...will he ever win?

Following up on the largest egg recall in history, the FDA has issued inspection reports for the two farms (so far) involved; the Decoster family's Wright County Eggs and Orland Bethel's Hillandale Farms.

The results are an echo of Upton Sinclair's 1906 book, The Jungle on horrid and unsafe conditions in the meat packing industry.  America, 104 years later:

# Manure piled so high (4 to 8 feet) that it forced open doors to manure pits under the hens, allowing "open access to wildlife or domesticated animals."
# Live mice in many of the egg-laying houses.
# Flies, both "live and dead" that were "too numerous to count," as well as "live and dead maggots" beyond counting.

Of the two, to my layman eyes, Decoster's factory appears much worse as there aren't nearly as many violations cited for Bethel's operation, but the bit near the end about a flowing river of chicken feces certainly indicates they're not getting an unfair deal being mixed up in this.
One other thing that makes me feel like it is not a coincidence that the two operations suffered this outbreak was this interesting link from 2006, where a farm co-owned by Bethel and an "anonymous" investor lost its permits after it turned out that the investor was Decoster:

Farm and Dairy reported more than a year ago that egg farm owner-managers Don Hershey and Orland Bethel told ODA an anonymous investor held an option to purchase the company.
They maintained the investor provided only financial backing for the farm's purchase and operation.
That anonymous investor turned out to be Austin "Jack" DeCoster, a farm operator labeled a "habitual" and "chronic" violator of Iowa's environmental laws.
Investigation also showed DeCoster was involved in daily farm operations, and should have been identified on the farm's permitting paperwork.
DeCoster's name appearing on permit applications would have made the state run a background check on him and think twice before granting the permits.
[...]
Funding. Hershey testified that DeCoster had provided all funds for the purchase of Buckeye Egg Farm.
He estimated DeCoster had invested $126 million to date, and both he and Orland Bethel said there is no promissory note and no schedule of repayment between the egg farm and DeCoster.
According to state records, Hershey testified neither he nor Bethel were willing to assume any personal financial risk in the farm's purchase. Both men offered up only $10,000 as an initial investment.
Even with that said, Hershey said he owns 30 percent of Ohio Fresh Eggs and Orland Bethel owns 70 percent.

From other details in the article, you learn that Decoster, having earned his official status as a "habitual violator" in running his Iowa hog operations, sold them, and in order to avoid capital gains tax, invests the money in this operation as a silent partner to the two other men.  The three are apparently on close enough terms to run a deal this big with no paperwork.  

Apparently a House subcommittee will investigate and will seek the testimony of Decoster and Bethel in September.  Hopefully they do their homework.  

As this timeline shows, egg safety has been a decades running sleeper timebomb of e.coli conservativism, and it was just a matter of time before it went off.  Ironically the Obama administration did finally implement new egg safety rules in July, I have no idea if they go far enough on the narrow subject of egg safety, but if anyone is looking for a lead in to take on the general issue of factory farm abuses, here it is.  Countless flies, and rivers of shit.  The chickens don't deserve to live like that, the workers shouldn't have to endure it, and humans shouldn't be eating what comes of such places.  There is a food safety bill, sounds like it's overdue.

h/t to this diary for the FDA links.

August 31, 2010 03:10 AM

Let's kick this week in the teeth!

August 31, 2010 03:00 AM

In the hours after Hurricane Katrina passed and went off to become a series of benign storms, the true magnitude of the damage was slowly becoming apparent. And it was something no one in the Governors Mansion, the Press Room or the FEMA office was prepared for. Governor Kathleen Blanco, together with Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator David Vitter assembled a press conference to make a somewhat feeble attempt to convey there was a plan in place. That help, like the cavalry, was on its way.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco: “We have a very difficult situation in the city of New Orleans because two drainage canal levees have been breeched, and water is pouring into the city. After the hurricane was over there was no . . .no significant water and the downtown areas that couldn’t have been handled with their normal pumping operations. But right now, water is growing higher and higher. We have several emergency situations that need to be taken care of and that is an engineering feat that needs to be handled expeditiously, almost before anything that looks like normal operations can resume.”

Loosely translated; "we don't have a clue".

Meanwhile, the flood waters kept rising. As did the death toll.

August 31, 2010 02:00 AM

After Dick Cheney famously told us that "deficits don't matter" and the Bush administration broke the bank with their tax cuts for the rich and military occupations, Marco Rubio in this week's Republican Weekly Address tells us that the "American dream" is threatened by deficit spending and for heaven's sake, don't get rid of those Bush tax cuts that helped break the bank in the first place.

