Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave a speech yesterday outlining his version of what the GOP needs to do differently in order to be less like the GOP. Startlingly, there is a way to make fun of it.
His prescription: Education! We need to fix education! Which sounds like a great idea, until you take into account that the guy saying it took a prolific, probably unconstitutional dump on his state’s education system, and that members of the party he is saying it to have come out vigorously against evolution, teachers’ bargaining rights, embryology, knowledge-based college admission guidelines, the age of the Earth, student loan programs, and the entire skill of critical thinking. It’s like proposing salad reform be embraced by velociraptors: It might help the raptors look better, but they just aren’t built for it.
The story of Jindal’s speech is brought to us by the charming folks of the Daily Caller:
“I believe we’ve got an economic and a moral imperative to provide school choice and a quality education to every child, every student in America. In that case, many lives will be transformed, many futures will be realized, and the results for all our country will be real and lasting.”
Well, that’s nice. There are more hollow, nonspecific platitudes, mixed in with how important the middle class is, which he says as his party gleefully steps on it.
Jindal, for his part, has been paving the way for education reform in his state, where education has been reformed to the point it does not even really look like education anymore. From Reuters:
Louisiana is embarking on the nation’s boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children…
Top schools…have just a handful of slots open [to students with vouchers]. The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, for instance, has said it will accept just four voucher students, all kindergartners. The school willing to accept the most voucher students — 314 — is New Living Word in Ruston, which has… no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.
QUICK. PUT THIS GUY IN CHARGE OF THE EDUCATION PLANS.
Hey, at least Louisiana is saving money, right? Possibly — they haven’t bothered to check.
Other Louisiana “schools,” as we have told you before, are teaching students not only that the Loch Ness Monster is real, but that it disproves evolution. Aaaand, not only has Jindal gifted the state’s education system to religion, but he has gifted it only to his (new) religion: Christian “schools” had no problem getting certified to get that sweet taxpayer funding, but when Muslim schools tried to join the voucher program, politicians done soiled their Jesus britches.
Education reform, however, fits with the new “fix the GOP” narrative that has developed since the American electorate reminded the GOP it was broken: Take the issues making the party look out of touch and ignorant, pretend to fix them, and hope nobody notices nothing’s changed.
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{ 137 comments }
The soft idiotry of low expectations.
Shorter Jindal: Science needs to be taught in our schools to protect our kids against idiots like me!
And by "science" we mean "science-fiction".
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
We don't need no education.
How can ye have any puddin' ef ye don't beat yer meat?
You can't.
STAND STILL LADDIE!
Isn't that what the GOP is saying?
If kids is all in skool whos gonna break up them chifforobes huh?!?
FACT: He is from India.
His parents are. He was born in USA. OR WAS HE?!?! Let's review the GO-Pee citizen test:
skin = not white
That proves he ain't 'Merican enough to be POTUS. Stop this before it starts Orly.
oh.
FACT: His Parents are from India!
And he was raised on polyunsaturated ghee.
He is the proverbial anchor baby. I understand his Mom was five months pregnant when she arrived. I am surprised the republicans haven't tried to send him back home.
Where is his long form birthee certificate, hngh?!
He's actually a sleeper agent working to destroy the American education system so that his fatherland will have an advantage in the 21st-century (where India is firmly located, Louisiana, not so much).
"In that case, many lives will be transformed…"
If Bobby and his drooling brethren have their way indeed many lives will be transformed, and none of them for the better. The Koch's need drooling idiots who they can pay shit wages to in order to line their pockets even better. And that, seems to be the sole goal of the GOP.
Sadly i dont think that is far from the truth. I weep for these children.
I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be god I will be god I will be… GOD I will be… GOD I will be… GOD I AM GOD I AM GOD I AM GOD I. AM. GOD. TIME FOR SMITING."
Well all of this is probably true, because nowhere does he say his proposal would actually improve anything. Many lives would be transformed for the worse, many sucky futures would be realized and the results for all our country would be long lasting, real malaise.
