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Hey, how was your National School Choice Week? Why, mine was lovely, thanks so much for asking!

We round out the week with a look at the latest Report Card on American Education from the good folks at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), ranking these 50 states for their performance on a variety of measures related to K-12 education.

OK, let’s take a look here (turns pages, turns pages, jesus this thing is long). Hmmm, Arkansas lands at number 45…But wait! Weren’t Gov. Mike Beebe and the Arkansas Dept. of Education just trumpeting news two weeks ago that Arkansas was fifth in the nation in education? I think they were! What gives, huh?

The study Beebe et al. were wetting their pants over was the Education Week Quality Counts 2011 survey, which ranked Arkansas #5 based on education policies.

But notably, the Quality Counts study gave the state “low marks in two areas two areas where the state has long struggled to advance: Student achievement and the chance for a successful career with an Arkansas education,” according to the Arkansas News Bureau’s John Lyon. Gosh, those kind of seem like areas where you’d want to get the high marks!

(In addition, here’s a good explanation of the shortfalls of the Quality Counts survey from a couple years back by all-around smart guy Stuart Buck from the University of Arkansas Dept. of Education Reform).

The ALEC study aims to provide a more comprehensive look at how state education performs based on student scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). By their figuring, Arkansas lands at 45th in the nation. The ALEC study even gives letter grades for education policy, scoring Arkansas with a gentleman’s C.

The ALEC researchers are also heavy into various school reform measures, with high praise for different education reform programs in disparate states like Massachusetts, Florida and Indiana. To hear them tell it:

The past two years however have been crucial, however, in demonstrating that reform is not only necessary but in fact achievable. In the past, governors gave lip service to education reform but tended to simply increase spending and kick the can down the road. The 2010–2011 period witnessed something entirely different: lawmakers taking on the reactionary education establishment directly, and defeating them repeatedly.

States having passed reforms must move vigorously to implementation, given the huge difference between changing law and changing policy and opportunities for subversion. Reformers in other states should carefully study the comprehensive approaches of Florida and Indiana lawmakers. Dramatic improvement results from broad, rather than incremental, reform.

On a related note, you should go back and read Dan Greenberg’s Arkansas Project submission from last summer, Confessions of an ALEC Conspirator, which pooh-poohs all the paranoid liberal handwringing about the organization with a calm look at the facts about the role ALEC plays in policymaking. Facts! Is there anything they CAN’T do?

UPDATE: The gang at the UA Office of Education Policy put together a dynamite policy brief that explains both the strengths and weaknesses of the Education Week Quality Counts survey. Go read it, if that’s your thing.

Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress and Reform (American Legislative Exchange Council)

Ranger Mike sez, "Give a hoot, don't pollute your balance sheet by illegally commingling state and federal funds, or at least don't get caught doing that!" Catchy slogan, Ranger Mike!

It’s Friday the 13th, which is bad news for you if you planned on spending the night at Camp Crystal Lake, or if you are one of the 36 employees of the Arkansas Forestry Commission losing your job today due to the agency’s epic mismanagement.

Oh, guys, this Forestry Commission story, with all its bumbling and bungling, can we talk about this a minute? Never did we dream when the story broke in early December that it would still be boiling along six weeks later, but here we are.

The agency is $4 million in the hole, hence the layoffs of three dozen workers, and in hock to the feds for some $1.2 million for misusing federal grant funds. Gov. Mike Beebe, eager to deflect any blame for the mess, is itching to show he’s in command of the situation by issuing a supreme edict for a legislative audit of the troubled agency. And he means business, boys, so get cracking!

One obnoxious theme in this story that continues to rear its head is the notion that the dispute is simply a function of partisan politics, with those dastardly Republican lawmakers trying to get the better of good ole reliable Mike with their Washington D.C.-style tactics. Boo! Hiss!

But really, decrying the “partisanship” in this dynamic rather misses the point.

OK, fine, Arkansas Republicans are seeking to exploit some political advantage here—because, you know, people in political arenas tend to have incentives to do that. But the more important fact is that without the relentless pressure from minority lawmakers like Rep. Bryan King, Rep. Kim Hammer and Sen. Missy Irvin to keep the story alive, it’s not likely that the facts of the Forestry Commission’s dysfunction and mismanagement would have come to light.

Or perhaps you would prefer the approach of those who would just chalk it up to “partisanship” and move on from all this unpleasantness, like one lawmaker who talked to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Mike Wickline (subscription required):

Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, a Democrat from Crossett, wonders whether [Forestry Commission head John] Shannon will survive this controversy.

“I don’t want to put the governor on the spot, but it just depends on whether or not he is willing to sacrifice [Shannon] as a sacrificial lamb and get on with business or not,” he said. “I think if that should happen, some people think that that will get us over the hump. But then I think that, well, [the Republicans] will have the first bloodletting and will they look around for something else?”

