A Roaring Lion or a Stuffed Housecat?

A Problem with the Hammond Chamber of Commerce

Dayne Sherman
Column
5/26/13
Words: 650
Published in the Daily Star & elsewhere

The crisis in Louisiana higher education does not appear to be slowing in the least. With almost every public statement, Governor Bobby Jindal’s well-paid propagandists say that they are protecting higher education and health care—as if saying something over and over again will convince the public to abandon reality and believe their fiction.

My role as a writer is to point out the distance between the spin and the facts. In the process, I have often raked my own tribe, the professoriate, over the coals. I believe charity begins at home.

From my perspective, college and university employees should be marching on the State Capitol and not their respective university administrations. After all, it is the legislators and the governor who send university chancellors, presidents, and provosts buckets of mud instead of buckets of money to run campuses.

The problem with professors is not that they are lazy or that they do not work hard or teach well, it is that they are not involved in the political process as active citizens. I recounted last week that state funding for Louisiana higher education has been cut 80 percent since 2008. This is a shame and a sin.

So far, I have witnessed nothing to change my mind or challenge my assertion that university employees are cowering in a corner afraid of the boogie man. This lack of civic engagement weakens their institutions, harms their students, and threatens their communities.

Having said this, there are some fine examples statewide and locally of faculty members standing up to the powers and principalities, but they are few, the exception and not the rule.

But enough with the criticism of my own profession. Recently, I was driving up Northwest Railroad Avenue in Hammond, and I saw a stuffed lion atop the Chamber of Commerce sign. It is a cute gesture.

I went home and spent a great deal of time scouring the Chamber webpage for position statements decrying the cuts to their local university, and I could find nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. The outrage may be buried there someplace, but it is covered by a thin veneer of happiness.

Forty million dollars in cuts to the local university and they don’t have an image of a balled up fist with the caption saying, “Governor and legislators, stop killing our university!”

How shameful.

With the Chamber, I see the same apathy of the professoriate, which is nothing but acquiesce: “Let’s go along to get along.”

In Louisiana, we are own worst enemies. Failing to pass the Hammond school tax is one example, which was detailed on Friday in this newspaper by Dr. Roman Heleniak. I wish to thank him for his kind words about my old novel, Welcome to the Fallen Paradise. The book does deserve a sequel, but next time the beneficiaries of my fictional wrath should be the business community instead of dirty politicians.

Novels aside, at the end of the day Governor Jindal and the legislators couldn’t care less about university faculty and staff. They are disorganized, Balkanized, and as a group unaware of the political process. Most are just plain scared and with good reason.

Please understand one thing: When the business community starts carrying pitchforks to legislative offices and the Capitol, we will see the destruction of Louisiana higher education come to an immediate halt. The silence of the business community needs to end today.

The only reason I spend time challenging business leaders is that I believe they have the power and the responsibility to turn things around for higher education. The legislative session ends on June 6, and they have less than two weeks to wake up.

If only the business community would act like a roaring lion instead of a stuffed housecat.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

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Dayne Sherman, Writer & Speaker
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All universities cannot survive Jindal

Crisis in Louisiana Higher Education

 

Dayne Sherman

Column
5/20/13
Words: 750
Published in the Daily Star & elsewhere

The Louisiana higher education crisis is so broad and deep that it is difficult to cover in a newspaper column. 

No one sums up the disaster better than Jim Beam of the Lake Charles “American” newspaper. Recently, he opined, “The state spent $1.4 billion for colleges and universities in fiscal year 2007-08. The budget Jindal proposed for the fiscal year starting July 1 contains $284.5 million for higher education. That is an 80 percent reduction in state funding over those years.”

If I thought it would help, I would get this quote tattooed to my forearm in purple and gold letters with tiger paws as accents.

Of course, it would not help at all. I should be clear, however, that an 80 percent cut in state funding is an unmitigated disaster, and we will be three decades fixing the damage. 

Why did it occur? 

Simply put, Governor Jindal and his obedient legislators would rather provide two billion dollars in tax giveaways—mostly to well-connected companies—than to have a functional higher education system in Louisiana.

Constantly, the right-wing attacks the numbers of universities in Louisiana. We have too many, they say. What they never detail is exactly which universities they want to close. 

Indeed, they never mention our lack of a comprehensive community college system or that many of the vo-techs transitioning to community colleges are not accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

I suspect what these folks really want to do is close all of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. But they know this requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, which is impossible. 

