Optional reading: "Can't Is Not An Option"

Google "Sentinel HC", or plug that into the internal search engine at Amazon.com, and you'll find what resembles the right wing's secret library. Imagine a Bizzaro-world catalog of Thomas Jefferson's treatises on democracy, perverted.

You'll find titles like "She's the Boss: The Disturbing Truth About Nancy Pelosi," which posits the frightening question "Why Is Nancy Pelosi the Most Dangerous Woman in America?" For those interested, a brand-new hardback edition is available at Amazon for $1.67.

A crisp new hardback copy of "The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President: Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy" can be had for $3.19, one of the publisher's more expensive offerings.

How about this one: "The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom," which calls itself "a non-lawyer's guide to the worst Supreme Court decisions of the modern era." Oddly, the dozen doesn't include Bush v Gore (2000).

This one's a page-turner, I suspect: "The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star." It promises to tell "the real story of the Republican vice presidential nominee and her collision with the elite liberal media," but I wonder if, like the new HBO film "Game Change," it discusses Palin's collision with high-school world history?

This is too much fun:
"Co-ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn't Fight the Nation's Wars"
"A Field Guide to Left-Wing Wackos: And What to Do About Them"
"Your Teacher Said What?!: Defending Our Kids from the Liberal Assault on Capitalism"
"Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One"

And then you get to the autobiographies, or "memoirs": Here you'll find Donald Rumsfeld's book "Known and Unknown" (Amazon price, new hardcover, $3.33); Michele Bachmann's "Core of Conviction: My Story" (Amazon price, new hardcover, $4.00); disgraced former Congressman Tom DeLay's "No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight" (Amazon price, new hardcover, one red cent).

And this insider biography: "A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush" (Amazon price, new hardcover, $1.85).

Scratch a little more, and you'll learn that Sentinel HC was created as a subsidiary of Penguin Group, the mega-publisher, in 2003 to tap the market of conservative book-buyers. (Paging Stephen Colbert for a ruling on this. Stephen?)

That year, Penguin assigned Adrian Zackheim to helm the new offshoot, and they celebrated his assignment with this announcement:

He has a long track record of publishing books by notable conservatives, including Margaret Thatcher, Newt Gingrich, and Bob Dole.

Capable pedigree, to be sure.

Perhaps it was destiny, then, that Sentinel HC would become the publishing home to South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

And, given Amazon's markdown of so many of Sentinel HC's master works, perhaps we now better understand Haley's opposition to locating an Amazon distribution center in her adopted county of Lexington. How embarrassing it will be to find her new book, "Can't Is Not An Option," remaindered so close to home.

Still, Amazon is doing its part to spray pretty colors on this situation. Haley's book will be available in stores April 3, but it's available to pre-order on Amazon.com already, and the promotional text is breathy. Let's read it together:

A rising star in the Republican Party shares her inspirational memoir of family, hope, and the power of the American Dream.

Decades before their daughter surprised the nation

The nation? She shocked the nation? I'm not sure the entire nation was paying such close attention to who South Carolina's installed in their governor's office in 2010 -- after all, could the average American name five of the last ten South Carolina governors? For that matter, could Haley herself name them?

...by becoming governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley's parents had a dream. Ajit and Raj Randhawa were well-educated, well-off Sikhs in the Punjab region of India. But despite their high social status, the Randhawas wanted more for their family-the opportunities that only America could offer.

So they left behind all they had known and settled in Bamberg, South Carolina (population: 2,500).

Clearly, this promises to be a heart-warming story that celebrates America's liberal immigration policy. I'm hooked already.

As the first Indian family in a small Southern town in the early 1970s, the Randhawas faced ignorance, prejudice, and sometimes blatant hostility.

Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise. If only the Randhawas had spent a few minutes reading about South Carolina history before buying their tickets, they might have discovered that South Carolina has had a three-hundred-year-old love affair with ignorance, prejudice, and sometimes blatant hostility toward anyone who's not a white male, including white females. So the Randhawas weren't exactly discovering virgin territory. An ounce of prevention, as we say...

Nikki remembers stopping at a roadside produce stand with her father, who always wore his traditional Sikh turban. Within minutes, two police cars pulled to make sure they weren't thieves.

Sadly, poor white children got that treatment, too, not to mention African-Americans of every economic stripe.

