Posts Tagged ‘opinion’

The Daily Reveille, LSU’s student-run newspaper, is my primary source for news about the state’s flagship university. It’s an extremely well-written, thoroughly investigated newspaper that employs budding journalists who know how to present a story with well-vetted sources. Sure, it’s not New York Times quality, but it definitely deserves to be in the top 10 college newspapers in the country—which it has been for several years now. They get exclusives that no one else can and are constantly updating their site with the latest news, sometimes even beating out all other Baton Rouge media outlets (except us, of course). It’s so good, in fact, that the Baton Rougean often links to articles they’ve published in our own reports.

It’s a fixture on campus, almost as much a part of our community as Mike or the campanile and almost as illustrious as our top-ranked Tigers. It accompanies me everyday as I walk campus, distracting me from the otherwise inane gossip of the other pedestrians and the intense walk that all engineers must endure to get to Patrick F. Taylor Hall.

But as awesome The Reveille is, it has one glaring flaw. Its one caveat—the Achilles’ Heal that just ruins the paper—is the opinion section. Filled with utterly vapid articles, the opinion section is routinely awful. When I read an opinion article, I want to be enlightened, challenged, debated, or just totally pissed off, but the only thing that The Reveille’s opinion section seems to do is make me angry. And not the good kind of angry that you want to be after an opinion article either; it’s more of a frustrated anger. The writing just isn’t becoming of an otherwise stellar paper.

I keep hoping, though, that I’ll be surprised. With the beginning of each new year, I hope that the new writers will be awesome and worthy of The Reveille’s name. But each year I’m disappointed. And what’s the worst is that sometimes the articles start off very well. Sometimes I get interested in what’s being said and read the whole thing. But every time the writer somehow seems to demolish any sort of intellectual thesis, in most of the times only within a paragraph or two!

To illustrate this, let me rehash the gist of some of my favorite columns. Last year, a black LSU student took a trip to another SEC school and was outraged by the racism that still persists in the South. OK, there’s not that much racism, more than other parts of America, sure, but I’ll stay with you because you can make a good social commentary about this, because it is an issue. Half way into the column, the student degenerates into a ranting and angry racist. He literally saves no face.

And then today, the editor of the opinion section published a piece calling on people in “real majors” to stop making fun of those in “inferior majors.” He starts off making good points about the uselessness of some basic humanities classes for people in engineering degrees and how each major operates within different domains, but then totally makes some ridiculous points all while totally missing some huge facts. For example, there really are some impractical degrees. You can’t ignore this fact. You also can’t even begin to assert that the importance of a foreign language degree is for worldwide communication. Seriously, that’s not even the issue. If you look at serious liberal arts schools, a majority of students double, even triple, major because, simply, those degrees are significantly less arduous. Engineers are so smug about their major precisely because it is so difficult and the work they’ve put into it is seemingly monumental compared to their classmates in the humanities and social sciences. Could you be more wrong?

It’s outrageous and I’ve had enough. I want to read a good article. From this day forward, I refuse to read any opinion article to avoid being frustrated anymore—they’ve finally pushed me over the edge.

[Ed. note: Stephen Hunt is a local educator who is passionate about the challenges facing our education system. The following is the second of a two-part opinion article written exclusively for the Baton Rougean on this very issue. To read part one, click here.]

Probably the most important reform in the new public school paradigm is the concept of individual responsibility. This is not new to America — it is the basis for our very way of life. Just ask Alexis de Tocqueville, “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”^[1] Parents and students need to begin to take the responsibility for their own educations and their own futures. No matter how gifted a teacher may be, it is impossible to educate someone who does not want to learn. Those students who do not or cannot refrain from disruptive behavior have no place in the classroom with those students who wish to achieve. Parents who are unable to control their children’s behavior should not benefit from free “baby-sitting” services at the expense of responsible taxpayers. Public education is a privilege, not a right. Our Constitution does not guarantee a free education. The Declaration of Independence only mentions a “…pursuit of happiness” — not a right to public support. Americans have a history of taking responsibility for their own fortunes. The current public school paradigm has relieved them of that responsibility. In so doing, they have trapped the vast majority of parents and students who want to learn in school systems that are substandard by any measure.

