Louis R. Avallone

Category: Local

  • Are All Candidates Honorable?

    About 4 out of 10 voters cast their ballots in last month’s run-off election, or had already early voted before Election Day. With such low participation levels, it reminds me of Thomas Jefferson’s saying that, “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

    And in keeping with the Christian roots of our freedom, we love our neighbor and respect his choices, even if we do not agree with him. Although every candidate may not have earned the majority of the voters’ support, they each deserve our respect.

    But a reader commented to me recently, “How can you say that all candidates deserve respect? Does the desire to hold office make a person respectable? Does asking for something, like a vote, automatically earn one a title of honor?”

    No, it doesn’t, and he makes a good point. Of course, the dictionary definition of respect is “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something, elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements”. It comes from the Latin word re- ‘back’ plus specere ‘look at.’

    My respect for candidates is not necessarily in admiration of their choices in life, or as an endorsement of their political views. Far from it. Instead, my respect comes from a realization that far too many of us choose to say, “to each his own,” or “that’s none of my business,” or “it’s not my place to judge”.

    My respect for candidates comes from an understanding that life is a fight for territory, and that once we stop fighting for what we want, what we don’t want will automatically take over. And candidates fight for what they want – instead of just wringing their hands.

    My respect for candidates comes from seeing how many other decent, hard-working people who don’t get involved because they find the cost of running for office, or serving in an elected position, or participating in politics, or taking a stand for anything – is simply too high of a price to pay.

    Of course, the Book of James tells us that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”. Yes, many of our neighbors only pray for our nation, and the dilemma we face in our culture. They worry about the erosion of our religious liberty, the decline of our education system, the deterioration of the family, and the fiscal irresponsibility of our elected officials – and yet they don’t go any further than worrying.

    We must do more, however, and this is why I believe candidates deserve our respect, even if only in the spirit of, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

    So from neighborhood association meetings to church groups, from walking miles upon miles down city streets and country roads, knocking on doors and putting up signs – these candidates represent the old-fashioned, pioneer-like grit and determination that is the American way.

    Losing is no fun, of course, and being criticized for losing, or ridiculed for one’s opinions, isn’t either. But there is no shame or dishonor in losing an election – so long as the campaign was run with honor and integrity.

    There have been – and will be – lots of “I told you so” opinions, which will point out this reason or that reason, this issue or that issue, that made all the difference in one race or another, this election cycle. And there will be plenty of time for looking in the rear-view mirror.

    But for now, congratulations to our newly elected officials, and thank you to all of the candidates who ran.

    They deserve all the credit because they were “in the arena”. As Theodore Roosevelt so famously said: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

    Whatever our politics, and however elated or disappointed you may feel about the election results this fall, we remain grateful to those candidates who gave us a choice, and the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice for there to be one.

  • What’s Past is Prologue

    What’s Past is Prologue

    Can we talk for a minute? It’s about this governor’s race. Now, please understand, I’m the first one in line to expect a higher standard from myself, as well as from those whom we cast our ballots to lead our cities, represent us in Baton Rouge, and make our nation’s laws in Washington. But having high standards, and electing less-than-perfect public servants are not mutually exclusive, either.

    It’s entertaining for some to judge, and even ridicule, David Vitter for being…well…a sinner, or having otherwise made a mistake, or a regret that he wishes he could have gone back and had a second chance to do all over again. But that hardly makes him any different than any of us. He did not blame others, or his circumstances, as so many others in our culture are prone to do today. He didn’t allege there was some conspiracy against him. He said, “I am completely responsible. And I am so very, very sorry.” He also said he had “asked for and received forgiveness” from God and his wife in confession.

    Now, for Catholics (and Vitter is Catholic), confession is more than telling your sins to God on your way to work, or in the shower, and Him forgiving you. Confession for Catholics is a sacrament before a priest, instituted by Jesus Christ in his love and mercy, which permits all of us to reconcile with the church, and repent. Vitter did just that – and he did so many, many years ago, in fact.

