The Westbank State Senate candidates on why they should be elected
19th October 2015 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Part II
The sudden retirement of State Senator David Heitmeier left this West Bank Senate district open. In a seat which stretches from Plaquemines Parish through Algiers to West Jefferson, four major contenders seek to win the opportunity on October 24 to succeed him.
Candidates Jeff Arnold, Troy Carter, and Roy Glapion sat down with this newspaper, side-by-side, to answer questions on Common Core, ending the RSD, Charter Schools, the budget, Historically Black Colleges, and Medicaid expansion.
The fourth major candidate School Board member Leslie Ellison was invited, but was unable to attend.
What is Your Position on Common Core & Charter Schools? Should Control of our public schools revert back to the Orleans Parish School Board from the State-run Recovery School District? And what are your thoughts on Transparency and protecting Student Privacy?
JEFF ARNOLD : Alright, Thank you for the question. In my 13 + years serving in the [La.] House [of Representatives], I’ve always supported standards for education. Otherwise we cannot measure ourselves against students from other states and other countries to see where we’re going in educating our children.
Is Common Core the answer? I’m not sure. There’s so much private equity and private profits made on the Common Core program because of the name “common core” that it may be sold and we may just need to find a standard that is across the board .
Charter schools after Katrina? The Orleans Parish School Board said “We’re not opening schools ‘till next year.” That was not acceptable. In Algiers, we started the Algiers Charter School Association, and we opened up seven schools in Algiers within a couple of months after Katrina.
That’s what we had to do . Reverting New Orleans schools back to the school board—and the other schools around the city—is something we have to be careful with.
Number 1 is the children. We have to make sure the children have to be taken care of. We have to make sure the children are going to be educated and they are not hurt by the public policies of multiple school boards.
On transparency, I served on the House Government Affairs Committee when transparency became more important. It needs to be there, so people need to know where their money is going.
As for privacy, that also goes with children there. They need to be protected. They need to know that they’re not being discriminated on. They need to know they’re safe while they’re in public and private school care so their information needs to not be public.
TROY CARTER: Common Core…I support Common Core. Common Core is, in fact, a standard across the board all of the students are learning at the same level and the same curriculum.
I find it difficult to… [be] opposed to a Common Core where all of the children are given the same materials to learn across the board—and treat each fairly and equally as relates to charter schools. And providing good solid education for our young people.
I think clearly the charter system works, and the charter system is doing a great job. It’s a good model. I think that the issue between the Orleans Parish School Board and charter schools—if you will—is [an] issue that needs to be worked out. At the end of the day, I think, the Charter model has certainly worked.
Transparency is a “no brainer.” We should have transparency in every possibly facet of government. One issue is that we have problems with people trusting government, as we have not been as transparent. So we should absolutely be completely transparent.
We should have it clear and accessible to all the voters—and all of the people. As it relates to privacy, obviously making sure that records and children and schools in privacy is of the utmost importance.
In this day and age, as we move forward, we need people who could go to Baton Rouge and understand the process. Understand the lay of the land and Understand how to get things done. As a former member of the legislature and as a former member of the New Orleans City Council, I’ve done that and I’ll do it again.
ROY GLAPION: My father was in education. My mother was an educator in the State of Louisiana. And I’m obviously Pro education.
But also when it relates to Common Core…As a civil engineer, we have a standard test that we have to take that applies to anyone that’s taken the professional engineer exam. But when we look at Common Core as it relates specifically to mathematics and English, we have to be careful about how we teach our kids. So for me and how I was taught mathematics for example is that 8 + 2 is equal to 10 .
With Common Core …I will give you a Common Core [problem] such as if you have eight and five how do you get 10?
There has to be more dialogue and more communication, not only with the students who are teaching on a common core basis with a student, but also with teachers—as it relates to parents who try to help their children do their homework .So I’m definitely Pro-Common Core. On that piece for sure.
All privacy is important, and we need to absolutely support that 100 percent, and I believe the other was transparency? Yes, 100 percent transparency needs to be in affect not only from an education standpoint but from a government standpoint.
As for Local Control to the [Orleans] School Board… We need to look at how we got to this place in the first place…this point, in the first place.
We had local involvement, and it didn’t work. You could drill into that and say “OK, why it didn’t work,” but it’s a very complicated issue.