Additionally, it should be the right of every student and parent to attend the school of their choice. The autocratic dictum that forces students to attend a school NOT of their choosing is Marxist at its root. It should not be the purview of any public official to tell parents which school their children must attend at the expense of their own tax dollars. Tax dollars for a child’s education must be tied to the child. Whether we call this a voucher system or give it some other politically correct label (scholarship, perhaps?) is not important. Private and parochial schools have a history of providing quality educations at a fraction of the cost of public schools. To ignore this fact flies in the face of common sense. Again, teachers’ unions are at the root of this economic injustice. The public goal must be to educate our young, not provide comfortable livings for outdated and lethargic marginal teachers and activist union organizers.

The emergence of illegal drugs on school campuses may be the most pervasive change to the ancient system. “… Almost 50 percent of 12th graders say that they’ve used drugs at least once in their lifetime, and 18 percent report using marijuana in the last month. Prescription drug abuse is high—with nearly 1 in 10 high school seniors reporting non-medical use of the prescription painkiller Vicodin in the past year.”^[2]  The drug culture has entered almost all our schools. While it affects some schools by a smaller percentage than others, none have been able to escape. In response, many athletic programs have taken the problem to task by forcing student athletes to submit to random drug testing. Perhaps entire student bodies should be obliged to submit to these same rigorous standards. Drugs do not belong in schools; no matter how “liberated” some parents may be on this subject. Educators are attempting to awaken students’ minds. Mind-altering drugs block this learning process. With few exceptions, no means that can remove illegal substances from the schoolyard can be too draconian. No student, teacher, staff member, administrator or unauthorized visitor who uses or sells illicit drugs should be allowed on our school campuses.

But if these changes are so obvious, why are we still laboring under a public school system advocated a hundred and fifty years ago by educators who found the Communist Manifesto to be a guide for society? Ask anyone on the street who their school board representative is — most voters cannot even tell you who represents them in the US Congress, let alone who represents them on the local school board. However, many parents have begun to vote with their feet. They are fleeing to suburban school districts where the public schools at least attempt to offer a quality education. Or they enroll their youngsters in private and parochial schools (as did the Obama’s) to escape the mediocrity of inner-city schools and the threat of drugs and violence. Elementary and secondary schools are privatizing in the face of a failed system. Parents may not know their school board member, but they are well aware that their kids are not being educated. Even without activity at the ballot box, public school systems are heading to extinction as they currently exist. What was it Margaret Mitchell said about the antebellum South, “…a civilization gone with the wind?” Some educators have begun to feel a breeze in America’s public school system and it signals change.

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[1] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alexis_de_tocqueville.html
[2] http://www.drugabuse.gov/drugpages/testingfaqs.html

[Ed. note: Stephen Hunt is a local educator who is passionate about the challenges facing our education system. The following is an opinion article written exclusively for the Baton Rougean on this very issue.]

It has become apparent, based upon statistical evidence that public high school graduation rates are, at the very least, not improving. This is especially true in areas of high crime and poverty. The “No Child Left Behind” legislation has made some inroads, but the advertised rate of change has not been evident. As a high school educator who came to the profession late in his career, I believe several areas must be addressed before significant improvement can occur.

To start, public schools operate in an antiquated paradigm. The traditional school year is still based on the assumption that children need to have summers off to work on the family farm. While this may be true in some rural school districts, urban public schools must adjust to the modern industrial America that employs both parents. No private business would dare leave their assets idle for three months out of the year. The public investment in fixed assets (buildings, books, etc.) requires a higher rate of productivity.

The paradigm shift must also be evident in educational goals. The politically correct assumption that all students need to go to college must be scrutinized. While a college goal may seem attractive to many students, a larger percentage of the American high school student body cannot compete academically at the college level, nor is there enough demand for more college graduates, particularly those with degrees in liberal arts or ‘identity studies,’ where many marginal students would concentrate. Instead, many students may wish to pursue careers in a skilled trade, providing a potentially more lucrative career option than they might have with a marginal degree from a lesser-known college.

It would seem only common sense that the public high school would provide for these career alternatives. In recent years, many of the programs that once provided basic skills training have been dropped for lack of funding. If public dollars are not available, school boards could enlist private industry to provide this training.  Graduation credits should be awarded for this type of course work. The assumption that ALL students need to go to — or can succeed in — college is nonsense at the onset. Perhaps it is time for secondary schools to become more specialized. In addition to charter and magnet schools, why not trade schools financed with the cooperation of private industry?