I'd like for Marco Rubio to explain why Bush had the worst job creation record of any president if those tax cuts helped to create jobs?

But in the mean time... USA!... USA!... we're the greatest country on the face of the earth. And more tax cuts for the rich. Good grief. Their idea of the "American" dream is for all of us to be living in squalor.

Hi, I’m Marco Rubio.

It’s an honor to talk to you today about the direction of our country.

About the decisions being made in Washington that will determine what kind of nation we leave to our children.

America is the greatest country in the history of the world. But that didn’t happen by accident and it won’t continue automatically.

Today the American Dream is threatened by out of control politicians in Washington, who think that more government deficit spending is what it takes to grow our economy. That has never worked anywhere it’s been tried and it won’t work now.

Now for some it may be hard to imagine that the American Dream could actually be at risk, but as the son of exiles I know firsthand that it is possible to lose your country because my parents lost theirs.

They came to America with virtually nothing. My Mom worked as a factory worker, a maid and a stock clerk at K Mart. My Dad was a bartender. They made many sacrifices so we would know opportunities they never did.

But you see our story is not unique. It’s the story of America. It’s our history. It’s our common heritage.

Will we remain that type of country? Well that depends on the decisions we make right now. America’s greatness is threatened by the economic policies coming from Washington DC. Simply put, they are taking us in the wrong direction. But it’s not too late to do something about it.

You know, for the last two years I’ve traveled Florida, listening to the concerns of everyday Americans, and discussing ideas to bring real change to Washington.

And over and over, I heard the same message.

Like most Americans, Floridians are frustrated with arrogance in Washington. And they have had enough of the failed stimulus, of record deficits, of reckless spending, and of economic policies that are killing jobs.

You know, since the stimulus was passed, more than 200,000 Floridians have lost their jobs. And for the first time in our history, more than one million Floridians are out of work.

People have every right to be upset. But in the midst of this frustration and anxiety, there is also great resilience.

Tired of finger pointing and sound bites, they want real solutions. They want an alternative to the direction Washington is taking our country and that alternative really isn’t all that complicated.

First, Washington needs to realize that politicians don’t create jobs. Jobs are created by everyday people from all walks of life who start a new business or grow an existing one. The job of government is to create an economic climate that encourages the job creators.

But the policies coming from Washington are scaring the job creators. They have created tremendous uncertainty about the future.

And that’s why we must prevent the massive tax hikes set to take effect at the end of the year. Tax increases which would be the largest in America’s history.

And it’s time, once and for all, to abandon ideas like cap-and-trade and card check.

Second, we need Washington DC to stop spending more money than it takes in.

And that means ending the failed stimulus and using the leftover funds to pay down the debt.

And finally, we must repeal ObamaCare and replace it with a plan that will lower health insurance costs for Americans without bankrupting the nation.

Replace it with a system that promotes competition, allows people to keep the coverage they already have, and gives individuals the same tax breaks that businesses get when they buy healthcare insurance for their employees.

We are truly at a crossroads. Our children will either be the most prosperous Americans ever, or they will be the first to inherit a diminished country.

If we stay on the road Washington has us on right now, we will lose our exceptionalism and our country will become no different than any other country in the world.

But if we embrace free enterprise, if we accept spending discipline, well then America’s future will be brighter than her history. And we will secure for our children what they deserve to inherit. The greatest nation in all of human history.

Thank you for listening, God bless you and your family, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.”

August 31, 2010 01:00 AM

In his pivotal address to the Southern Baptists in 1960, John F. Kennedy cautioned those suspicious of his Catholic faith, "Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril." But with his furious assault this weekend against President Obama's faith, Glenn Beck didn't merely ignore JFK's warning and the biblical admonition to judge not lest ye be judged. In declaring his followers' judgment of Obama, "People aren't recognizing his version of Christianity," the Mormon Beck could have been describing himself.

During his rally Saturday, Beck proclaimed, "America today begins to turn back to God." And while he didn't say which one, he made clear on Sunday it wasn't the Almighty worshipped by Barack Obama:

"I don't know what that is, other than it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it."

Sadly for the Fox News host, as many of his Tea Bagging allies view his Mormon faith in precisely the same terms.