    But do we all need to be defined by where we came from, or should it be about where we’re going? Unless you allow it to, why does your future need to look like your past? Abraham Lincoln had failed in business and had a nervous breakdown before being elected President. Lucille Ball was dismissed from drama school with a note saying she was “wasting her time.” The Beatles were first told by a recording studio that their sound was awful and that “guitar music was on the way out.” Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Thomas Edison was told by a teacher that he was “too stupid to learn anything”

    The point is that if our past equaled the future, what chance – what hope – would any of us have to better ourselves, redeem our lives, or enrich those around us? Those who have reservations about voting for Vitter, not because of his politics, but because of his past, may need to be reminded that no man or woman is without a defect, or burden, or is wise enough to sidestep the effects of mistakes and bad decisions that we’ve all made in the past. A more accurate indicator of someone’s future, however, is the present moment, and what they are doing right now.

    Still, there is a reader out there who says, “Well, if Vitter did that 15 years ago, he’s probably going to do that again, and embarrass us because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” While that is relatively true, it turns out that such conventional wisdom about the “past being prologue” is a gross oversimplification, according to psychologists who study this subject.

    For example, if you smoke a pack of cigarettes everyday for a year, your past is a pretty good indicator of your cigarette smoking tendencies for the near future. Same for exercise habits or drinking alcohol. That makes sense to me.

    However, over longer periods of time, it turns out that these kinds of high frequency, habitual behaviors can actually be changed forever. For example, someone stops smoking at age 55, even though they have smoked everyday since they were a teenager. Or a heavy drinker chooses his family, over the bottle, spends the rest of his or her life sober.

    People can change. You know that. And if not voting for David Vitter has virtually nothing to do with his politics, and everything to do with his imperfection, despite him remaining “clean and sober” and solidly representing our conservative values over the past 15 years, then here’s your stone, some Windex, and some paper towels – for that glass house you’ve built.

    No, I’m not making you the issue, or the bad guy. It’s just sometimes we seem to be more and more critical of others and want to correct their imperfections, yet we are slow to mend our own (no, I’m not going to point out yours, or mine, right now). We judge others, too often without mercy, and yet pardon ourselves, too often without question. This is one of the reasons that reality television shows are so popular: It often makes us feel better about ourselves, as we watch and think to ourselves, “At least that’s not me.”

    And maybe that’s what’s going on here. Maybe many of us are looking at David Vitter and saying, “At least that’s not me, and I’m going with the other guy, instead.”

    Well, I just hope on judgment day, God doesn’t say the same thing to me.

     

     

  • Doing Hard Time

    Doing Hard Time

    It’s ironic. Just last month the ACLU sent a letter to the superintendent of Bossier Parish Schools demanding that “religious proselytization” at Airline High School stop immediately, especially with the principal’s unrepentant use of the phrase, “May God Bless You All.”

    Then there’s the Oklahoma Supreme Court who ruled during the summer that displaying the Ten Commandments outside the state capitol building violated a provision in the Oklahoma state constitution and therefore, the display had to be moved. In Alabama, a sheriff’s department was pressured into removing “Christian” decals from their patrol cars which read, “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” after being threatened with a lawsuit, and realizing the time and money it would take to defend themselves.

    Atheists continue to seek removal of “In God We Trust” from our nation’s currency, and an increasing number of groups are asking our school districts to remove the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance recited by students. There’s even a Facebook page to banish the singing of “God Bless America” from the seventh-inning stretch of major league baseball games.

    Yes, it’s ironic. You see, it seems the only place in America where religious freedom is not being diminished, nor otherwise being dismantled, is in the very place where residents do not have full Constitutional rights to begin with – our prisons.

    While prison inmates lose many of their civil rights, the freedom of religion is not one of them. In fact, inmates are overwhelmingly spiritual, comparatively speaking – only 1 in every 1,000 prisoners will identify themselves as atheist, compared to 1 in every 100 Americans within the general population.

    And the importance of religion in prisons is recognized so much so that almost all of the nation’s 1,100 state and federal prisons employ at least one chaplain or religious services coordinator – nearly 1,700 professional chaplains in all. Could you imagine if every school in our country had a chaplain or religious services coordinator?