Well, the governor's ideas are… pure.
The key phrase being "school choice." Which means go ahead and destroy public education, you God-fearing white people are covered.
Nessie lessons for all!
Yeah, I knew exactly what he meant by "school choice": "We choose to leave poorz and particularly black kids behind"
Well Jindal has a point — Americans just aren't stupid enough yet to vote for the GOP.
How you figure? Have you not been awake the last 60 years?
I don't think the American people are getting smarter, but the Republican core has definitely given ignorance a big, sloppy wet kiss over the past few election cycles, and anyone who doesn't follow them down the fundy-creationist-misogynist-imperialist-science-denial primrose path faces expulsion as a RINO.
I remember when affable lunkhead Dick Lugar — who notably could find most of the world's countries on a map — used to be the Old Guard and one of the serious policy guys. Now who do they have in terms of foreign relations? Condi?
Your point is valid — but the level of rubeness that allowed Dubya to get elected is just too worldly for the current GOP, and they're determined to find a base in the intellectual rubble that remains rather than rebuilding themselves.
"Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms."
I believe the Oompa-Loompas said it best:
What do you get when you watch TV?
A kink in your neck and an IQ of three.
Keep it competitive, LA
"Special Ed" classrooms are a hemispherical cage ringed with steel spikes. No television, except for the one in the skybox for the corporate sponsors.
2 go in, one comes out.
But they can Deskercise!
Hollow Platitudes/Out of Touch and Ignorant 2116!!!!
The Daily Caller continued "how are we losing to Singapore? That's not even a real place, right? It's like Constantinople or Timbuktu. Wait, what?"
All this high falutin' science and 'rithmatic ain't gonna help our kids dig ditches any faster.
"You want fries with that?"
Our kids! That's a Messican job.
If you love what the GOP did for the Economy and Foreign Policy why wouldn’t you give them a shot reforming education.
Look, 47% of the class is going to be below average, right? That's just statistics. So fuck those kids. We don't even need to worry about them. They aren't going to take responsibility for those grades.
Centrist Libel!!
To be fair, the GOP's economic and foreign policy HAS thinned out the number of children we have to educate.
Having destroyed what was left of Louisiana's education system, Goober-ji now wants to destroy what's left of the rest of the nation's schools? Good "thinking".
"Goober-ji " Oh I am SO stealing that!
*purrs*
so when you are writing the stuff here- are you perhaps a world renowned comedy writer?
LOL I'm your standard-issue, lame lil' college goon (tho I certainly appreciate the very kind thought!)…
You forgot to mention you are purrrty.
Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.
For the Physics final, I have a suggestion:
"And the LORD spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."
Ay ladies, the Lochness monster is real.
//zip…
Won't it eat that little worm when it shows up?
I hung around the loch looking for it but that was when I still drank- a lot.
Those kids might have been taught to believe in the Loch Ness monster, but I'll bet they still don't know where Loch Ness is, or how to spell it.
Kilts don't have zips. You, sir, are no true Scotsman.
"I dunt know where ya been lad, but it looks like ya won first prize"
Obviously, this is an attempt to rid LA of the cruel influence of teacher's unions. The politicians don't care who gets the public's money, so long as teacher's unions won't be able to fund their opponents' campaigns. R's do best where education does least.
Also, enrich the owners of private schools. Say, do you suspect they give more heavily to the GOP?
Plus they get to fuck over the already-underpaid teachers; fucking over workers, even professional ones, is always a big goal of the Republicans.
Ah the dichotomy of the GOPer. Loves the teknalagy and knawlidge that larning provides but not the shit that's agan that bible or leads to soshalizm or the aktual larning.
Does not love the knawlidge that persuades people to vote Democratic, however.
Soon to be known as the "Great Southern Concavity", the unified third world economies of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana will provide American manufacturers the opportunity to develop their own state-side maquiladora zone. Why should those Chinese commie factory owners be getting all the dough anyway?