As CNN reported on Friday, "Some evangelicals on defensive over partnering with Glenn Beck, a Mormon." And as ThinkProgress noted, a Christian NewsWire press release titled "Glenn Beck's Mormonism Will Not Lead to Revival" was harsher still:

Glenn Beck promotes a false gospel. However, many of his political ideas can help America. ... Mormonism is not a Christian denomination but a cult of Christianity. ... Many endorse false gospels including Mormonism.

If that language of condemnation sounds familiar, it should. As former Massachusetts Governor and LDS member Mitt Romney ramped up his 2008 presidential run, Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network offered a similar primer in a document titled, "How Do I Recognize a Cult?" Mormon religious beliefs, CBN concluded, "are, to put is simply, wrong":

Mormonism teaches that God is not the only deity and that we all have the potential of becoming gods. (Ibid., p. 576.) (Remember that Satan's fall came about because he wanted to be like God.)... There has been constant revision of Mormon doctrine over the years, as church leaders have changed their minds on a number of subjects including polygamy, which was once sanctioned by the church.

In summary, the Mormon church is a prosperous, growing organization that has produced many people of exemplary character. But when it comes to spiritual matters, the Mormons are far from the truth.

As the 2008 GOP primaries approached, Mitt Romney faced an enormous hurdle among the heavily evangelical Republican base. A December 2007 Pew Research Poll found that 45% of evangelicals did not consider Mormons to be Christians. 25% were less likely to vote for an LDS candidate as a result. (A Gallup was also a warning to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, where a candidate who was "72 years of age" or "married three times" was less likely than a Mormon to get Americans' backing.) So, it came as no surprise that on December 6, 2007, Romney tried to follow in JFK's footsteps with his speech, Faith in America."

In a speech that featured only one mention of the word "Mormon," Romney sought to walk a tightrope, proclaiming his own religion's just place in the American pantheon of faith without in any way describing it. Ironically, Romney took pains to sing the praises of the rites (and stereotypes) of other faiths while excluding his own:

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims."

But when it came to his core message, Romney stressed the Constitution was on his side:

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith."

Too bad Mitt Romney, like Glenn Beck, advocates a religious test of his own.

To be sure, atheists and agnostics have no place in leading Mitt Romney's America. That meaning was unambiguous in Romney's 2006 declaration to Fox News that "People in this country want a person of faith to lead them as their president." The former Massachusetts Governor made the point even more broadly today, proclaiming simply "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan observed the omission in Romney's 2007 speech, concluding "he would have lost the idiot vote" if GOP primary voters thought "this Romney character likes to laud atheists."

But it is not merely the unbelievers who would be disempowered and disenfranchised by Romney even as his Mormon brethren would welcomed among America's chosen faiths. The roughly five to seven million Muslims in America, too, are second class citizens in Romney USA.

As Mansoor Ijaz wrote in the Christian Science Monitor:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

(Despite Romney's protestations that he was misquoted, Ijaz stands by his account.)

This is not to say that the Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney won't succeed with their strange political bedfellows. After all, supposed cult member Romney gave the May 2007 commencement address at Pat Robertson's Regent University, during which he praised "Dr. Robertson's dedication to strengthening and then nurturing the pillars of this community and our country." Three years later, Beck himself spoke to the graduates of the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, telling them, among other things, "shoot to kill."

But as CNN detailed, the suspicion of Beck's own faith among his would-be allies runs deep. Brannon Howse, a conservative writer and founder of Worldview Weekend, announced, ""While I applaud and agree with many of Glenn Beck's conservative and constitutional views, that does not give me or any other Bible-believing Christian justification to compromise Biblical truth by spiritually joining Beck."

And so it goes. As Glenn Beck touts that "return to God," many of his political fellow travelers demand Muslim Americans renounce their freedom of religion in lower Manhattan. Others target mosques in Tennessee and elsewhere. All involved would do well to heed the words of President Kennedy from that day in Houston 50 years ago:

"For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been -- and may someday be again -- a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist."

Or a Mormon.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

August 31, 2010 12:00 AM

In Tennessee, ten candidates file suit after discovering widespread voter disenfranchisement in the August 5th primary.

In Houston, 10,000 voting machines and associated data spontaneously combusts, incinerating the machines and tapes, and leaving a right-wing Republican's allegations of voter fraud standing with nothing to prove or disprove them.

In South Carolina, ES&S voting machines are used to nominate an unknown and non-viable Democratic candidate to run against Jim DeMint.

In Alaska, tea party candidate Joe Miller alleges vote tampering by the Murkowski campaign.

These are only a few of the stories we're not seeing about voting machines and their role in shaping government and politics, particularly in areas with heavy Latino and African-American populations. It could almost be called a pattern -- one that threatens to undermine the fundamental pillar of our democracy: one person, one vote.