But the Randhawas taught their children that they should never think of themselves as victims. They stressed that if you work hard and stay true to yourself, you can overcome any obstacle. The key is believing that can't is not an option.

Admirable lesson. However, it seems strange that a book about eschewing victimhood begins with examples of victimhood.

But this is a pattern, isn't it? After all, Sarah Palin was victimized by the liberal media and by Senator John McCain's evil campaign staff. Michele Bachmann was victimized by the liberal media and Newsweek magazine. I haven't read Margaret Thatcher's book, but I wonder if she was victimized by anyone on her climb to ruthlessness?

The family struggled to make ends meet while starting a clothing business in their living room, eventually growing it into a multimillion- dollar success. At age twelve, Nikki started to do the bookkeeping and taxes after school.

Really? A multi-million-dollar success, but it couldn't afford an accountant? And as recently as the mid-2000s, it couldn't afford to pay her a salary more than $25,000, according to her IRS filing?

Well, okay. It's a book. James Frey wrote a book, too, called "A Million Little Pieces," and his was non-fiction too. Oprah Winfrey said so.

After graduating from college and entering the business world, she watched business owners like her parents battle government bureaucracy and overregulation.

Most college graduates are watching foreign want ads for high-paying jobs, because there aren't any here to fill. But when Haley graduated college, she watched battles with government bureaucracy and overregulation. Okay.

Her frustration inspired her to get into politics and run for the state legislature. That first campaign, against an entrenched incumbent, led to racial and religious slurs and threats-but Haley, like her parents, refused to back down.

She refused to back down! South Carolina demanded a young woman with meager qualifications to take charge and lead, and Haley refused to back down from its demand! She fit the bill!

She won on a promise to fight for reform, lean budgets, and government accountability, which is exactly what she did-much to the dismay of South Carolina's old guard politicians.

That, and Larry Koon's re-election campaign was lackluster to the point of being non-existent.

Soon she had a reputation as a conservative leader who could get things done. In the same state where her family was once ridiculed, she inspired a diverse grassroots following. In November 2010 she was elected South Carolina's first female governor and first nonwhite governor,

Um, I feel strange mentioning this, but didn't Haley herself mark government documents declaring herself "white"?

I'm sure I read that somewhere, like Mother Jones magazine in July 2011, in a note by reporter Siddhartha Mahanta, maybe:

For the children of immigrants, the road to acceptance in America can be a bumpy one. There will be pain. There will be embarrassment. There will be relentless, cruel accusations from your brethren that you are assimilating at the expense of your true cultural heritage. And the stories of the children of immigrants who rise to positions of influence and power are especially inspiring given the challenges before them.

Not so inspiring? Lying about where you're from, like South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), the American-born child of Indian parents, might have done. The Associated Press reports that in 2001, Haley listed her race as "white" on her voter registration form.
...
For Haley, voter fraud is a big deal. She recently signed a new law requiring that voters present photo identification at the polls that, she says, will "improve South Carolina in terms of integrity, accountability and transparency." Voter ID laws, of course, don't actually decrease voter fraud (which is virtually nonexistent). Instead, they mostly keep Democratic voters away from the polls.
...
But even though she didn't exactly commit voter fraud, her self-race-mis-classification seems to undermine her credibilty as someone who wants to prevent people from lying on their way to the voting booth.

Yes, I'm sure it was Siddhartha Mahanta's item in the July 2011 edition of Mother Jones magazine. I knew I read it somewhere.

I suspect someone from Haley's office will call up Sentinel HC and Amazon to have that corrected posthaste.

Now, to continue:

...and only the second Indian American governor in the country.

Haley's story, as told firsthand in this inspiring memoir, is a testament to the power of determination, faith, and family. And it's proof that the American Dream is still strong and true in the twenty-first century.

I was sure it was going to say, also, it's proof that, thanks to our hyper-targeted marketing culture, anyone can write a book and get it published these days.

The Washington Post, not to be outdone, weighed in with a mini-review eight months ago:

Nikki Haley’s memoir, “Can’t Is Not an Option: My Story,” will be published in January 2012. So will the two negatives in the title produce a positive outcome for the South Carolina governor?

Even negative press is good press, right?

Louisiana's teachers denigrated by governor, lawmakers

Is this what the new conservative world order will look like? Teachers locked out of their State House, interrogated by lawmakers for daring to speak up on the issues that affect them?

