The House of Representatives signed off Thursday on the Senate’s revisions to a plan that would let public school officials apply for waivers of state education regulations, a measure that would let some campuses behave more like charter schools.
House Bill 1368 by Rep. Jane Smith, R-Bossier City, is one of Gov. Bobby Jindal‘s top K-12 education priorities for the session. The administration hails the measure as a fundamental shift in public education policy. But the version that Jindal will sign has considerably more limitations than what Smith introduced several months ago.
Local superintendents can apply for waivers of certain rules and regulations, but only with the approval of the local school board and a majority of the teachers on each campus affected by the waiver. The bill would not allow schools to waive certain requirements, such as school nutrition rules, a new teacher evaluation system that Jindal recently signed into law and limits on privatizing support workers. Teachers unions worked throughout the session for many of the concessions.
People ask me what it would take for me to believe in the project of marriage and parenting. I think two things have to happen. 1) Getting rid of feminist laws like no-fault divorce and the divorce courts. 2) Reforming education so that other people are not controlling what my children believe. Louisiana has some of the worst schools in the nation, so this is good news. Think of how good it would look for Jindal if he could bring up those test scores with some free market reforms.
“It’s the most frustrating thing,” the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.”
Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP’s oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.
“These barges work. You’ve seen them work. You’ve seen them suck oil out of the water,” said Jindal.
[…]”The Coast Guard came and shut them down,” Jindal said. “You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, ‘Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'”
[…]The governor said he didn’t have the authority to overrule the Coast Guard’s decision, though he said he tried to reach the White House to raise his concerns.
“They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” he said. But “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer.”
“We need the Coast Guard to deploy all the resources they have – using the military air traffic control assets if needed, or sentinel ships for water-based reconnaissance – but we must deploy every resource we have and not simply wait and hope for the best. Federal officials could also work to relax regulations to free up non-essential oil fighting resources, including skimmers and boom, from ports and refineries. We asked the President to consider this during his last visit and he said today that he was still looking into it.”
“I also asked that the President demand BP give us full access to their claims data so we can ensure Louisiana people and businesses are getting the payments they need to reimburse their losses related to this spill. As of the last report, 39 percent of claims had not been paid and we have no way to know the circumstances or details related to these claims.
“We again asked the President to increase the monitoring of our deepwater wells so they do not have to be closed down and cost tens of thousands of our people their jobs during a six-month or longer process by a government committee that hasn’t even been assembled yet.. Louisiana people should not have to lose their jobs because the federal government cannot do their job.
The governor has urged the Obama administration to lift the ban on the drilling moratorium citing unfortunate and unfair impact upon Louisiana.
Obama has played golf nearly 40 times in 8 weeks and held fundraisers for Democrat senator Barbara Boxer.
Wouldn’t it be great if Jindal solved this problem himself without any help from the federal government, and then explained his experiences to the American people during his presidential campaign in 2012? He could explain exactly what Obama did to help/hurt his efforts to clean the spill. Imagine the presidential debates when Jindal could explain everything that he did, and Obama could counter by explaining how well he can play golf, slash Louisiana jobs, pass the cap-and-trade energy tax, and point fingers at people who are trying to fix the problem.
South Carolina State Rep. Nikki Haley, a favorite of tea party activists, survived a turbulent primary campaign Tuesday to advance in her bid to become her state’s first woman governor, on a night that results nationally reaffirmed this year’s anti-establishment tide.
In early returns, Ms. Haley held a double-digit lead in a four-person race for the GOP nomination. She will head into a runoff with the second-place finisher, Rep. Gresham Barrett, the Associated Press reported.
Ms. Haley had trailed badly early in the campaign, but won support from the tea party movement and an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Her competitors included top officials in the GOP establishment, including the state’s attorney general and lieutenant governor.
[…]In South Carolina, Ms. Haley surged in recent weeks from long-shot to leader. After that, the race became rocky, as two GOP political operatives said they’d had affairs with Ms. Haley.
The attacks only seemed to strengthen the prospects of Ms. Haley, 38, who was born a Sikh but converted to Christianity. If she wins the governorship, she could quickly become a star in a Republican Party eager to reach out to minorities, women and young people.
Nikki is the daughter of first-generation Sikh immigrants from the Punjab, in India. She’s only 38! The only other Indian-American governor is Bobby Jindal, who I really like! Now I might have TWO Indian-Americans to blog about! If she wins! By the way, she is a Protestant, which is really rarity for India. Most Christians in India are Roman Catholic. Jindal is a Roman Catholic, and a solid one.
Oh, and a couple of businesswomen won the Republican nominations for governor (Meg Whitman) and senator (Carly Fiorina) in California. Ho hum. That’s commonplace in the world of conservatism. The Republican party is the party of conservative women who succeed on their own steam, without needing the government’s help. After all, we’re the party of Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn and Sarah Palin. We like SMALL government, because we like STRONG families, and fathers who bring home the bacon.
WINTERY KNIGHT 