    Of course, the role of religion in prisons is not breaking news, really. The Gospel of Matthew says, “I was in prison, and you visited me.” And Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, explains, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Essentially, whenever we have this sense of connectedness or belonging with other people, our physical and emotional health necessarily improves and when we get better on the inside – everything just tends to get better on the outside, as well.

    And the formula works, indeed. The rate of infractions while in prison, and the recidivism rate following their release from prison, is lower for inmates who have taken part of a prison fellowship program, compared to those who did not. In fact, recidivism rates are as low as 13% for inmates who participated in faith-based programs, compared to 50% who did not and unfortunately return to prison within three years from being released.

    In addition to one’s spiritual development, the cost of administering faith-based services for each inmate – about $250 per year – is a fantastic return on the dollar, especially when our prisons are greatly overpopulated and where the average taxpayer cost of care for each inmate is $31,286 per year.

    It’s a cruel reality for many people of faith in the general population that the freedom of religion may be most voraciously protected, and nurtured for growth, by our prison system, while our general population culture convenes daily to sanitize our schools, stadiums, courthouses, statehouses, and public squares from reference to any religious beliefs whatsoever.

    And even though the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that Americans have a right to hold religious beliefs and not be forced by the government to act in ways that violate those beliefs, we nonetheless are being restricted to fewer and fewer venues to act in ways that support our beliefs – from reading the Bible in schools to even saying “God Bless You,” whenever someone sneezes.

    If religion can help create more peaceful prisons and significantly reduce recidivism by connecting inmates spiritually, and making them far less likely to hurt others or to do wrong, then it seems that every cultural effort to disconnect the rest of us spiritually would have the opposite effect – making us all more likely to hurt others or do wrong.

    There are lots of folks out there who will read this column and begin pointing out the fallacies of embracing religion in the same spirit as our prisons do. They will also cite Constitutional and other legal arguments, one after another, on why it cannot be done the same.

    Legally, they may be right. But all I know is this, in the words Frederick Douglas: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” and I can’t figure out for the life of me, why a minority of Americans are so hell bent on doing it the hard way, and making us all do hard time, in the process.

  • After the Party

    After the Party

    The qualifying period for the general election in Louisiana ended last week, and the slate of candidates that will appear on the October 24 ballot next month has been set. However, there’s an ocean of difference between the candidates who “qualified” for the election this fall by simply signing-up, and those who are the best candidates for the position because they can solve the problems facing our community – instead of just complaining about them, or stating the obvious with more speeches and empty promises.

    And over the next 30 days or so, there will be lots of news reports, billboards, yard signs, radio and television commercials, and door-to-door canvassing of neighborhoods to inform the voters, so that “we the people” can elect the best candidate for each office, and not merely a qualified one.

    But that means that “we the people” must show up. Did you know that only about a third of Louisiana’s voters voted in the last gubernatorial election in 2011? It’s estimated that only 1 million of Louisiana’s 2.8 million registered voters went to the polls. This was the fewest number of voters to cast ballots in a governor’s race since 1975.

    There’s probably a lot of folks out there right now who would just as soon stay at home on election day. In fact, that’s what happened in the 2012 presidential election. For Republicans, it is estimated that 3-4 million conservative voters stayed home. They just didn’t show up on election day.

    And the Democrats, too, have less engaged, fewer motivated members than at any time in their history. As President Obama’s former campaign manager described the Democrat Party, “We have a turnout issue.”

    And perhaps this is why 42% of Americans, on average, are estimated to identify themselves as political independents or “no party”. This is the highest percentage of political independents in more than 75 years of public opinion polling.

    You see, here’s what’s going on, and I hope you are sitting down: Our political party system is dying, and sadly, it is perhaps the last, best defense we have in guarding our freedom.

    Here’s why: The special interests and the media have already virtually replaced the people’s interests, for all intents and purposes, because we’ve allowed them to take the place of our political parties. We’ve abandoned the power of the people for so long, the special interests and the media feel entitled to it now.