Tennessee's Phantom Precinct

The Tennessee lawsuit has a list of the usual e-voting improprieties-- tapes thrown out before they're reconciled to votes, more votes than voters, machines that mysteriously malfunction when voters came for early voting before work, but start working properly at 8:30 am, election officials taking computers with voter information home with them, and more -- but there's a new twist that is especially sinister on this one.

According to the lawsuit filed, there is a "ghost precinct" in the database tables:

According to the MDB and GEMS tables, there are a total of 105 races. However, only 104 races are visible to the public, with one race existing but hidden from view. In the MDB tables, this “Ghost Race” is designated Race 105, with GEMS export ID number 440. This “Ghost Race” was created on June 11 and remained in the system until after the August election. It is coded so as to be hidden on both touch screen (early voting and at the polls) ballots and absentee ballots. It does not appear to be designed to capture votes entered by voters – it can be used to transfer, delete or temporarily store votes. The race contains no candidate and is marked “nocount” which will cause any votes in this race to be omitted from vote count reports.

The existence of a “Ghost Race” is similar to a dummy bank account or a second set of log books. It allows votes to be moved around without reflecting transactions in the audit data. The most troubling aspect is that it only appeared on ballot styles 2, 10, and 80 – which encompasses 54 precincts.

Here's what you need to know about Tennessee: In 2008, a battle was mounted and won to require paper ballots. After Republicans took over the state legislature in 2008, the GOP Secretary of State and legislature sued to fight the use of paper ballots in future elections.

Late last year, both the new Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett and the Republican legislature went to court to fight against the statutory move to paper ballots which was supposed to be in place by 2010 according to the law. And with the continuing court challenges and delays, the voters of the "The Volunteer State" find themselves still forced to vote on the oft-failed, never-verifiable Diebold/Dominion electronic voting system again this year.

Thousands of voters in Shelby County and the ten candidates who filed suit this week are currently paying the price for the GOP's legal obstructionism, as they will again this fall during November's mid-terms.

The math here is pretty simple. Paper ballots are verifiable. They reflect the true outcome of elections, They leave an audit trail. The GOP opposes their use, and why not? They win when they use Diebold unverifiable voting machines, and it's not the first time there have been voting machine problems.

Shelby County, by the way, covers the Memphis voting precincts -- where the population is heavily African-American.

Houston's lost machines: Boon or Bust?

On August 27, 2010, all of Harris County's voting machines were destroyed in a suspicious early-morning warehouse fire. One would suppose that such a fire might be of benefit to Harris County voters, who are routinely accused of voter fraud without much in the way of credible evidence.

But this is a voting machine story with a weird twist. Some believe the destruction of Harris County's voting machines 51 days before early voting starts really benefits Republicans more than Democrats.

Whether or not early voting machines are re-used on election day, a shortage of machines will be an issue. Polling places might go from having six machines to one, potentially creating huge lines and delays. Another option would be to abandon the polling place model and use a limited number of election centers, as in early voting. This would eliminate the need to wipe machines but wouldn't negate the potential effect of long lines.

On the other hand, the machines that burned were made by Hart InterCivic, and are possibly less reliable than Diebold machines. The obvious solution would be to simply use and count paper ballots, but Republicans object to paper ballots on the grounds that they are more unreliable than electronic voting.

In a counterpoint, however, Glenn W. Smith argues that the loss of the voting machines disenfranchises Harris County voters as part of a larger effort. He points to Republican astroturf organization "True the Vote" as evidence of the effort to systematically disenfranchise voters to guarantee Republican wins.

His ideas aren't just the stuff of conspiracy theorists. One of the little-discussed issues around these midterm elections is redistricting -- a specialty of Dick Armey's ten years back. Jerrymandered districts make Republican majorities that much stronger, and these elections will determine the players in the redistricting battles looming next year. Republicans desperately want to control the process and the outcome.

True the Vote is a well-funded group, clearly the product of Tea Party Republicans. It is the brainchild of the King Street Patriots, led by Catherine Albrecht, a well-connected Texas Republican and manufacturing company owner. Immigration reform and voter fraud seem to be Albrecht's pet projects, and she has the attention of the Liberty Institute as a result. Her highly-produced "sound the alarm" video calls patriots to action with this exhortation:

If we lose Houston, we lose Texas. And guess what? If we lose Texas we lose the country.

