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August 23rd, 2012:

Fifth Circuit strikes again

Aug 23rd, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Dammit.

Right there with them

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Texas did not act unconstitutionally when it moved to expel Planned Parenthood from a health and contraceptive care program for low-income women.

The ruling overturned a preliminary injunction, issued in April by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin, that banned Texas from enforcing rules designed to exclude Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program. Yeakel found that the regulations violated the organization’s rights of free speech and association.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, sided with Texas late Tuesday — ruling that the state had the authority to prohibit Women’s Health Program money from going to health care providers that promote abortion or affiliate with organizations that perform or promote abortions.

Officials said Texas will act promptly to drop Planned Parenthood from the program.

“We appreciate the court’s ruling and will move to enforce state law banning abortion providers and affiliates from the Women’s Health Program as quickly as possible,” said Stephanie Goodman with the state Health and Human Services Commission.

Here’s a copy of the ruling, via TM Daily Post and The Trib. First there was injunction, then the injunction was stayed, then the stay was lifted, and now it’s back. The Fifth Circuit has been quite hostile to women’s health advocates this year.

But this isn’t about women’s health, is it? I mean, the state of Texas pinky-swears that it will have a super-duper Planned Parenthood-free replacement for the Women’s Health Program up and running any day now, assuming there are any clinics left to handle it. Rick Perry and Greg Abbott say this is about abortion, so let’s take their word for it. What do Rick Perry and Greg Abbott and all the rest of them think about abortion?

Mere hours after U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., and an ardent opponent of abortion in almost all cases, made comments on Sunday suggesting that women’s bodies would naturally reject pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape,” Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan released a statement distancing themselves from him. They said their administration “would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

Elected officials from Texas widely condemned Akin’s comments: U.S. Sen. John Cornyn released a statement that seemed to suggest Akin should drop his Senate bid; Gov. Rick Perry’s office called Akin’s words “off-base, insensitive and a distraction from the important issue of protecting life.” Akin, for his part, quickly backtracked, saying he “misspoke” in his “off-the-cuff remarks,” and adding that he understands “that rape can result in pregnancy.”

Yet Akin’s broader opposition to abortion in cases of rape is shared by many top Texas leaders. Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and GOP Senate hopeful Ted Cruz only support abortion when the mother’s life is in jeopardy. The position isn’t uncommon among Republicans; CNN reported on Monday night that a rape exemption is likely not part of the GOP abortion platform set to be adopted at next week’s Republican Convention in Tampa.

Perry’s stance is a relatively new one for him; he revised his position to oppose abortion in cases of rape and incest late last year on the presidential campaign trail, saying the issue had troubled him for a long time.

The difference between Todd Akin and other such troglodytes and the likes of Perry, Dewhurst, and other “pro-life heroes” is simply this: Akin et al are too insulated from reality to believe that rape of any kind can and does lead to pregnancy, and thus he is free to oppose a rape and incest exception for abortion since it won’t make any practical difference as far as he’s concerned. Perry, Dewhurst, Abbott, Cornyn, Ted Cruz, and all of the other tut-tutters who are shocked, shocked that Todd Akin would say such an impolitic thing, oppose rape and incest exceptions because they are perfectly happy to force the victims of rape and incest to carry their assailants’ pregnancies to term. They’re too slick to say it out loud, of course, but give them an opening and you can be sure they’ll take it. Paul Ryan agrees with Todd Akin. The GOP platform agrees with Todd Akin. What kind of Supreme Court justices – and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals justices, for that matter – do you think Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would appoint? If you want more like this, vote for them and find out.

Anyway. For now, Planned Parenthood remains in the WHP, at least until the state figures out what it’s going to do with it. Given how little they care about women’s health, that could still take awhile. A statement from Rep. Carol Alvarado is here, a statement from Melaney Linton, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is here, and a statement from Ann Johnson is beneath the fold.

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Dems boot Oliver

Aug 23rd, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Here we go.

The Harris County Democratic Party worked Wednesday to take district attorney nominee Lloyd Oliver’s name off the ballot, deciding to go forward without a candidate in November’s general election.

Whether they can actually take the outspoken and controversial lawyer out of the race remains an open question because state law does not appear to allow the party’s actions.

“There are ways to remove a candidate, but not the way they’re doing it,” Oliver said. “And my ultimate remedy is an injunction in the federal court, and I think the federal courts will agree with me.”

Oliver, a perennial candidate who has run as both a Republican and a Democratic, usually in judicial elections, said he did not know why the party wants to take him off the ballot.

[…]

Chad Dunn, the party’s attorney, said the party’s actions are lawful.

“All of the federal court decisions addressing this issue have found that political parties have an intrinsic right, as a private political association protected by the First Amendment, to choose and select their nominees,” Dunn said. “I think the law is very clear that political parties can’t be forced by the state, either by statute or some state officer’s requirement, to have a nominee in a race they don’t want to have a nominee in.”