    But large-scale democracies need an institution, like political parties, to educate the electorate and organize public opinion.  Edmund Burke deemed it impossible for legislative bodies to make policy without forming coalitions. In fact, he believed that parties are wholly necessary to the performance of this public duty.

    This is because strong parties represent the people – not the special interests – regardless of whether you are Republican or Democrat. And when the parties compete with each other for membership, the parties must appeal to all voters regardless of wealth or status, color or creed, etc. and this encourages (or inspires) each citizen to participate in decision-making, and makes them feel like their vote matters, which is something today so many feel the exact opposite.

    PACs and special interest groups, on the other hand, have the effect of widening the disparity in political equality. The importance of money in politics gives wealthy groups disproportionate influence and this means that politicians tend to appeal to the pressure groups and their narrow interests, rather than a majority of the voters, which is why the middle class feels forgotten (the silent majority), and why so many feel that their political party has left them behind.

    Strong political parties can check the abuse of power by elites and keep the government more accountable. The law is ineffective at holding officials responsible, and we’ve already seen this, with executive order after executive order in Washington.

    At least the Democrats and Republicans must go before the voters each election to face criticism and take responsibility for their actions. What is the analogous mechanism to force the media and special interest groups to take responsibility for their actions, or the abuse of the people’s trust?

    As long as we allow the media and the special interest groups to take the place of the political party system in our country, more and more voters will register as “no party”, democratic representation of the majority will decline, our government will continue doing what it’s doing and we’ll continue to get what we’ve been getting.

    And to the 25% of Louisiana voters registering as “no party”, I say this: Whether you feel that your party’s leadership in Congress, or in Baton Rouge, has abandoned you, you have not abandoned what you believe, in your heart of hearts. And if you value democracy, it’s time to renew our political party system, and take back the power of the people. It can start with you – whether you feel “qualified” or not.

     

  • Knowing Better

    Knowing Better

    Being informed today about current events is both easier, and more difficult, than perhaps at any time in our nation’s history. While our access to information from various sources is growing more expansive, we have increasingly less time available to give thoughtful consideration to any of it – not to mention discern fact from fiction.

    Many of us are working longer hours to make ends meet and reading the news is less of a priority when children have their homework to finish, baths to take, and the checkbook still has to be balanced.

    So last Sunday, when I read Prentiss Smith’s column on this editorial page, where he attempted to simplify the thought process for black voters this fall by reminding them that voting for Republicans is analogous to voting for racists, I got angry.

    I got angry because it’s a lie, and because history is filled with examples of lies that have oppressed the human spirit, in an attempt to seize those rights that were granted unto us only by God – and not by government. But as Hitler’s propaganda minister understood, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” And this is the case when it comes to Democrats.

    Prentiss knows better that Republicans enacted the civil rights laws in the 1950’s and 1960’s, over the objection of Democrats. He knows that even though Democrats are considered more caring and sympathetic to the plight of the poor, it has been the Democrat-led welfare programs over the past 50 years, which have virtually destroyed the black family, and the black community.

    He’s aware that before these welfare programs began in 1965, only 22% of black children were born into single parent families, but that after these Democrat-led programs began, the illegitimacy rate in the black community tripled to almost 70%. He knows too this sent millions of black families into poverty, since the poverty rate for single-mother families is nearly five times more than the rate for married-couple families, not to mention that boys born to these single-mothers (especially who didn’t finish high school) are twice as likely to end up in prison, as well.

    He knows the statistics back then show that the unemployment rate among young black men was not only lower than it is today, before these welfare programs were enacted, but that it was nearly the same as the unemployment rate for whites.

    And he knows that today the race hustlers in the Democrat Party are still manipulating the black community, even as the unemployment rate for blacks continues to balloon under this administration – an unemployment rate that is twice as high as whites, and almost as much as the unemployment rate of Asians and Hispanics combined.