Make no mistake, universities will be failing or failed by the end of Jindal’s rule in January 2016. 

This under the table attack never ends. For example, HB 68, which re-establishes a Cash Balance Retirement Plan for Higher Education employees, as well as rank and file state workers, will help destroy recruiting of new faculty and administrators. (This bill has morphed into a substitute bill, HB 729.)

The bill was sponsored by Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) and voted out of committee on May 15. It had failed to pass two weeks prior, but Paul Hollis (R-Mandeville) rolled over and switched his vote.

HB 68/729, the “Cat Food” Retirement Plan, is far worse than Social Security alone for many participants. A much better plan was passed last year, but it was found unconstitutional. Now it is before the Louisiana Supreme Court. It added retirement debt, an Unfunded Accrued Liability, and needed a two-thirds vote, which it did not get in 2012. The law that passed last year didn’t meet muster.

So what did Jindal lackey Kevin Pearson do? He made the retirement plan so paltry—again, far less than Social Security—so that it would not need a two-thirds vote of his colleagues to pass. 

It’ll give Jindal a victory to brag about as he runs for POTUS. That’s the goal for Jindal’s corrupt retirement legislation.

A dozen college leaders spoke out against the bill on May 15, which will, in part, make Louisiana higher education have a “bird seed” retirement program, something far worse than last year’s cat food plan. No one with any other career possibilities will come to work in Louisiana higher education if the bill becomes law. [See video by date - Retirement Committee: http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Video/2013/May2013.htm]

New faculty coming under HB 68/729 will get a 1.8 to less than 1 percent retirement match if they elect an Optional Retirement Plan (ORP) instead of the new state plan. Recently, I heard Jim Purcell of the Board of Regents indicate that neither he nor anyone else would be coming to Louisiana to work in higher education. Remember that Louisiana state employees do not pay into or receive Social Security benefits. Defending the plan at the hearing was one person, Steven Procopio, a loyal Jindal hack. 

One stooge is more important than a dozen faculty leaders in Representative Hollis’s weird little world. In other words, the testimony of one Jindal boot licker is more significant than statewide higher education leaders representing faculty senates, unions, and the American Association of University Professors.

Procopio was just doing his job. But next time you see a member of the Northshore legislative delegation, thank him for being instrumental in killing Southeastern Louisiana University and other state colleges and universities. They deserve to be thanked.

Again, Pearson and Hollis, as well as many local representatives are destroying higher education. I am simply letting you know what they are doing. Don’t forget this during the next election.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

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Dayne Sherman, Writer & Speaker
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It’s Karma, Bobby

An Open Letter to Governor Jindal

Dayne Sherman

Column
5/12/13
Words: 750
Published in the Daily Star and eleswhere

Dear Bobby,

We haven’t talked in a long time, almost a year. We need to catch up. In August, I wrote you a letter titled “Bobby, can you hear me in the bunker?” I predicated your downfall. Don’t blame me for not warning you. I tried. Now the party is over.

I heard screaming the other day outside our little house in Ponchatoula. When I went into the backyard, I could tell it was coming from the general direction of Baton Rouge some 50 miles away. I later learned that the squalling was old “Green Beans,” your Department of Health and Hospital leader wailing from under the tires of a big bus at the Governor’s Mansion. I didn’t even know you could drive a car much less a bus.

The Medicaid contract fraud investigation must be keeping you awake at night. You have no real friends, man, and when the indictments start falling, folks are going to “squeal like a pig,” to use an apt line from the movie “Deliverance.”

The school voucher thing has been nothing but trouble, and the Supremes pistol-whipped you over it. When Representative Stephen Carter played pack mule for your signature legislation, I could tell he wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar, not that it would have helped. But what were you thinking? Haven’t you read the Louisiana Constitution?

Your retirement law was a disaster, too. Senator Elbert Guillory and Representative Kevin Pearson were your champions. Do you ever talk to those guys? Guillory just said that he consulted a witch doctor instead of a real doctor for an illness, and he thinks it’s legitimate science for Louisiana classrooms. Pearson has all of the gravitas of a vacuum cleaner salesman. And the Supremes are going to stomp your retirement law into the gumbo mud. 

But back to those unconstitutional vouchers. Here’s a tip to help you with those sinkhole approval numbers: Fire Superintendent of Education John White. Blame all of the school legislation on him and then appoint Steve Monaghan, that intimidating-looking union boss, as the new Super. The public school teachers will leave you alone for a change.