The National Education Association, an organization which has manifestly failed in its duty to help produce students able to compete in today’s world, paradoxically profits from the current public school paradigm. “The National Education Association held its five-day annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month. Ironically, the summit was heavily flavored with non-educational matters, including a wide range of political topics, according to various press reports. … Instead, the union used valuable meeting time to discuss everything from Medicare to foreign policy. Such political activism may lead many NEA members to wonder why they pay their dues…”^[1]Unions historically protect the marginal worker and that has been the case for both the NEA and the AFT (American Federation of Teachers). While teachers may need an ombudsman to protect them from an abusive or hostile work environment (or over-indulgent parents), personal injury lawyers have been very accomplished at providing this service over the last few decades. Teachers’ unions do not advance the goals of public education. They provide huge benefits for union organizers and marginal teachers, but they do nothing for exceptional teachers or for most public school students. Across America, school boards should institute incentive pay systems for all teachers and measure teacher performance based on standardized tests. If teachers strike to close the schools, hire those willing to return for wages above union scale who are willing to base their job security on objective measurements of educational progress. Only exceptional teachers will return and those not intended for the profession will find work elsewhere. 

Another point — the NEA lobbies aggressively to prevent people trained at much higher levels (e.g., engineers who want to teach math or science as a second career) from being able to move easily into teaching.  Instead, they force them into pedagogical curriculums that add nothing to their teaching ability but deter them from this career, which would help the students but would displace current teachers who aren’t as qualified to teach math or science. The requirement by state boards of education that teachers must be “certified” to arbitrary standards governed by the educational establishment allows teachers’ unions to control entry into the profession — a monopolistic practice in a free market economy.

With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, we can safely say we now live in a post-racial America. That said all busing to achieve racial balance must cease. Racial balance was never the goal of Brown vs. the Board anyway. Brown argued for neighborhood schools, not for forcing our children to wait for a bus at 5:00 AM in freezing temperatures to be transported to another part of the school district to satisfy some ACLU lawyer’s concept of integration. Further, the expense imposed arbitrarily upon public schools (especially with rising fuel costs and increasing environmental pressures) is a flagrant waste of public tax dollars. Reference the results in the Kansas City, MO public school district, “…Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil—more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country….The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.”^[2] The notion that institutionalized prejudice can be camouflaged in the smoke screen exhaust of a yellow school bus has always been ill-advised.

As an aside, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, have chosen not to enroll their two lovely daughters in the Washington, D.C. public school system — by most measures the worst system in America. “D.C. spends some $14,000 annually on each child in its public schools. A lot of that funding comes from the federal treasury, which means all American taxpayers are subsidizing the D.C. public schools. That’s one of the highest per-pupil costs in the nation. Yet if the District were a state, it would rank 51st — dead last — in test scores.”^[3] Following the lead of the Clinton’s and their daughter, Chelsea, the Obama’s have enrolled their children in an exclusive private school — Sidwell Friends School — at a cost the Obama’s can easily afford, but which financially exempts most D.C. residents.

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[1]: http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7848
[2]: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html
[3]: http://townhall.com/columnists/EdFeulner/2009/01/09/school_choice_the_real_test?page=full

For as long as anyone can remember, the Athletics Department at LSU has been an autonomous unit functioning within yet outside of the purview of the University. Funded by the massive and influential Tiger Athletic Foundation, which has more money than the University does, the Athletics Department had little official interaction with the University. Chancellor Michael Martin announced recently that as a result of the huge budget cuts to the University, the Athletics Department will officially combine with the University in order to save money and streamline the institution. As part of the administrative downsizing, Martin recently announced the termination of the Vice Chancellor of Communications and University Relations. Replacing him is Senior Associate Athletic Director Herb Vincent, whose new title is Vice Chancellor of University Relations, in addition to Senior Associate Athletic Director. This puts him in charge of the image of the University for all of the Baton Rouge campus—which is the state’s only national flagship university.

I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a wonderful partnership, one that’ll continue to grow over the next few semesters as LSU tries to save money and make the administration more efficient. It’s about time that the two organizations officially wed under one name and focus on strengthening both brands as one. It’s no joke that the Athletic Department has done a fantastic job over the past few years building an incredible department that is run with grace and efficiency. With new buildings, high attendance ratings, multiple honors and championships and strategic hirings, someone is clearly doing their job right. I think this is a great decision and a step forward for the flagship agenda—and the financial savings is just icing on the cake.

Bobby Jindal published another opinion article, this time in the main section of the Wall Street Journal.

In Washington, it seems history always repeats itself. That’s what’s happening now with health-care reform. This is an unfortunate turn of events for Americans who are legitimately concerned about the skyrocketing cost of a basic human need.

In 1993 and 1994, Hillary Clinton’s health-care reform proposal failed because it was concocted in secret without the guiding hand of public consensus-building, and because it was a philosophical over-reach. Today President Barack Obama is repeating these mistakes.