    And he knows that Washington is marginalizing the black community more each day by allowing more illegal immigrants to flood the market, reducing wages and employment opportunities in the black community (not to mention taking their votes for granted) because there are simply not enough low-skilled jobs to go around for both blacks and illegal immigrants.

    Despite these facts, the lie persists that Republicans are racist and therefore (according to Prentiss) need to find a way to broaden their appeal to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc.

    I disagree. This pandering has gone on for too long now, and our nation has to only political correctness and trillions of dollars of debt to show for it. It has divided us as a country, and is one of the reasons that Americans are frustrated with our political party system in the first place, and are registering to vote as “no party” instead. Republicans sounding like Democrats will have the same destructive effect on the black community that Democrats have had all these years.

    So, no, the Republican Party does not need to talk to minorities as minorities – we ought to be talking to one another as Americans, demanding results, instead of more rhetoric, and planning for the long-run, instead of merely how to win elections.

  • All In The Family

    All In The Family

    He was well-intentioned enough, in his explanation, as this well-known member of our community called me Thursday evening before the vote to discuss the election. “We must pass this tax renewal for the Caddo Parish school system,” he urged, “to make a difference for the children and the future of our community,” he added, as the passion in his voice grew more palpable with each syllable he spoke. He believed that spending an additional $108 million in tax dollars, to improve the physical conditions of our school buildings and the teaching environment would lead to improved educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students, who need it the most.

    But the facts don’t seem to bear that out because even when schools of disadvantaged children are well-financed with new facilities, it’s the conditions outside of the classroom (i.e parenting, poverty, homelessness, etc.), which consistently produce the widest disparities we routinely see in educational outcomes. For example: only 2 out 3 Caddo Parish high school seniors graduated in 2014, in a school system that spared little expense to educate them – spending $480 million last year, or $12,000 per student.

    But just as we have spent billions of dollars on food stamps and welfare, Medicaid, Head Start – you name it – without any change in the poverty rate over the past 50 years, our spending more money on education will not change the quality of our children’s education unless, and until, we change the quality of our children’s parents first.

    That’s a tough one, though, I know. For some, it seems an impossible task, since it’s much easier to talk about increasing teacher salaries in order to attract better teachers, or to reduce class sizes, or to supply the children with new technology. It’s easier to blame the school administrators for not holding teachers accountable for poor test scores and below-average graduation rates, than to address the 800 lbs. gorilla in the room: parenting.

    That’s tough also, though, because we have an epidemic of children being born to unwed mothers (40% and rising). Aside from that, the poverty rate for these single-mother families is nearly 5 times more than the rate for married-couple families. And boys born to single-mothers (who didn’t finish high school) are twice as likely to end up in prison, as well.

    You see, poverty is the most significant predictor of academic success, bottom-line (although it wasn’t so much so prior to the 1960s, but that’s another story for another day).

    You see, spending $108 million, or $800 bazillion, on new schools won’t improve a single child’s education whose parents’ least concern is a designated homework time because they are homeless (there are more than 1 million public school students in the U.S. that are homeless). What if you are part of the 33% of children in the U.S. that live without the presence of a father? Children achieve higher education levels with an involved father early on. Or if you don’t have a designated dinner time because you don’t know where your next meal is coming from (more than 1 out of every 4 children in the U.S. is enrolled in the food stamp program now, which is more than ever before).

    Or if there is no structure at home and you’re shuffled from place to place, because your mom is on crack, and your dad has disappeared or is in jail (research shows for every 2 moves in a school year, a child essentially loses that year of learning altogether).

    Or if there’s no one to read to you at night, and build your vocabulary by sounding out the sounds that words make (many children who enter kindergarten without pre-reading skills in place simply never catch up).

    How can a child be expected to perform academically as well as other children who don’t face those challenges? It’s tough.

    The federal government, though, is responding by funding public boarding schools, in selected cities, at a cost of $35,000 per student, per year. These at-risk children live at school for 5 days a week, and they get to go home to their parents on the weekends. Certainly, that’s one way to “fix” the conditions outside the classroom that plague academic performance, and turn it around.