Could the lost voting machines mean voters are disenfranchised in Harris County? Well, yes, if Republican election officials decide to reduce the number of precincts or borrow flawed voting machines from neighboring counties. On the other hand, if election officials opt for paper ballots, it would be simple enough to move ahead with early voting and all precincts open at once. Will they? Probably not. They make the argument that Minnesota's paper ballot recount where Norm Coleman lost to Al Franken proves that paper ballots are bad.

One thing is sure: the chaos only benefits Republicans, not Democrats.

Alaska: Joe Miller alleges tampering

What's fair for one should be fair for all, and Joe Miller's campaign is alleging voting irregularities with the Diebold machines in use in Alaska. This is an interesting twist, given that Miller is the insurgent candidate and I would guess irregularities would go to his benefit, not against. However, the complaints are the same as with other Diebold machines:

But there is also another aspect of Mike's use of the state's election computer. As you know, Alaska uses electronic voting. The Diebold software contains vulnerabilities that may allow someone to install malicious software to miscount votes. In an election security report to the Lt. Governor submitted in 2007, it was noted that someone could "alter [] election results" by installing software. Further, software installed into the election management system could lead, according to the report, to "large scale election fraud..."(full complaint here - PDF)

Enough should be enough. There is no question that these machines are anti-democratic and corrupt. If this country cannot manage to have free and fair elections without suppressing minority voters and creating chaotic voting conditions, why are we promoting democracy around the world? And more importantly, when is it time to stand up against the erosion of our fundamental right to vote by demanding an end to these machines?

August 30, 2010 11:00 PM

Make sure to sign up to get "Afternoon Fix" in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m.! EARLIER ON THE FIX Charlie Crist's political gymnastics How Sharron Angle can (still) win Joe Miller: "There certainly is an effort to skew the results still going on" Susana Martinez leads N.M. governors race WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED * The Alaska Libertarian Party will not allow Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to run on its ticket because her values don't reflect the values of the party, according to party chairman Scott Kohlhaas. * The Tea Party Express, which has spent more than $500,000 backing attorney Joe Miller's (R) Alaska Senate bid, says it expects to be on the air on behalf of Delaware Senate hopeful Christine O'Donnell (R) by the end of the week. * One day after he was endorsed by the New Hampshire Union Leader, Senate hopeful and former


Lisa Murkowski - Libertarian - Joe Miller - Tea Party Express - Alaska

August 30, 2010 10:55 PM

By Aaron Blake The National Republican Senatorial Committee is apparently neutral in the ongoing ballot-counting process in the Alaska primary race between Sen. Lisa Murkowski and attorney Joe Miller. The decision comes as Murkowski faces an uphill battle, in which she would have to win convincingly in the approximately 20,000 ballots left to be counted to overcome the 1,600 vote (or so) lead Miller maintains. It also comes after the committee briefly irritated Miller and his Tea Party activist base by sending a lawyer to help Murkowski. It's all just the latest example of a primary becoming a headache for the national GOP. So far this primary season, establishment Republicans have lost at least one senator (Utah's Robert Bennett), as well as their favored candidates in Colorado, Florida, Kentucky and Nevada. In all five cases -- and in Alaska as well -- the Tea Party is the culprit, overcoming the


Lisa Murkowski - Alaska - Joe Miller - National Republican Senatorial Committee - Republican

August 30, 2010 10:30 PM

The American Petroleum Institute apparently thinks this is somehow a good marketing strategy given that fact that most Americans are not too happy with the oil industry after the BP disaster in the Gulf and with the general state of the economy where the average American is hurting while those at the top are all too often oblivious to their struggles. Heaven forbid big oil might be asked to get off of that government teat with their subsidies. Good thing the AFP is looking out for the little guy with their latest ad campaign.

I put this ad right up there with the tone deafness of those BP ads telling us all how they're still "looking for that oil" they made sure got dispersed so they can pretend it's not there any more. All those ads from BP do is serve as a constant reminder to me about how pissed off I am at what they did to the Gulf.

As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies:

With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.

But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.

According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.

And for many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by var-ious credits. These companies’ returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before.

“The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who has worked alongside the Obama administration on a bill that would cut $20 billion in oil industry tax breaks over the next decade. “There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer.”

Oil industry officials say that the tax breaks, which average about $4 billion a year according to various government reports, are a bargain for taxpayers. By helping producers weather market fluctuations and invest in technology, tax incentives are supporting an industry that the officials say provides 9.2 million jobs.