Dude, stop trying to pay for vouchers with K-12 money. Many of these schools have DVD teachers and textbooks that say the KKK was good and the Loch Ness monster real. Instead, take the money out of the university budgets. More than a few professors brag that they don’t even vote. Higher ed is easy pickings. Most college professors are too dumb to miss the money in their paychecks anyhow.

You’ve got to get out in front of these disasters. I have an idea. Why not tell your staff that you are canoeing the Atchafalaya with three college buddies, and then go to the Chicken Ranch in Nevada, the big brothel. You’ve got to get caught with a woman on purpose. Then pull a David Vitter and do a press conference with your wife. You’ll gain in the polls. 

Better yet, marry the prostitute and you’ll come back stronger than Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Louisiana people will eat it up. It’ll be like Earl Long and Blaze Starr. You’ll get a reality TV show as big as Duck Dynasty.

I’m ashamed to admit that you had me hoodwinked, Bobby. I thought you had the Midas touch. Everything turned to gold for a long while. Lately, though, you have the manure touch. I won’t even try to explain it to you.

Wait, I might have the answer. I know you have done exorcisms in college, but can you perform a real life resurrection from the dead? I mean like Lazarus in the Bible. That could change everything overnight. Fast. People will believe again.

No, it won’t work. Did anyone tell you Willie Nelson, my hero, just turned 80? He’s got a song that you should download on your iPod. It’s real catchy. It goes something like this: “There's just a little old fashioned karma coming down / Just a little old fashioned justice going round / A little bit of sowing and a little bit of reaping / A little bit of laughing and a little bit of weeping / Just a little old fashioned karma coming down.”

Yeah, Bobby, that’s your new theme song. Perhaps it’s time to resign from the governorship and take a little vacation. It’s all downhill from here on out. And I’d never lie to a friend.

Your pal,

Dayne

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

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Dayne Sherman, Writer, Speaker, Scholar
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Citizenship

Reflections on the Enough is Enough! Rally 

By Dayne Sherman
Column

5/6/13
Words: 500

  

On Tuesday, April 30, I went to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge for the Enough is Enough! rally. Though I had been planning to go for weeks, several days before the event I was asked to speak on the Capitol steps.

The nine hours of annual leave I requested from my job were some of the most productive vacation hours I have had in my life. Not just because I had the privilege to be a featured speaker, delivering a spirited speech titled “The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost for Governor Jindal,” but because I was able to act on my rights as a citizen.

What was so inspiring about the event were the people. I met cab drivers, professors, teachers, social workers, students, medical doctors, activists, young people, and old people. White, black, brown, and yellow.

The rally, which was swarming with news media and about 400 activists, was a peaceful gathering in every way. I felt tremendous camaraderie and a sense of good will. Attendees were very supportive of one another and speaking with one voice that Bobby Jindal’s attack on education and health care must stop.  Indeed, enough is enough!

And unlike the last legislative session, a time when teachers were treated like farm animals and corralled like beasts, I saw no hostility or lack of respect by security workers or staff.

Also encouraging to me were the many Tangipahoa Parish residents at the Capitol. You couldn’t swing a rubber chicken by the foot and not hit someone from Tangipahoa. Ponchatoula High School teacher Kevin Crovetto was there, as were a number of other teachers.

What’s great about Crovetto is that no one knows more about state K-12 education policies than he does. Hearing him talk is to dispense with all of the bureaucratic compost so loved in Baton Rouge by Jindal and his diminishing band of misguided followers.

One of the interesting aspects of spending time at the State Capitol is witnessing all of the lobbyists. They wear these yellowish-brown IDs that say “Lobbyist.”

I can’t fault them for doing their jobs for their clients. But I sure do wish our local representatives (Edwards, White, Broadwater, and Pugh) would sponsor a bill to give citizens a similar tag of prestige when they visit. It should read, “Citizen.” The colors? Red, white, and blue.

Let me repeat what citizens around Hammond and Ponchatoula are saying. Any local legislator who fails to fight tooth and nail for my alma mater Southeastern Louisiana University to be fully funded is no representative of the people of this parish.

Until such a time when we get those little “Citizen” badges, perhaps we should act as though we already have the right to walk the halls of the Capitol.

Thanks to the sacrifices of countless Americans past and present, it is our right to do just that.

 

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

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Dayne Sherman, Writer, Speaker, Scholar
Web & Social Media: http://daynesherman.com/
Talk About the South Blog: http://daynesherman.blogspot.com/
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***This message speaks only for the writer, a citizen, not for any present or past employer.***