    But with 16.4 million children in the U.S. living in poverty, paying for this “fix” and enrolling them all in public boarding schools would be cost prohibitive ($574 billion per year). So, how about we just fix the real issue, and find a way to make better parents, instead, and then make a better school system, in the process?

    I believe voters really said “no” earlier this month to spending $108 million for new school construction because they realize we don’t have a general education crisis in our country, or a revenue issue here in Caddo Parish. Instead, we have a parenting crisis that is at the root of our education system and that spending money on new classrooms, carpet, and fresh paint simply won’t fix any of that – not at all.

    If we want to improve education system and the future of our community, we must somehow start at the beginning, and with something that money cannot buy: the family. After all, in the words Frederick Douglas, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

  • Running From Office

    Running From Office

    The dictionary is of no real help when looking to define “public servant”. Jesus Christ was a public servant and it was through humility, personal sacrifice, taking risks, and maintaining a vision, that he served others best. It’s a style of leadership based on giving without the need for recognition. And it may be disappearing altogether.

    Consider the service of Judge Charles Scott to our community since 1973, when he first served as an assistant city attorney and special assistant district attorney for 7 years, and then 26 years on the bench as a city judge and Caddo Parish district judge, and 7 years of service as district attorney. His loss is a devastating one for our community, and there are hardly any words that can express this sadness for the generations of this community he has served.

    It is fitting, to call to mind the saying, “They don’t make men like him anymore”. And they don’t. In fact, a recent study of 18-29 year olds by Harvard University showed not only are young people disgusted with politics, and are skeptical of its usefulness to make meaningful change, there is also now a reluctance of good candidates to run for public office.

    This is especially prevalent among young people, where only 1 out of 3 believe running for public office is honorable, and even fewer feel that the idea of working in some form of public service is appealing to them – and the numbers show it. In 2012, for example, nearly half of state legislative districts in our country did not have any competition from both major political parties, marking the lowest level of competition in over 10 years.

    So, from where will the next generation of public servants be inspired to serve our communities, when only 1 in 3 believe running for public office is honorable?

    That’s hard to say because our electorate increasingly is more interested in whether Kim Kardashian and Kanye West flew coach on a recent trip to Armenia, than they are to learn more about politics, since that requires a substantial investment time and energy, and yet offers few immediate benefits – particularly to the voter who is both disgusted by politics and believes their vote is unlikely to affect the outcome anyway.

    For example, did you know that only 2 in 10 Americans know that there are 100 Senators in the U.S. Senate? Or that only 4 in 10 of us know that there are 3 branches of government (and also can name each of them)? Or that 21% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth? How about that more than two-thirds of Americans don’t know the issue involved in Roe v. Wade? Or that 25% of Americans can’t name the country that American fought and won its independence from?

    It was Thomas Jefferson who explained that, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be”.

    That’s because knowledge is freedom in a democracy, and for our communities to attract the brightest talent to public service, we must have a more informed electorate. Fewer engaged voters will eventually reduce the pool of talented candidates to a handful of those barely worth keeping in office at all.

    Consider the election coming up on May 2, regarding a bond initiative that would increase the debt of the Caddo Parish School System by $108 million to over $250 million, and which also renews a tax on property owners that generates $3 million in annual revenue for the Biomedical Research Foundation.

    Now there’s no doubt that folks are busy these days, and working longer hours to make ends meet. In those cases, especially, it’s hard to become well-informed on property taxes or government spending. It’s just not a priority when the children have their homework to finish, baths to take, and checkbook needs to be balanced.

    But we can’t just show up and check the box, without the same level of careful preparation and practice that a musician requires to play a musical instrument well, or a pilot needs to fly an airplane, or doctor acquires before performing a surgery. But unlike the unprepared pilot or doctor, being in the voting booth, and unprepared (or not informed enough) to vote, can have far more tragic consequences.

    While it may be true that how any one of us votes may not matter much, it is how WE vote together, though, that has consequences. Our votes can encourage businesses to relocate to our community, or cause them to leave, through the taxes we vote for or the quality of candidates we elect. We can improve the education of our children, and increase the quality of our workforce, or we can spend millions of dollars on policies and programs that will do anything but that.