Is this where we're headed in South Carolina, too?

With the 12-6 vote -- which came almost 11 hours the committee convened -- two of the four principal measures of Jindal's overhaul of primary and secondary education are on their way to the House floor. The vote for House Bill 976 by Education Committee Chairman Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, fell along party lines, with the exception of Democratic Vice Chairman Patrick Jefferson, D-Homer, who joined the majority Republicans. Several completely party-line votes on amendments preceded the final vote, with Carter and Jindal prevailing on every one.

Keep this in mind: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was re-elected last November and apparently seized control of the state Board of Education too, appointing his own hand-picked "reformer" to be state superintendent.

That's because, in Louisiana, the state board of education hires the state superintendent, and the state board is elected by voters. Jindal ran a slate of candidates for the state board, funded by out-of-state "reform" organizations, and got his slate elected. Check.

Then, flush with out-of-state financial power, he drafted a set of bills to take control completely away from local boards of education, got the four leaders of the legislature to sign onto the bills as co-sponsors -- and, this being Louisiana, I'm sure no favors or special considerations were involved in the persuasion -- and dropped the bills at the legislature five days before the session began. Checkmate.

And then, he got the four leaders to schedule immediate consideration of his bills at their first committee meetings of the new session -- yesterday and today -- before local boards, administrators and educators could have time to coordinate.

Still, educators in Louisiana's clearly did a marvelous job of raising sufficient Hell to garner national media attention.

With hundreds of public school teachers filling overflow committee rooms and the front steps of the Capitol, Jindal began the proceedings in a rare appearance before a legislative committee. ...As he has in previous appearances, Jindal cast opponents as "the coalition of the status quo."

The answer from teachers, the leading critics of the governor's overall strategy, is that House Bill 976 and companion bills effectively shift financing away from public education and punish public school teachers, without doing enough to improve the overall system or require accountability from the private schools that are in line for public money. There was also considerable debate about the process, with Democrats lambasting Carter and the administration for pushing complex legislation on the third day of the session and putting strictures on the terms of the debate.
...
In a sometimes terse exchange, House Minority Leader John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, questioned the governor on the legalities of his voucher plans. Edwards, echoing the position of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and Louisiana Association of Educators, argued that one specific constitutional provision directs the MFP for public schools.
...
Edwards also tried to turn Republican orthodoxy on Jindal, questioning a statewide requirement that would effectively force a local school district to give up its local tax money that would be part of the MFP financing for a voucher student if that student remained in public school. Edwards called it "top-down, big government."

Jindal said, "If this was a top-down, big government bill, I think you would sponsor that."

Whew. A governor with no respect for lawmakers who question his ideas.

Sound familiar?

As for accountability, what's the likelihood that we'll hear these same arguments and outcomes when our own House takes up its voucher bill later this month?

Democrats lost on votes for amendments that would have limited vouchers to state financing. They also lost on applying testing requirements to all students in voucher schools. The Jindal plan tests only voucher recipients, just like a pilot voucher program in New Orleans. Catholic school leaders, including the bishops, do not want the state testing system. Lobbyist Danny Loar said Catholic schools already use separate test, with the results reported on a diocesan basis. Parents of voucher students, meanwhile, also will get the results of their students. But the private schools would not get a publicly reported letter grade, as public schools do.

As well as the attacks on educators who dare to raise their questions:

Besides the merits of the legislation, teachers' very presence at the Capitol was a flashpoint.

Several school systems canceled classes either Wednesday or today because of the number of teachers who said they wanted to use leave to come to the Capitol. Before testimony began, Republicans on a 10-8 vote pushed through a rule requiring teachers -- if they were coming from any of the scores of systems that remained open -- to say whether they used personal leave or sick leave to come.

Rep. Pat Smith, a former East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member, lambasted the rule as "intimidation" and "an attempt to embarrass people" with a legitimate right to address lawmakers.

That was yesterday, when Jindal's bills were addressed in the State House. Today, they were scheduled to come before the Senate Education Committee.

And:

Well before 8 a.m. Wednesday, hundreds of public school teachers filled the steps of the Louisiana Capitol. By the time the House Education Committee convened to discuss Gov. Bobby Jindal's overhaul of primary and secondary education, most of them were still there, waiting to get into the building.