Returning it back [to the OPSB] may not be the best solution, but we must keep everyone accountable as it relates to educating our children.
Whichever one of you gentlemen end up in the state Senate at the end of this election, the first thing you going to deal with is the budget. We have a structural budget deficit in the neighborhood of 300 million dollars—and the attack is already coming on healthcare and education again, historically Black colleges specifically. Here’s our question. Structurally what are your recommendations to be able to make the budget a little more transparent rather than cutting higher ed and health care each time there is a deficit.
And more importantly are each of you willing to accept across the board cuts even if necessary, if no compromises can be agreed upon? Are you willing to accept cross the board cuts in every program including K through 12 and minimum foundation program if it preserves Historically Black Colleges like SUNO, Southern, Grambling, etc.?
MR. ARNOLD: When you look at across the board cuts, it depends on what we have to address first. We cannot cut certain areas of [the budget] because the constitution…prohibits or makes it very hard to cut those areas.
The main thing we have to do is stop the governor—whoever the governor will be in future—from making these midyear cuts and using one time revenues for ongoing expenses. That’s what’s putting us in the situation we’re in today.
We meet, we passed the budget during session and then the… the governor comes in and starts cutting and doing things that we’re not able to stop unless we come to a special session.
We’ve tried to call a special session. Unfortunately, the foothold on state government, right now, is in the Republican Party, and they choose not to have these special sessions [to override the Governor’s Line Item Vetos.] They choose not to make the cuts that are necessary across the board.
So, going forward, hopefully we’ll have a governor that’s able to do that. But from a structural deficit side we have to start accepting federal dollars…not just cutting Medicaid and employment compensation.
We leave hundreds of million dollars every year on the table that other states accept. You talk about the Affordable Care Act. Arkansas, for example, has a Republican governor, accepts that a version-their own version-of the Affordable Care Act.
We went to our governor. I voted for it several times to make us accept one of these choices. He’s absolutely refused every time. A Republican governor in Arkansas did it, and we can do it in Louisiana.
As for across-the-board budget cuts [to preserve our universities particular SUNO and the other HBCs]? If it means everyone suffers the same and nobody suffers more than anybody else I’m absolutely for that. When you look at across the board cuts, everyone suffers at the same rate across the board.
TROY CARTER: First of all the whole budget needs to be scrapped. We have a budget that’s constitutionally protected. Three quarters of it is , and we need to put everything on the table.
We’re in dire straits. One by one we look at and re-prioritize the budget to determine what’s the things that should be protected and what things should be shifted around. We cannot continue to only cut education [and] healthcare in the State of Louisiana
We have to save Historically Black Colleges. All the colleges whether Black, white or otherwise. The university system in Louisiana has given our young people an opportunity to move forward and it’s a shame that every year we have to have these valuable institutions on the chopping block.
So I think, again, all priorities have to be stripped—and all protections have to be stripped. We have to start all over again, prioritizing making sure we have a fully funded MFB. And making sure the public systems and university systems are funded, and making sure that we stand up to the governor.
The legislature has the right. It’s a part of their process that the legislature votes and passes the programs. The governor presents the budget. Legislature passes or declines the budget.
ROY GLAPION: What we need to do to save historically Black colleges and what would be my recipe to scrub the budget?
Let me first say the two opponents that are here and are friends of mine. [However,] both served in the legislature and [got us] in the predicament we’re in. What I’d like to look at—being fiscally responsible—is to look at how much money is coming in and how much money is going out. So I think there’s a gap between the money that’s coming in and the money that’s going out.
And being fiscally responsible to know exactly what are we spending money on? For example, “stop the tolls” on the bridge. Nobody really knew where the money was going! We need to know where the money is being spent before we can determine how it’s going to be cut.
As for cutting education and cutting health care—absolutely not. We need to challenge the next governor that we do not cut Medicaid for the poor and make sure we hold his feet to the fire.
When you talk about having cuts with regards to having Historically Black Universities, I serve as the chairman for the United Negro College Fund for the State of Louisiana. On November 5, I’m being honored as the Alumnus of the Year…My point is that I am very, very pro education, and I will do whatever I have to do to make certain we do not cut education.
We must have a constitutional convention and look at the budget in detail and reduce any cuts associated with health care and education.
This article originally published in the October 19, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