I guess you could say that Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, Democrat from Crossett, can’t see the forest for the trees (“Good one, Dave!”—All Arkansas Project Readers).

Or maybe Jeffress is right: maybe the last thing we need in state government is for these legislators to go poking around “for something else” and turning up more examples of millions of dollars in mismanaged funds and dysfunctional management. That is something we simply do not want. Who knows what they might find? 

Who knows indeed.

Lawmakers To Eye Forestry Commission Shortfall During Budget Hearings (Arkansas News Bureau)

Beebe Asks Legislative Audit to Review Forestry Commission (Talk Business)

State Insurance Commissioner Jay Bradford issued a tear-stained news release today (PDF) announcing the death of the (unlamented) state exchange, the demise of which he attributes to “legislative opposition” (read: opposition from minority Republican lawmakers).

Oh, but if only Arkansas had had a Democratic governor in the statehouse and Democratic majority in the legislature, who might have forestalled this sad development by selling voters on the urgent need for a state-level health insurance exchange!

Oh, wait…riiiiight.

Anyway, this is the end of an era and now the federal government is going to run the health insurance exchange, maybe? Except that’s how it was going to be all along anyway, for all practical purposes, because the feds would be writing all the regulations and calling the shots, really, and no one could actually explain just what the difference between a state-level exchange and a federal exchange might be. And Arkansas can probably take over the exchange later, right? There is no bad news, etc. 

Meanwhile, Arkansas Democrats are weeping crocodile tears, as they think this development gives them a bully club to use against GOP candidates in next year’s campaigns. That is something they seriously appear to believe, because apparently Arkansas voters care very deeply whether the Obamacare exchange is administered by the federal government or state government, yes? It is a known fact that the 2012 election will turn on this very question, and no other.

I have casually spoken to several GOP lawmakers, asking if they are worried about this devastating line of attack. I found that a small percentage are worried about that. I estimate it as somewhere in the neighborhood of zero percent are worried about that.

Cue inevitable lament from superannuated liberal newspaper columnist about how the politicization of this issue by Republican lawmakers is utterly unconscionable, while the politicization of this issue on the part of Gov. Mike Beebe is the very mark of a savvy master straddler. Normally John Brummett would write that piece, but a couple of months back he retreated behind the walls of Fort Hussman. No one’s heard from him since.

Oh, Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times is worked up over this, too, with his customary mix of subtlety and carefully considered insight. He attributes the Republican opposition to Obamacare to “racism,” because that is an explanation that makes sense. Go read his post and then call 911, because, seriously, I’m pretty sure he’s having an aneurysm.

UPDATE: More from The Tolbert Report, including responses from GOP Minority Leader Rep. John Burris and Lt. Gov. Mark Darr. Jason also gets a couple of rogue Democratic lawmakers, Rep. James McLean and Rep. Nate Steel, on the record talking trash about setting up the exchange.

So wait, does that mean opposing the health care exchange is the bipartisan position, and supporting it is now the rigid partisan position? Sounds about right, but don’t tell Democratic-lockstep blogger and noted ridiculous person Michael Cook.

State Health Insurance Exchange ‘Quashed’ (Talk Business)

Hey, lookee there! The state recently issued its latest quarterly progress report on stimulus spending in Arkansas (PDF), and it is just a testament to the futility, woe and despair that are now a fixture of American life in this 21st century.

The damage, tabulated: As of Sept. 30, Arkansas had been awarded more than $3.2 billion in federal taxpayer dollars for stimulus programs. More than $2.9 billion —over 90 percent—of that funding has now been spent.

How’s that been working out, based on a reading of the state unemployment rate from 2009 till now? Oh, riiiiiight:

Hm. I do not think that was the result we were hoping for.

You hear a lot of belly-aching from me and people like me about the astonishing waste and abuse in the ARRA, but really, you should just go look at how the money was spent (PDF), and how comparatively little we got for the ostensible “investment.”

Also, it can’t be emphasized enough that vast swaths of the money were used simply to underwrite existing state government programs. The next time you hear someone swooning over and gassing on about Gov. Mike Beebe’s budgeting prowess, it’s worth considering how much the state budget was bolstered these last couple of years by hundreds of millions of dollars in additional federal funding under ARRA.

(And don’t forget that total government employment in Arkansas has only continued growing: The Natural State ranked seventh in the nation for growth of federal, state and local government jobs from 2007-2011, one recent study showed).

In August, we looked at the progress of economic stimulus funding in Arkansas up until the middle of this year. And just last week, we examined what will likely be the final definitive word on the billions squandered in the Cash for Clunkers program, another ill-conceived stimulus initiative about which the less said the better, but on the other hand maybe we should say more so that the terrible error isn’t repeated.