State policy and legislative security officials conceded that they restricted access to two of the three Capitol entrances usually open to the public. Only staff and credentialed news media and lobbyists could enter through those doors. That left just one entrance, at the top of the front steps, with the assembled teachers funneled through one metal detector. That door leads into the marbled Memorial Hall, the vaulted lobby between the Senate and House chambers.

Capt. Doug Cain, spokesman for the State Police, said the decision was made jointly by the Legislature's security leaders and sergeant-at-arms, Capitol Police and State Police.

Several teachers and others complained they could not get in the Capitol to testify. Cain said no one was kept out, but he said the admission process was slow.

"Everyone who wanted to testify was able to, so from that standpoint today was a success," he said Wednesday.

But Ponchatoula High School Principal Danny Strickland said it was no such thing. "I think it was by design," he said. "It had to be. I was here before daybreak." When the committee started, "I was still outside." One his veteran teachers, Kevin Corvetto, said: "We had women who had to go the restroom. That became an issue." Strickland said, "They went across the street to another building."

Marie estimated that at the crowd's peak, about 2,000 people were gathered on the Capitol steps, the education committee room or five overflow rooms set up by House officials so the public could monitor the debate.

Two thousand educators -- classroom teachers, principals and superintendents, working hand in hand -- mobilized in less than one week to express their opposition to a repugnant governor's power grab.

That governor's response was to block access to the Capitol, ram his bills through marathon committee meetings in the first week of session, and take local control and school funding completely away from local school boards.

Remember this, South Carolina's educators, when our own voucher bill comes before the full House in another week or two. Take heed from the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Louisiana: What is happening there will happen here soon.

What will we do to prepare?

Educators blocked from State House in Baton Rouge

Shades of Governor Nikki Haley?

Weeks after sharing a luncheon table with our governor at the White House, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal blocked thousands of educators from gaining entry to the State House in Baton Rouge this morning, while a package of his proposals to dismantle public education in that state was being rolled out in a legislative committee.

There's more to this story -- and it's a good one.

First, Jindal wants to dismantle public schools; that's a given. Education researcher Diane Ravitch published a column about it last week.

I went to Lafayette, La., last week to speak to the Louisiana School Boards Association. These men and women, representing their local schools from across the state, are trying to preserve public education in the face of an unprecedented onslaught by Gov. Bobby Jindal and the state's Republican-dominated legislature. Jindal has the backing of the state's corporate leaders, the nation's biggest foundations, and some powerful out-of-state supporters of privatization for his sweeping attack on public education.

Gov. Jindal has submitted a legislative proposal that would offer vouchers to more than half the students in the state; vastly expand the number of privately managed charter schools by giving the state board of education the power to create up to 40 new charter authorizing agencies; introduce academic standards and letter grades for pre-schoolers; and end seniority and tenure for teachers.

Under his plan, the local superintendent could immediately fire any teacher—tenured or not—who was rated "ineffective" by the state evaluation program. If the teacher re-applied to teach, she would have to be rated "highly effective" for five years in a row to regain tenure. Tenure, needless to say, becomes a meaningless term, since due process no longer is required for termination.

The bill is as punitive as possible with respect to public education and teachers. It says nothing about helping to improve or support them. It's all about enabling students to leave public schools and creating the tools to intimidate and fire teachers. This "reform" is not conservative. I would say it is radical and reactionary. But it is in no way unique to Louisiana.

Gov. Jindal is in a race to the bottom with other Republican governors to see who can move fastest to destroy the underpinnings of public education and to instill fear in the hearts of teachers. It's hard to say which of them is worst: Jindal, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Rick Scott of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio, or ....

I'll finish the list for you, Diane: "...or Nikki Haley of South Carolina."

Second, Louisiana's legislature just came back into session this week, apparently on Monday. They don't have the same legislative schedule as we have. And waiting for their arrival was this package of Jindal bills, all greased and ready to fly.

Media there say he dropped these bills just last week, fully-developed and co-sponsored by their House Speaker and House Education chair, and Senate President and Senate Education chair, and scheduled immediate consideration of them at the session's first committee meeting.

So how did educators react to news of Jindal's full-scale attack on them?

Well, Louisiana's public school educators are apparently better organized and unified that ours here in South Carolina. The teacher's organization there is the Louisiana Association of Educators, and a majority of Louisiana's teachers are active in defending their profession. Further, the state's administrators apparently work hand-in-glove with the LAE, and perhaps so do their school boards, because school district administrators chose to close schools today, to allow thousands of educators to get to Baton Rouge and express themselves with tact and grace to their elected representatives.

