Jindal slated to speak to education group

Weeks after successfully pushing to send more public school students to private schools, Gov. Bobby Jindal will speak to a national education group.

Jindal is scheduled to make a speech at the American Federation for Children’s national policy summit next month in Jersey City, N.J.

The American Federation for Children and its partner, Alliance for School Choice, promote the benefits and need for school choice.

Betsy DeVos, the federation’s chairman, characterized Jindal as one of the nation’s most committed education reformers.

“(The governor) serves as an example of how strong leadership and a bipartisan approach can improve the lives of children, and we can’t wait to hear how he will inspire other governors across the country to stand up for children,” DeVos said.

Jindal pushed the Legislature to expand a program already in place in New Orleans that uses state dollars to send children to private or parochial schools. Critics call the aid vouchers. The governor describes it as scholarships.

Comments

1) Comment by coachblades - 24/04/2012

Your exactly right Layne. As a public school school teacher I know none of this reform will actually make kids smarter, more well behaved, and it certainly will not get the uninvolved parents active. I just can't stand how all these groups as well as other elected officials have already deemed it the greatest thing since sliced bread. As i said i am a republican, i like the idea of smaller government where it is possible. EVEN smaller government in my classroom...I hate that the state tells me what and how to teach with GLE's Common Core Curriculum ***** then gets upset at me when THEIR plan doesn't work. They ask us to get kids ready for college then they water down the grading scale, they don't allow lectures to last more than 10 minutes, (not many college classes that don't lecture) They require our college bound high performing kids to be in the same class as the low performing/vocational path students. They require us to use technology then give us computers that rarely work. All i ask for is a descent wage and some respect.

2) Comment by layne st. julien - 24/04/2012

Coachblades, it's a "success" because the goal of many of these reform groups is not to improve education, it's to build a mechanism to shuttle public taxpayer dollars into private pockets. In those terms, it's almost perfect. The dollars WILL flow. The other goal -- to build a second publicly-funded school system primarily for the white and economically advantaged children in this country -- is less perfectly achieved by Jindal's plan, but it's a helluva good start he's made.

3) Comment by RationalOne - 24/04/2012

"Betsy DeVos, the federation’s chairman, characterized Jindal as one of the nation’s most committed education reformers." What planet is Betsy from??

4) Comment by coachblades - 24/04/2012

Our Governor, a proponent of less government spending sure does spend alot of time out of state on taxpayers dime to promote himself

5) Comment by Crawdaddy - 24/04/2012

Jindal preaching to the choir. While it may sound noble to "rescue" children of low income families from their failing schools, there is much more to this issue and raises many more questions. Yes, "something" must be done to fix the "broken" system. Abandoning it or nuking it (as in not funding it) may not be "something" that will work. If you look at the ownership taken by students, parents, teachers and administrators in Central and Zachary in their respective school systems, that "something" looks like a better deal to me than vouchers. Maybe very large systems do not promote or encourage ownership by their very nature. Anyway, I wonder how a publicly-funded voucher translates to covering the complete cost of tuition at parochial / private schools. Will children who successfully "escape" have to be extensiveley remediated? Also, when it comes time to buy the $300 prom dress or that first new car for the 11th grader in the low income family, how is that going to play out? How will the "have-nots" deal with being force-fed the "haves", or vice versa? And on and on....

6) Comment by coachblades - 24/04/2012

Can someone please explain to me why people are already deaming Jindals plan a success when it hasn't even been proven yet...When in fact "reforms" like his around the country have failed to improve education and its only accomplishment has been to make education cost less...I don't get the Jindal bandwagon and I'm a pretty big republican.

7) Comment by LAAPSW - 24/04/2012

If you disagree with these changes and would like to know what you can do to get involved go to http://www.facebook.com/pension2012. Also, you can join the Retired State Employees Association (it's not just for retired state employees) or just log on to pension2012.org. There is a LOT more to this story and we have all the information available to those who would like to know the truth and/or get involved.