The reason is plain: The left in Washington has concluded that honesty will not yield its desired policy result. So it resorts to a fundamentally dishonest approach to reform. I say this because the marketing of the Democrats’ plans as presented in the House of Representatives and endorsed heartily by President Obama rests on three falsehoods.

You can read the full article on the WSJ web site →

A few notes to aid your reading and analysis:

• This is an important issue to Jindal. His first major governmental position was as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals under Governor Mike Foster. Later, he was appointed by President Bush and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate to be the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation.
• In this article, Jindal refers to a Lewin Group report. The Lewin Group is a corporation that provides health and human resource consulting. The full report can be found here.
• Jindal discusses the ineffectiveness of bureaucracies in major decision making. Marketing mogul Seth Godin wrote an intriguing article a few years ago concerning this. You can read it here.

[Ed. note: The following is an excerpt from an opinion piece written by Bobby Jindal published by the Politico today.]

Things in Louisiana are looking up. We are announcing major economic development wins and private capital investment and reducing government spending in order to live within our means. We just completed a grueling legislative session where we all had to work together, Democrats and Republicans, to find a way to do more with less.

We trimmed government spending, protected vital services and refused to raise taxes. (As is the case in any legislative body, some gave it a try). I can’t say our legislative session was much fun, but it was necessary, and it is the American way. Or, at least we thought it was.

In the meantime, I’ve been catching up on the news in Washington. I wish I had not…

Click here to continue reading this article on the Politico →

Raising Cane’s is a beloved member of our community. Started by a former LSU student, Cane’s first restaurant is still operating right outside the gates of LSU (and it made the list of recommendations of restaurants near LSU). They’ve been operating out of Baton Rouge for the past twelve years—since day one. I was very surprised to learn that they’ve recently decided to move their main operations to Plano, Texas (Plano Star-Courier; Dallas Business Journal). At first, I was shocked, but then I was upset. I felt betrayed and abandoned. They’re taking a lot out of our economy—the economy that helped start the company. And with them goes at least 35 jobs. I’ve already received word from people who’ve been directly affected by this. They’re hurting the same community that Todd Graves, the founder, raves about on their about page. He said: “The community response was overwhelming and I wanted to make sure Cane’s gave back to the community that was supporting my dream.” (RaisingCanes.com) It’s been great having Cane’s in the community, and they did give back, but now they’re baselessly inflicting a severe wound upon this community. Needless to say, I am confused and bewildered.

The articles I’ve read say that it’s because it’s a more central location for their business, but I can’t imagine that this is the real reason. After all, Baton Rouge supports a fortune 500 company and another fortune 1000 company, which is a lot bigger than Cane’s approximate $100 million enterprise.

I reached out to the company via Twitter. I asked them twice to respond to this and give me something—anything. I received nothing but an emphatic “No, please don’t boycott us.” So, now it’s time for me to publicly call them out. This is absurd, Cane’s, and if you expect my continued passionate patronization, then you at least owe me an explanation.

So, Cane’s, how are you going to ameliorate this situation?

Note that this is officially coming from the enterprise of the Baton Rougean and not just me. As Baton Rouge’s first and only hyperlocal news site, it is our duty to give the community a public voice—something that traditional news bureaus either can’t or won’t do. Someone must stand up for the injustices inflicted upon our community when no one else will. And yeah, maybe those words are a little harsher than this situation calls for, but I’m just setting up our official policy for the future when something else happens. I’m not saying anything negative about Cane’s. In fact, I love Cane’s and this might legitimately be a shrewd business decision, I really don’t know. It’s just not excusable to extract 35 jobs from a community that you connect yourself with. It’s also not excusable that you do this and then proffer no explanation.

Nate Silver of the political statistics blog FiveThirtyEight (which became popular when he used statistics to accurately predict the 2008 election) used a regression model to produce a prediction of when each US state would vote against a gay marriage ban. Louisiana has previously voted for a ban on gay marriage and taking into account other factors, including religiosity the percentage of white evangelical christians, Silver predicts that it’ll 2019 before Louisiana votes against a marriage ban. It’s an interesting statistical model that seems, from his evidence, to be quite accurate. What’s notable is that we’re ahead of most of the Southern states with the notable exception of Texas. You can read more about Nate’s predictions here.

What do you think? Is this prediction an accurate characterization of Louisiana? Do you think 2019 is right, or is a decade too long or short? What does it say about Louisiana to be where we are in comparison to other Southern states?