Apple's Chinese slave-drivers are gearing up to set up operations over here. However, Tim Cook claims the main thing driving Apple outsourcing is the goddamned stupidity of the American workforce:
Thanks, Louisiana, for thwarting any chance of your state joining the First World!
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/07/business/…
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412981,00.a…
Days like this I'm glad I'm old.
Amen, brother, amen.
If homeschooling was good enough for the 12 Apostles, it's good enough for today's kids.
They managed to write The Constitution, didn't they?!
I thought the Constitution was in the rock that King Arthur pulled the sword from?
Correct. I learned that from the Magna-Charter.
Nice!
Edumacation? A Harvard MBA certainly didn't help George Bush.
He bought that at the Harvard gift shop. Classes are for losers.
It was on special when Poppy bought him the Yale degree. He just had to show his Skull & Bones membership card.
Every day is Sunday School!
Sorry, I normally don't take advice from a dude with an Amy Grant poster stapled to the ceiling above his bed.
Your move, Michigan.
Let them finish destroying the middle class adults before they start on the kids … they already did the kids … oh.
I see people who are going to grow up and become mall shooters.
Nah, Obama will take their guns away before that happens.
Charter schools are people, my friend.
“I believe we’ve got an economic and a moral imperative to provide school choice and a quality education to every child, every student in America."
Louisiana can't even get their own kids edumacated- do we really trust them to provide a quality education to every child, every student in America?
Asshat Bobby Gindul did the exorcisms
in a previous lifeearlier in his career, so should we be really surprised by this? The lamestream thinks of him as a moderate, but compared to who? Perhaps fellow Replug Louisianian David Duke?Of course Jindal is a moderate. Especially compared to that comunistical mooslim nazi Obammers!
Plus, he has brown skin!
Do you know what a diet of salad greens does to the digestive system of a velociraptor? It isn't pretty.
The digestive system of a velociraptor ain't pretty, no matter what you put into it.
Would John Galt want to build Galt Gulch in Louisiana? I think not. And Jesus? The only way he's headed to Louisiana is angry and with a big stick in his hand.
Bobby – Repeat after me: "There is no such thing as a free education."
To focus on education you have to start with teachers. Teachers live in houses and eat food. To get good ones you have to pay them well. You might tell your citizens to move to Massachusetts.
[...] New Living Word in Ruston, [...] has no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.
All you're doing is teaching your children to absorb their liturgy from a television, and making sows like John Hagee and Benny Hinn more powerful.
I think it's smart to bring up a generation of kids who associate religion with mind-numbing tedium…
this is really scary-that people think that is education and it might get any kind of gov't funding
Education reform=Screw the teacher's union + Suck up to your Christian base.
Louisiana's next Secretary of Education: Granny Clampett.
She'd be an improvement.
Hell, make her governor, and she'd be an improvement.
Louisiana education system:
1. Deny science.
2. Exorcisms!!!!!11!
3. Yell at blahs on the teevee device.
4. Privatize.
5. Watch as Alabama actually overtakes your state in # of high school/college graduates.
6. USA! USA ! USA!
5. Watch as Alabama actually overtakes your state in # of high school/college graduates.
And does it without increasing their graduation rate…
Education and Louisiana… HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oooo… boy! Dat's a good un right deah boy!
Hey, the Governor's policies may destroy Louisiana's education system, but see he says that it's supposed to improve education, so we have to take that at face value and accept that he is pro-education, because he says so, evidence be damned; that's how our modern, faith-based media works.
Poor Nessie. All she wants is to be left in peace. And an occasional pint from the local: http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/record/GAA303705
"Everyone said I was daft to build a profit-based education system in a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show 'em."
Build it and they will dumb?
I wish I could un-upfist this just so I can upfist it again.
Aw, shucks…(blushes, shuffles feet)
It sank in the swamp….of ignorance?
The morass of more ass?
As long as he follows through on getting rid of volcano monitoring, it's all good.
When they went after southern democrats, we laughed, because we were not southern democrats.
When they went after state legislatures, we laughed, because we were not state legislatures.