    We can overregulate in some areas, and underrepresent those who need representation the most. We can allow special interests to exploit the least among us, or we can protect liberty and justice for all. It’s still “we the people”.

    No, they may not be making men or women exactly like Judge Scott any longer, but we can grow folks more like him to serve the public as he did, through developing a more informed electorate – or, through our apathy, we can simply watch more good men and women run from office, instead.

  • Faithfully and Impartially

    Faithfully and Impartially

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    Elected Officials Should Do Their Own Work.

    Imagine you were in the hospital to have an important, life-altering medical procedure. As you are being wheeled into the operating room, your doctor informs you that he isn’t actually familiar with the relevant procedure needed to treat your condition. In fact, he doesn’t really understand the surgery he is about to perform on you. However, he tells you that he had a really smart, young nurse study up on it, and that the nurse has given him a good enough idea of what needs to be done and that he’s sure that everything will be fine. How comfortable would you be knowing that your life depended on how well the nurse was able to explain to the doctor a complex surgical procedure, step-by-step, as well as the risk factors involved?

    You probably would not be very comfortable at all. Yet, very similarly, the officials we elect to serve us on our school boards, in our statehouses, and in Congress, are increasingly voting on legislation which they have not read, nor fully understand the risks involved. The responsibility for doing so, instead, is delegated to staff – all whom we haven’t elected whatsoever.

    Remember the 2,700 pages of the Affordable Care Act? Nancy Pelosi famously urged lawmakers to “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Then Congressman Conyers jumped in and said it was pointless to read that bill unless you had “two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you’ve read it.” And even our own Congressman Fleming, who actually did read the bill, said that the 10,535 pages of final regulations are “incomprehensible.”

    Then there was the $790 billion stimulus package in 2009. It was voted on without a single member of either chamber reading it before voting on it. After all, the 1,073-page document wasn’t posted on the government’s website until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote was taken in Congress to pass it.

    The cap-and-trade bill in 2009 had a 300-page amendment added to it at 3:09 a.m. – and amazingly it still passed when it came up for a vote – on the very same day.

    Even here in Louisiana, the only required “reading” for a bill to become a law is that the title must be read, on three separate days in each house. And that’s it.

    Many contend that our elected officials are simply too busy to read the legislation themselves. After all, many officials say that if they spent all their time reading legislation, they would never get anything done. But impossible for every elected official to merely read the actual legislation itself? C’mon now.

    If your elected official is not able to do that, they should resign or be removed from office, because they’re incompetent.

    We can easily see how important this is in our legislatures, but the same is true in our parish commissions, city councils, and school boards. Consider that the Caddo Parish School Board recently voted to ask voters for $108 million in tax revenue, which effectively doubles the outstanding debt of the school system, even though the Census Bureau shows the population of school-aged children in Caddo Parish continues to decline.

    Even though one-half of the school board members were reporting for duty for the first time since taking their oath of office, the staff of the Caddo Parish school system put this debt-doubling tax before them anyways.

    There was no public debate amongst the newly elected board members that night. No reference to how many hours the school board members themselves had already studied the matter, the finances, or the demographics.

    Instead, the school system staff, like legislative staffers who read and interpret bills for our elected officials in Congress, simply said to each school board member, “sign here”. And they did, unanimously.

    For the veteran school board members that night, they know the history, and this wasn’t their first rodeo. But for the 50% of the brand-spanking new board members who just showed up the night of the vote for the first time, maybe they would have appreciated a little more time to consider the matter before voting to spend $108 million of taxpayer money on their first day on the job. Shame on the school system, though, who put them in that position to begin with.

    Regardless of whether you support the tax proposition or not, that’s not the point here. The bottom line is that our elected officials should understand what they are voting on, before they get ready to go into the chamber to vote, and not just before they go on television to be interviewed. No, we can’t fix our government solely by forcing our elected officials to read the bills. But we can start by voting for folks who actually will do the job to we hired them to do to begin with.