I still don’t see it, but I remain a non-lawyer, so what do I know. Oliver is a barnacle on the political process and I have zero sympathy for him, but that doesn’t make this legal or right. I presume a judge will eventually decide the former; the latter is for you to determine. I hope Dunn et al are correct about the law, because this will be a debacle otherwise. I’ll say again, I hope the lesson learned is that the party needs to be involved in the primary when a clearly unsuitable candidate files.

Mark Bennett objects to this move on principle. I’ll leave the principle to others to discuss, but I will offer a pragmatic defense: If this sticks, it at least ensures that an unqualified boob like Lloyd Oliver cannot be elected DA. How likely would that be? If Harris County is roughly 50-50 as it was in 2008, then I’d have bet money on Mike Anderson winning. If Harris in 2012 is to 2008 as 2008 was to 2004, then Oliver could easily win on partisan momentum. If it’s somewhere in between, who knows? Point is, as long as Lloyd Oliver is on the ballot there’s a non-zero chance he could win. Your opinion of that risk will likely color your opinion of the HCDP’s action. Murray Newman has more.

Some things are not easily replicated

Aug 23rd, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

I have three things to say about this.

Harmony Public Schools appears to have cracked the code.

The charter school system, with 38 campuses across Texas and more than 23,000 students, regularly produces students who excel at math, science and engineering. And they do it on a shoestring.

Harmony’s five schools in Austin spent $7,923 per student in 2010-11 on operating expenses, almost $1,600 less than the Austin school district and about $800 less than the statewide average.

Harmony’s schools have also consistently beat the rest of the state on standardized test scores even while educating about the same proportion of students considered at risk of dropping out.

Few other charter schools operate as efficiently and effectively as Harmony. But the ability of some charter schools to seemingly do more with less could become a key issue in the mammoth school finance lawsuit that is set for trial in October.

[…]

A 2011 study done for the Texas Education Agency found that charter schools spent 15 percent less on operations than did comparable schools in traditional districts. Most of that difference came from hiring less experienced teachers and paying them less.

Lindsay Gustafson of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association said paying teachers less and stripping them of job protections would drive good teachers out of the classroom. Teacher turnover was twice as high in charter schools as in traditional public schools, according to the 2011 TEA study.

“We’re interested in quality, not just what’s cheap,” Gustafson said.

[…]

Soner Tarim, Harmony’s chief executive officer, said his schools are methodical about getting the most out of every employee, giving each person multiple jobs to ensure a leaner administrative operation.

One key to Harmony’s low-budget education is hiring teachers — some of whom come from Turkey — with little experience and paying them far less. The pay difference was about $11,000 less than the state average of $48,600 in 2010, though Tarim said teachers have since received a pay raise. Although charter school teachers are not required to be certified by the state, more than 70 percent of Harmony’s teachers are certified.

Harmony’s hiring practices and its ties to Turkey have generated controversy, including an investigation by a committee in the Texas House. House General Investigating Committee Chairman Chuck Hopson, R-Jacksonville, said the investigation has been concluded and its findings turned over to other agencies looking into charter schools.

Tarim said Harmony’s teachers are willing to work for less because of the innovative, safe and supportive environment that produces results. Other savings come from the schools’ minimal spending on athletics, transportation, guidance counseling and social work.

Harmony also must dedicate relatively little to serving students with disabilities and those learning English. Only 6 percent of its program budget went to educating students with disabilities last year compared to 21 percent for the Austin school district. Austin also committed about 17 percent of its dollars to bilingual students while Harmony spent just 1.6 percent.

1. The thought of being able to pay for his tax cuts by slashing teacher salaries is just ambrosia for Dan Patrick, isn’t it? If you listen carefully, you can actually hear him salivate.

2. On a more serious note, while the story doesn’t get into how or why Harmony is successful getting students to perform well, if the secret to their success at doing it efficiently is being able to convince teachers capable of achieving that performance to do so for 25% less than the industry average salary, I don’t know how well that model can be replicated. I can’t think of too many industries where getting above average results for below average pay is a successful long-term strategy. In an era of stagnant wages and a declining middle class, it’s indecent to be talking about it as a way to keep property taxes at artificially low rates.

3. It may be that there isn’t much of anything that can be learned from Harmony’s experience and applied to the public schools. Sometimes it’s just the right combination of people that makes a place special, and you just can’t make it happen the same way anywhere else. By all means, we should study them and the other high-performing charters and try to learn from their experiences, but what works for them may not work for any other school. There’s never just one right way to do something.

Texas blog roundup for the week of August 20

Aug 23rd, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Texas Progressive Alliance is still recovering from the weekend Back To School sales as it brings you this week’s roundup.

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