December 20, 2007
Sen. Landrieu, Earmarks and D.C. Public Schools
The Washington Post has a fantastic story on today's front page accusing Sen. Mary Landrieu (D.-La.), in her role as chairwoman of the Senate's D.C. appropriations subcommittee up until earlier this year, of forcing an unproven reading program on the District's kindergarten and first grade classrooms in exchange for $80,000 in donations from the company that designed it.
It's a long story, but it's worth reading all the way through. On the surface, it tells the fairly damning tale of how the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program, a product designed by a company with strong ties to the Bush administration, was earmarked for use in D.C. classrooms by the Senate, at Landrieu's urging, after the company held a fundraiser for the Senator.
Most of the donors declined to discuss the donations or the fundraiser. Jeri Nowakowski, the Voyager executive vice president for product development who led the team that developed the company's reading programs, and her husband donated $4,000. Nowakowski said Landrieu was one of the few Democrats to whom she had given campaign money because "I've just known that she has been a supporter of education."
Campaign finance records indicate that Landrieu received contributions of about $30,000 on or about Nov. 2. Four days later, she went to the Senate floor and offered an amendment to the House bill with the $1 million Voyager earmark. Landrieu jettisoned the matching money requirement and doubled the federal portion to $2 million.
More broadly, the story demonstrates with shocking clarity the role the U.S. Congress has played in condemning D.C.'s public schools to failure by making them a testing ground for pet projects that have created an unworkable hodgepodge of curricula. No where else but in the District does the federal government get involved in determining which specific curricula will be used in public schools. Landrieu, as you might recall, was also one of three senators to place a hold on Mayor Fenty's school takeover legislation earlier this year
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I agree that the story is pretty damning of Landrieu (I love the irony of her saying on the Senate floor that the District is sometimes treated as a guinea pig). But by the end of the story, doesn't it seem as if the Voyager program actually works?
So I'm of two minds about this story. On the one hand, it's scuzzy that Landrieu pushed this requirement onto DCPS due to political campaign contributions and lobbying. On the other hand, the Feds picked up the full tab for the program, and it seems to have actually produced positive results. Plus, it's not like DCPS's past reading programs really resulted in overall successes.
Bottom line: If you've got the money and the connections, you can get things done. For Voyager, their $80,000 in contributions has resulted in some $4 million+ in earmarks. Not a bad rate of return on their investment.
Meh. I think the central office of the DC public school system is pretty much solely to blame for the craptastic state of the schools. Secondly, your bitching because the federal government gave the DCPS 2 million dollars to spend on a literacy program that was "unproven". My first thought is that it couldn't possibly be any worse than whatever the DCPS was doing before, which by the way had been pretty clearly "proven" an f'ing failure.
ack. that should be "you're bitching"
At least Senator Landrieu lives in DC, which is far more than many Senators and Congressmen will do.
She's been pretty actively involved in DC affairs for some time now. I may not agree with her, but at least she's showing some effort.
And that's a whole lot more than most DCPS employees do.
Yes, it sucks that it's a reminder of the screwed up political system in DC, but as long as we have that system and as long as DC city employees won't do their jobs, I'm sortof glad someone at least shows an interest.
So given a pissing contest between Landrieu and the current school system, I'd go with Landrieu.
Why is this story shocking to some? Anyone who works Inside the Beltway should know how the system works. Campaign money flows freely to those who support the agenda of lobbyists and special interests. It's the way it works.
Considering DCPS's $1-billion-plus budget, four mil is chump changes. The embezzlers in the tax office wouldn't stoop to pick that up if they found it in the hallway.
I can appreciate the moral indignation associated with Congressional meddling and quid-pro-quo, but shouldn't we be a little more pissed that this failed system continues to graduate kids who are functionally illiterate, can't explain what happens when you get to the edge of a map, and don't understand what a glacier is? And taxpayers get to pay the highest per-student costs in the country for this privelege. So long as Congress has oversight over local affairs, the city will continue to be a petri dish for every Rep and Senator on the Hill that owes a little reacharound to their contributors.
You name it; whether it's gun control or medical marijuana or needle exchange or embryonic stem cells, Congress will find some way of sticking it to DC just so they can tell their constituents back home, "Vote for me! I'm tough on those reefer-smokin, smack-shootin, gun-bannin foetuses!"
Campaign money flows freely to those who support the agenda of lobbyists and special interests.
The First Law of Political Thermodynamics: s**t rolls uphill towards money.
I'm sorry, but I'm just pissed off at the arogance here - wouldn't have been great if Sen. Landrieu would speak with the Mayor and Rhee if she was interested in doing this?
If she's running again, I suggest folks make a contribution to any primary challenger she might have.
And at least the students apparently got something for this money. How many untold hundreds of millions (probably billions) have been sucked down the black hole of DCPS on bogus contracts that provide no actual use to students? When we are ever able to actually have a comprehensive 'after the fact' audit of DCPS I think the sheer billions wasted, stolen, lost, and simple 'unaccounted for' over the past decades will be stunning.
I for one am really troubled by this story. It's nothing new for politicians to accept funding from and be influenced by lobbyists, but at least those politicians are (theoretically) at least accountable to the voters in their jurisdiction. In this situation with Landrieu (and countless others)DC residents are completely disenfranchised and have no say in their own local affairs. DC is a poorly run city with a lot of problems, but that doesn't make it acceptable to keep treating its citizens like guinea pigs. When left to their own devices, DC residents elected Marion Barry, twice. Crackhead or not, they seem to love him! So what? DC residents should still have a right to make decisions for themselves via their elected officials, just as everyone else does. The same goes for the schools. Mayor Fenty ran on a platform of fixing the schools, and we elected him. If people are not happy, then we will elect someone else. Landrieu is accountable only to the people of Louisiana (at least for now). It seems pretty basic to me. On a side, I also wonder if Landrieu has so much free time, why she is not working on improving (or even re-opening)the public schools in New Orleans, which were a mess even before Katrina. Such hypocrisy.
Oh, Mary, Mary, why am I not surprised! I actually voted for her in Lousiana last time she was up for reelection (it was either her or some awful Republic bitch). Her whole campaign was like "I'm a conservative democrat" and some BS about how the Fed gov't wanted to destroy the state's sugar industry. She's the daughter of Moon Landrieu who was the mayor of New Orleand and a US Secretary of HUD, so I'm sure she learned quid pro quo from Daddy.
How did they fit Mr. Ed into that blouse?
Voyager Universal Literacy is apparently used in New Orleans, where Senator Landrieu's aunt, Madeleine Landrieu, is on the School Board.
Just sayin' . . . .
Come on! Landrieu's cute! She's no Governor Palin, but she's no Barbara Mikulsky either.
Um, couldn't DCPS simply have refused to use the program? It appears, from the WP article, that this was a $2 million earmark of essentially FREE federal money, without any matching requirement from DC.
If DC didn't want that $2 million, they could have simply not used it, right? Since it was in addition to the already-approved DC budget, this was essentially a freebie given to DC.
The Post article also doesn't indicate whether Landrieu spoke with the Mayor or school system about this in advance or not. Sortof sloppy reporting on their part.
Either way, it seems like free money. So I'm not really sure I understand the bitching on the part of DC school people. I understand the lobbying / promotion angle, but I don't understand why DCPS would be all bitchy about freebies.