     

  • Beauty is Only Skin Deep

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    By now, you’ve heard about the Caddo Parish School Board’s plan to close six schools, and open three new ones, and make improvements in various others using $108 million in bonds. The plan is branded by the CPSB as, “Reinvest in Caddo”. The plan has drawn both supporters and critics, but both groups may be missing the forest for the trees. Here’s why:

    You see, supporters point out that the average school building in the parish is 60 years old, and that the maintenance costs alone of the three schools slated for closure is $150,000 per year, and that to make those aging schools ADA-compliant and technology-ready would require an additional $18 million.

    Now, the critics explain that the CPSB could lower our public school taxes, instead of reallocating them to build these unneeded new schools, since Caddo Parish has 20,000 fewer students to educate than we had in 1970, yet today we still have roughly the same number of schools to pay for, nonetheless.

    They point to Census data that indicates that the number of students to educate in Caddo Parish will continue to decline, considering the number of child-bearing aged women in Caddo Parish has been declining over the past 20 years (down 8.5% since 1990). And with virtually no population growth in the parish since 1990, the math seems to support the trend towards fewer students for the foreseeable future.

    Taking math out of the equation, for a moment, though, the Shreveport Historic Preservation Commission opposes the plan to “Reinvest in Caddo” for altogether different reasons. They feel they were flat-out ignored by the CPSB, and that shuttering any school is the beginning of the end for any neighborhood in which it is located. That would be particularly true for the Highland neighborhood, under this plan.

    Still others say that this plan is ill-conceived, and the evidence is that it was rushed so quickly to be put before the CPSB on the same night that 50% of the school board members were showing up brand-new – serving for their very first time after having been elected just last fall.

    And for CPSB member, Dottie Bell, the plan to “Reinvest in Caddo” is real simple: It’s about putting the children first. And for Superintendent Goree? It’s about providing something better for our children.

    But does getting “something better” for our children mean spending more taxpayer dollars, considering that Louisiana is already spending over $1 billion now on schools that are rated “D” and “F” each year? As it stands now, for the 200,000 students in Louisiana, their odds are “50/50” of graduating high school or even reading on their grade level.

    Perhaps, instead of investing money, this CPSB plan might be better received if the plan included strategies for getting parents more involved in their children’s education, and thereby improving the quality of their education – rather going back to the taxpayers and wagering tax dollars on the expectation that new buildings will improve the quality of education parish-wide.

    The issue of increasing parental involvement is the “800 lb. gorilla” in the room, and it ought to be front and center, especially whenever someone wants to increase spending and raise taxes “for the children”.

    In order for students to do well in school, however, they need more than new buildings. They need someone to make them do their homework. To fix them a well-balanced breakfast. To communicate with their teacher on their progress. To make sure they get a good night’s sleep and get to school on time. To be respectful and obey. You see, building new schools alone cannot accomplish any of that – without first increasing parental involvement.

    Did you know that one of the most successful school systems in the U.S. are the schools situated on U.S. military bases? A report by 60 Minutes found that these students’ test scores are among the best in the nation, and in some cases, represent the “narrowest achievement gap between minorities and whites of any school in the entire country”, and that’s with half of those students living below the poverty line.

    And why the positive difference here? Parental involvement.

    So, before the need to build an auxiliary gymnasium, or reduce the number of “T” buildings at our schools, perhaps we need to address, as an example, the unequal education in the black community first, and why the average black 12th-grader has the academic achievement level of the average white seventh- or eighth-grader (according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress). This is particularly important for our community – 64% of Caddo Parish students are black.

    Michael Jordan was not successful because he played in multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art arenas. Luciano Pavarotti does not sell out performances because he performs in the finest, most exquisite opera houses. Steve Jobs launched Apple Computer from his home garage, and not from the 32-acre campus that makes up their glimmering, class “A” corporate offices in Cupertino today.

    Yes, shiny new buildings are pretty. But beauty is only skin deep. It’s what you do with what you have that matters most, and perhaps we ought to start there first.