Now they are going after the schoolhouse, and again, we laugh, because we… are not schoolhouses?
OK, it's a horrid mangling of a phrase, but you get my point, and it isn't funny…
None of this shit has been funny for years. We're seeing civilization die right before our eyes.
Vouchers are, plain and simple, the new segregation. The GOP simply can't let go of "starve the beast" or the Southern Strategy. It will be their doom, and good riddance to them.
Adam + Steve emerged from the Big Bang 6000 years ago. That's what I learnt in skool there, though it's all a bit fuzzy now in middle age…
Instead of monitoring wingnuts in Louisiana, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of wingnuts everywhere in the country.
Bobby Jindal, exorcising critical thinking from Louisiana schools since 2008.
Something tells me that when those schools get repossessed, it won't be with the spirit of critical thinking…
I didn't realize "school choice" meant the schools were the ones making the choices.
Needs moar berms.
Lernin' is fer pussies.
That's how they got those cats to learn the "Meow, meow, meow, meow" song for that cat food commercial.
So the kids are sitting around watching Davy and Goliath DVDs. Spartacus for history, might open some eyes.
"Educating 99% of the population makes about as much sense as educating the cow that my ribeye steak comes from."
Said some rich guy somewhere, maybe Mitt Romney.
When the time has come to outsource the learnin' of our kids overseas, we'll be ready.
Uh oh… too late.
Linky is no good – can you try again?
Hey, I can make a good salad. It just might contain a healthy dose of chicken and bacon to cover up those crunchy vegetables. Also cilantro. Velociraptors hate to devour their prey whole without a tasty garnish.
i has serious confusdz here. i was always led to believe that indian persons idolised education above all else. viz: the number of indians who do seriously well at maths. is gov jindal trying to infiltrate a secret maths baby cadre of asians into LA by moronising the natives? just axing.
Listen, this entire pile of crap likely would not be possible had Katrina not happened. These "people" used a NATURAL DISASTER to foist their privatization plans upon the unsuspecting and traumatized populace that remained in NOLA. The Jindalis now think their system is working because they are all latter-day Horace Manns or John Freaking Deweys. You have no idea how much I hate these people. They think they are working but the demographics have changed and because they are using school models more akin to boot camp than a humane educational environment.
Did I mention how much I hate these people?
Piyush, Piyush. You are never going to be President. It's just not happening.
The loch ness monster may work in the bible' s favor, but clearly big foot proves evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So really, by "reform' education, he means teach the children the proscribed rhetoric, keep them ignorant so they grow up to be good little Republicans.
Well we're screwed, we all know how much the Democrats depend on Louisiana!
Mary Landrieu libel?
" Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition."
Provided by Neil Bush's educational software company, I'm sure.
I'm confused by this. Does that mean I can have a tenured teaching position?
all this because they decided to let them teach the blahs too
"Last week, Japanese scientists explaced… placed explosive detonators at the bottom of Lake Loch Ness to blow Nessie out of the water. Sir Cort Godfrey of the Nessie Alliance summoned the help of Scotland's local wizards to cast a protective spell over the lake and its local residents and all those who seek for the peaceful existence of our underwater ally." This report would get an A I guess….
It's not like it matters. All of this kids are going to end up in Louisiana's other fantastic privatized institution: Prison.
See, if that weather lady had been been giving weather forecasts using bible verses then no one would have complained about her hair.
The important thing is that these "reforms" crippled the teacher's unions. The unfortunate thing is that they are crippling children to accomplish this. This is what they really mean when they say, "think of the children!"
Steve Benen is on fire today…
Children, you are hopelessly ignorant and good luck with life if you're not big enough to play football.
EDUCATION
You keep using that word, Bobby, but it doesn't mean what you think it means.
Jindal is also considered a wonk to people of such low expectations …
Yup, if by "school choice" you mean segregated education. "Glittering Generalities" like this are right out of Barry Goldwater's first best-seller: "The Conscience of a Conservative". I wonder how long they had to focus-group to come up with "School Choice"?
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