8) Comment by spqr - 24/04/2012

Piyush doesn't have the guts to meet with local educators. But he will meet with another group that will applaud him. Cowardly.

9) Comment by iluvbtr - 24/04/2012

For nominal fees, state lawmakers attend lavish, all-expenses paid vacations at luxury resorts – last August in New Orleans' French Quarter — where they meet wealthy political donors. State lawmakers then introduce bills — without disclosing they were written by and for ALEC’s corporations – that include major tax loopholes for big industries, proposals to offshore U.S. jobs, the privatization of public education, as well as other initiatives to undermine the working middle class. “For too long politicians beholden to secretive corporate special interest groups like ALEC have been able to pursue a dangerous and extreme agenda that slashes the pensions of our teachers, firefighters, police officers, and nurses, all the while benefitting large corporations, Wall Street insiders, and the richest one percent,” said Jordan Marks, Executive Director of the National Public Pension Coalition. “Given what we now know about ALEC and its role in undermining Louisiana's working middle class and fundamental American rights and freedoms, Louisiana’s lawmakers have no excuse but to join Coke, Pepsi, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in ending their involvement in the organization.” According to published reports, Louisiana Legislators with ALEC ties include (but are not limited to): Senate President John A. Alario, Jr.(R-8) Senate Republican Chairman Daniel R. Martiny (R-10) House Speaker Jim W. Tucker (R-86) House Speaker Pro Tempore Walter Leger, III (D-91) Rep. Noble Ellington (R-20), ALEC National Chairman Rep. Joe Harrison (R-51), ALEC State Co-Chairman Rep. George "Greg" Cromer (R-90), ALEC State Co-Chairman Rep. John Anders (D-21) Rep. Damon J. Baldone; (D-53) Rep. Timothy G. Burns (R-89) Rep. Jean Doerge (D-10) Rep. Hollis Downs (R-12) Rep. Dale Erdey (R-13) Rep. James R. Fannin (D-13) Rep. Franklin J. Foil (R-70) Rep. Brett F. Geymann (R-35) Rep. Chris C. Hazel (R-27) Rep. Cameron Henry, Jr. (R-82) Rep. Frank Hoffmann (R-15) Rep. John LaBruzzo (R-81) Rep. Harvey LeBas (D-38) Rep. Nicholas J. Lorusso (R-94) Rep. Fred H. Mills, Jr. (R-22) Rep. Nickie J. Monica (R-57) Rep. Christopher J. Roy, Jr. (D-25) Rep. John M. Schroder, Sr. (R-77) Rep. Scott Simon (R-74) Rep. Mack A. White, Jr. (R-64) Rep. Thomas Willmott (R-92) Sen. Jack L. Donahue, Jr. (R-11) Sen. Robert W. Kostelka (R-35) Sen. Willie Mount (D-27) Sen. Ben Wayne Nevers, Sr. (D-12) Sen. Neil Riser (R-32)

10) Comment by iluvbtr - 24/04/2012

These are the people who think that government is mysteriously cursed with a Midas touch in reverse – everything it touches turns to waste. Clint Bolick, a member of the Council for National Policy and president and founder of the Phoenix-based Alliance for School Choice, quotes his hero Milton Friedman at length describing "government schools" as "a socialist enterprise". The real money behind the voucher movement, however, comes from real money. Many of the voucher bills passing through state houses are the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or Alec, as well as pro free-market thinktanks such as the Heartland Institute and the Heritage Foundation. These organizations engage in aggressive lobbying efforts in favor of what they call "school reform". They are backed by big oil, Koch Industries, Walmart – the kind of corporate entities that Romney would call "people".

11) Comment by iluvbtr - 24/04/2012

The American Federation for Children was a "Trustee" level sponsor of 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Conference, which in 2010, equated to $5,000.[1] ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Elected legislators who are active in ALEC, overwhelmingly right-wing politicians, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills.