name of “choice,”
but some as what might be considered fraud.
First,
the fraud-y stuff.
NOLA.com
reporter Lauren McGaughy writes that BESE
member Walter Lee has apparently been double billing the DeSoto Parish
School Board – where he was superintendent of schools – and BESE for travel
expenses. He also allegedly got sweetheart deals on buy-backs of parish-owned
vehicles. And he “determined his own pay raises,
granting himself substantial salary increases that conflicted with
recommendations by the system's business director.”
BESE President Chas Roemer says he will take “appropriate
action” and ask for repayment and maybe censure of the 13-year veteran BESE
member.
More
travel news comes from Louisiana’s indispensible investigative journalist,
Tom Aswell. His Louisiana Voice
reports that seven Department of Education employees with a combined income
topping $1 million are driving large, courtesy of the state.
In just over a year, those seven high rollers ran up $63,700 in
car rental fees, not including fuel. Aswell reports that “they have been cruising around town in vehicles like Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep
Liberty, Jeep Compass, GMC Terrain, Nissan Murano, Chevrolet Yukon, and
Cadillac Escalade at monthly rentals as high as $1,450.”
“These Enterprise rentals,” Aswell writes, “ are not the occasional rentals
for quick one- or two-day trips on departmental business; they are perks by
every definition of the word—used year-round, nights and weekends, for personal
use as well as the occasional business-related trip. And perks are taxable
in-kind income.”
On to the “choice” parade of sleazy hits:
The biggest slam on BESE’s credibility as an agent of reform
came from Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera. This
article by NOLA.com reporter Danielle Dreilinger quotes the state official
as saying that Gov. Jindal’s voucher program “doesn't have enough safeguards to
ensure participating private schools spend public money properly and educate
the students they admit.”
Because LFT and others filed a successful lawsuit against the
state, vouchers have to be funded outside the Minimum Foundation Program, with
a line item in the general fund budget. This year, that amounts to nearly $45
million divided among 118 private and religious schools. More than 6,700
students participate.
While State Superintendent of Education John White contends that
the state has sufficient safeguards to protect parents and taxpayers, Purpera
disagreed.
"Without specific criteria, LDOE cannot ensure it is
holding schools accountable for their academic performance and treating schools
consistently," Purpera wrote.
The state could have been saved the trouble, as this
report from KATC-TV in Lafayette notes. Over a year ago, the LFT urged BESE
to adopt a more stringent accountability procedure for the voucher program. Our
effort was rebuffed.
As LFT President Steve Monaghan said, “This sent a
very clear signal. The mission of the department of education was to champion
vouchers and privatization by any means necessary, and that’s why more than a
year later we have audit report stating the obvious, and what we had attempted
to fix in October 2012.”
While
we’re on the subject of accountability, BESE recently adopted a blanket renewal
for many charter schools around the state. Just six days later, the FBI raided
Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School for as-yet unknown reasons,
according to this
story by Advocate reporters
Charles Lussiere and Will Sentell.
Kenilworth
is under the auspices of The Pelican Educational Foundation, which is
apparently linked to a shadowy Turkish outfit known as the Gulen movement. In
2011, the Pelican Foundation’s charter for Abramson Science and Technology
Charter School in New Orleans was
revoked for “allegations of inappropriate use of school space for religious
processions, concealing student-on-student sexual harassment and intimidating
teachers."
In
this WBRZ-TV
report by Rob Krieger, BESE President Chas Roemer wonders if Kenilworth
violated the terms of its charter.
Maybe these
scandalous episodes are the natural outcome of the veil of secrecy that shrouds
BESE and the Department of Education. Countless public information requests
have been ignored, leading Washington
Post blogger Valerie
Strauss to include Louisiana in her list of states in which education
policy “is
increasingly being made in secret or without public input — and with a lot of
private philanthropic money.
“In Louisiana,”
she wrote, “the 19th Judicial District Court recently ruled that the
state Department of Education does not have to provide researchers with raw
data that would help them determine if school reform efforts are working — and
can pick and choose to whom it provides the information. The court ruled
that the data is not subject to the Public Records Act, according
to Research on Reforms, Inc., which sued the department for the
information. The suit was filed after the organization requested raw data and
was denied it — even though the department had given it to other researchers
already.
Finally,
there is this week’s revelation that a voucher school in Baton Rouge subjects
potential teachers to an inquisition before they can be hired, reported
here by The Advocate’s Will
Sentell.
Hosanna
Christian Academy requires teachers to answer invasive, personal questions
about their religious faith, living arrangements and private lives – questions
that no other employer, public or private, would be allowed to ask.
The
Statement of Faith on the application expresses a clear preference for dunking
over sprinkling where baptism is concerned. That the applicant is expected to
be of the Christian faith is not in doubt.
All
of which might be okay, except that the school derives most of its income from
public tax dollars in the form of vouchers. The state pays tuition for about
460 of the school’s 675 students. Last year, Hosanna collected $1.4 million in
public funds.
That
led LFT President Steve Monaghan to
say, “We understand the church’s desire to hire whomever they wish. We do
not believe that the taxpayer dollars should be used for such discriminatory
employment practices, however.”
“Those kinds of issues consumed
Europe in religious wars for centuries,” Monaghan said. “That is precisely why
the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment erects a wall of separation between
church and state. That is why no public funds should be provided to
institutions with religious preconditions for employment.”
No official response from BESE was forthcoming. According to Sentell, “Chas
Roemer, president of BESE, was unavailable for comment and his message mailbox
was full.”
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