Jindal, however -- fearing his state's elementary school teachers, librarians, cafeteria ladies and others -- had a scheme in mind, ready for them.

He locked all the doors but one.

Thousands of education stakeholders flooded the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol Wednesday, but a majority of the teachers, support professionals, administrators – even parents and students – who showed up, were forced to remain outside on the Capitol steps due to the governor’s orders of closing down alternative entrances into the building.

“They wouldn’t let people in because they said the committee rooms were full, but it looked like Governor Jindal was trying to keep educators out of the room during his testimony,” said LAE President Joyce Haynes. “If he really believed in his plan, then he should have taken this opportunity to stand before educators and put it all out on the table; instead, he chose to lock us out of the process.”

School employees from across the state came together in Baton Rouge to speak against the governor’s extreme education agenda brought forth in House Bill 976. The bill calls for taking public tax dollars and turning them over to for-profit charter schools. It also calls for the expansion of a statewide school choice program. Educators want to know why the governor is demanding a rush to vote on such complex legislation that impacts the future of Louisiana’s public schools.

“It is the Legislature’s responsibility to schedule a fair hearing process that allows us to offer input on those bills that affect us,” said Haynes.

Jindal's Chicago-style strong-arm tactics against teachers caught the attention of Louisiana's veteran Senator Mary Landrieu:

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu sided with school employees as she spoke out against the rush. She agrees that the governor is moving outrageously fast to try to win committee approval for his plan.

"If this is such a great reform package, it should be able to stand the test of review. This is a democracy. This isn't a dictatorship," Landrieu said in an interview.

Educators could not agree more. Several school systems across the state closed so that educators could attend the hearings and advocate on behalf of their school districts. Attendees said they would rather be in the classrooms with their students, but when the intent is to attack hard working professionals by proposing to dismantle neighborhood schools through privatization, teachers will stand up to defend their students and their careers.

“We were forced to attend on a school day,” said Haynes. “Legislators should have made the appropriate move to schedule these hearings when education employees are available to attend, like in the evenings or on the weekends.”

The decision to close schools was made by school boards and administrators, many of whom joined teachers and support professionals at the Capitol in opposition to the legislation.

To make matters worse, when the few educators who were able to get inside the building signed up to speak to the committee, as is a citizen's right, the governor's legislative henchmen adopted a new rule on the spot, requiring teachers to declare what kind of leave they took today to be in Baton Rouge.

Is this not America any longer? Have we elected leaders who have some different vision of what they want America to be, and we just happen to be inconvenient impediments to their establishment of it?

And how soon should we expect to see these sort of tactics played out in Columbia?

Obama tells Haley: Invest in schools, hire more teachers

I suppose this isn't what Governor Nikki Haley wanted to hear from President Barack Obama during the national governors' luncheon at the White House last week.

Obama said at Monday's session that he sympathized with governors whose state budgets have been badly squeezed during the economic downturn. But he said that was no reason to trim resources from schools.

"The fact is that too many states are making cuts in education that I think are simply too big," Obama said. "Nothing more clearly signals what you value as a state than the decisions you make about where to invest. Budgets are about choices."

He reaffirmed his view that decisions about education should be left to states and not the federal government. "I believe education is an issue that is best addressed at the state level," the president said, "and governors are in the best position to have the biggest impact."

Look at that. President of the United States, concerned about the children of South Carolina and the other 49 states. Governor of South Carolina, not so much.

Specifically he called for more teachers in the classroom. He also noted that 21 states require students to stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.

"I urge others to follow suit of those 21 states," Obama said.

And the President of the United States wants to see more teachers in South Carolina's public schools, to help reduce class size and encourage more high schoolers to finish school. Governor of South Carolina, not so much.

Media accounts don't quote Haley, so we have no idea whether she stayed stuck in her anti-education rut or instead had an epiphany and came back home a changed leader. But we do know, thanks to the Associated Press photographer in the room, that Haley took her lunch alongside fellow Indian-American and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who is quoted widely in press accounts of the event.

What did Jindal say?

"I walked into the meetings today believing we need a conservative in the White House and I left the meetings continuing to believe that," Jindal said.

I guess that means poor South Carolina will remain stuck in its rut.