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry advocacy group, argues that even with subsidies, oil producers paid or incurred $280 billion in American income taxes from 2006 to 2008, and pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes than most other American corporations.

As oil continues to spread across the Gulf of Mexico, however, the industry is being forced to defend tax breaks that some say are being abused or are outdated.

August 30, 2010 10:00 PM

In January, when Arne Duncan proclaimed that Hurricane Katrina "was the best thing" that ever happened to New Orleans public schools, there was a firestorm of protest that pressured him into apologizing. Today, in the observance of the 5 year anniversary of that tragedy, many are implying the very same thing that Duncan overtly stated, with nary a word of disagreement.

My first warning of this concerted effort to herald the "success" of "education reforms" made in post-Katrina NOLA came from OpenLeft commenter LiberlWingofLiberalWing who pointed me to this extremely shallow and one-sided piece on HuffPo last week. Today, the message is practically everywhere in the MSM and the web.

The major thrust of the PR is to tout NOLA's "new hybrid model, whereby charter schools outnumber traditional public schools two to one." And the goal of course is to tout this as a model for schooling worthy of being rolled out across all major cities where there are lots of impoverished brown and black children.

So what's wrong with that?

First, as Jim Horn reveals in a fantastic series of posts over at Schools Matter, it's important to understand what this shiny new model for education in NOLA is. He quotes from a new study (pdf) to explain how "rebuilding of the public school system in post-Katrina New Orleans has produced a five 'tiered' system of public schools in which not every student in the city receives the same quality education."

This tiered system has created highly segregated schools on the basis of race and income. Schools perform highly unequally across these sectors because a "tiered performance hierarchy" ensures students who perform higher on standardized tests attend higher performing schools while "the majority of low income students of color" attend lower performing schools.

The result of this institutionalized segregation is to, Horn contends, "skim the healthiest, wealthiest, and highest-scoring students into charters, and then to dump the most challenging students into the public schools."

And this skimming and sorting isn't just related to race and class. It's well known that among the most challenging students to educate are those who require special education and English language learning services. And NOLA's hybrid school system restricts the mobility of those students as well.

As evidence, Horn points to a video clip from a PBS news story that reveals how NOLA charter schools engage in "dumping" special education students on traditional public schools. How can they do that? Simply by not offering those services, which traditional public schools are required by federal law to offer. You see, charter schools are not governed in the same way that traditional public schools are.

Another critical facet of the NOLA post-Katrina education story that news outlets - major and minor - are getting wrong is that charters are greatly out-performing traditional public schools. While it's true that the charters in the top tiers out-perform traditional public schools in lower tiers, they don't outperform traditional public schools in their tier.

Finally, I suppose you could dismiss all these counter-narratives to the NOLA school reform "miracle" by saying "yes but, the schools are doing better after Katrina."

But as Horn reveals today, that contention is not so clear cut when you look at year-over-year progress (the basis of NCLB requirements):

"Between 2002 and 2005 (based on numbers from the Times-Picayune), test score growth in 4th  grade among all NOLA public school children was 18 points in ELA [English language arts] and 16 points in Math. Between 2007 to 2010 test score growth among NOLA children was 19 points in ELA and 10 points in Math.
In 8th grade between 2002 and 2005, NOLA students gained 21 points in ELA and 8 points in Math.  Between 2007 and 2010, 8th graders gained 13 points in ELA and 11 points in Math."

So the results are indeed mixed.

Furthermore, NOLA charter schools - the darling of the ed reformist movement - are not in any way living up to the narrative trumpeted throughout the media. In fact, "charters are getting trounced in terms of test score growth by the regular public schools." Based on figures from a 2010 report, regular public schools had a "growth advantage of exactly 2:1."

So despite the reformist plan in NOLA to "improve" education through increased segregation and charter schools for the elite, traditional public schools continue to beat the odds stacked against them.

Finally, much has been written in the press about the increased suicide rates along the Gulf since Katrina, and it's still trending up. What's not been pointed out is that charter schools that decline to offer the special education services needed by students experiencing learning disabilities related to PTSD, depression, and poverty, are complicit in further destabilizing youth populations.

So yes, New Orleans public schools have made "great strides" since Katrina. Indeed, the fact that they are doing as well as they are, given the poor performance of our government to come to their aid, is the real "miracle." But don't believe for a minute that their comeback is purely the result of some reform effort hatched by a DC think tank and backed by Wall Street financiers. And don't' for a minute think you want this sort of school system coming to your neighborhood.

August 30, 2010 10:00 PM