Arkansas Office of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act Program Report for Quarter Ending 9/30/2011 (PDF)

Health insurance exchange: Dr. Beebe has the cure for what ails you

The Heartlander, an online news outlet published by the free market Heartland Institute, looks in on the recent fracas in Arkansas surrounding the establishment of an Obamacare health insurance exchange in The Natural State.

While Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe said he’d not pursue additional federal funding for establishing the exchange in Arkansas, citing opposition from Republican lawmakers, the Heartlander’s Marc Kilmer notes that what may look like bipartisanship is just as likely “a political ploy.”

My favorite part of the article is when he quotes noted expert Me, astutely stating obvious things:

Since Beebe could have applied for this grant without legislative approval, he certainly did not need the approval of the minority party in the General Assembly. In Kinkade’s view, this reversal by Beebe is a tactic to tag the minority party as obstructionist.

“I don’t think the issue for the grant is settled yet,” Kinkade says. “I fully expect the Beebe administration to come back and try to get this grant later.”

Good point, Dave! I really liked the part where you said that thing. Read it all. We’ve exhaustively covered the debate over the state health insurance exchange and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon, buster. This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, etc. etc. etc. 

Worried about Obamacare? Gov. Mike Beebe has a message for you.

Man, what is the deal with Gov. Mike Beebe’s state Department of Insurance? These guys! After lawmakers declined to pass legislation to set up a state health care exchange, the Department of Insurance, under the leadership of Beebe hand Jay Bradford, got right down to work…planning an insurance exchange with a $1 million federal grant. Hm, OK.

Then they came back to the legislators last month asking to request another $3.8 million from the feds to continue planning the state run health exchange. Which they’re absolutely not setting up. Six Republican lawmakers said they didn’t think pursuing the grant was a good idea, since the state isn’t setting up an exchange, after all. In response, Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe said he’d not proceed. Well, guess that settles that! We’re definitely not setting up a state insurance exchange!

Which is why it’s so strange that this morning I attended an event in west Little Rock, hosted by the state Insurance Department, all about setting up this new state-run insurance exchange. What the hell, guys?

You can read all about it in this report from the AP’s estimable reporter Andrew Demillo, but the most fun, at least in the part I attended before I came to my senses and left, was when they opened up the floor for a Q&A session with Bradford, Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson and Joel Ario, who until recently headed up the federal Office of Health Insurance Exchanges.

At that point, a steady stream of GOP lawmakers stepped up and started challenging Bradford et al. on the decidedly one-sided, propagandistic nature of the taxpayer-funded summit. That’s when things got slightly edgy.

“I think the legislative body as a whole asked the governor to not move forward,” on the exchanges, said Sen. Jonathan Dismang, and the governor said he would not move forward, he continued. “What are we doing here today?”

Good question, Sen. Jonathan Dismang! Bradford responded with a nebulous word cloud, mumbling something about “home rule,” I think, and for a few brief minutes everyone was very uncomfortable. Which was fun! Other lawmakers stepped up with equally feisty queries: Sen. Cecile Bledsoe! Rep. Mark Biviano! Minority Leader John Burris! Even former Rep. Dan Greenberg, doing his Greenberg thing!

They threw the schedule a little off course and shook things up a bit, for what it’s worth, which may not be much, because clearly the Beebe administration is just going to move forward with this as if the legislature doesn’t exist, which would be fine if Beebe didn’t make a big show of “consulting legislators” when he’s just going to do whatever he wants.

So the state health insurance exchange is dead, long live the state health insurance exchange, black is white, up is down, what health insurance exchange, I didn’t say anything about a health insurance exchange, here’s your shiny new health insurance exchange! We are through the looking glass here, people.

In conclusion, I am now eagerly awaiting the launch of the new ObamArkCare™ Health Insurance Exchange, Mike Beebe and Jay Bradford, co-proprietors. They assure us it will be a triumph, as it will be run by state government. Why, I hear it promises to combine all the administrative integrity of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery with the fiscal responsibility of the Department of Workforce Services. I cannot wait!

Look, guys, let’s face it: You don’t want to keep reading about the Arkansas health insurance exchange, and I don’t want to keep writing about it. The thing is, we’ve posted a lot about that issue lately, and it’s kind of murky and confusing. Also, it’s growing increasingly difficult to find amusing or entertaining photos and images to illustrate the concept of a “health insurance exchange.”

That said, ugh, let’s talk a little more about the Arkansas health insurance exchange, dammit.

I’m reading this weekend piece from Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett, who asks Gov. Mike Beebe just what he thinks about all this Obamacare business, anyway:

He has said all along, and continues to say, that he would have voted against the [Affordable Care Act] had he been in Congress. It is for the very reason that he’s a governor that he especially understands the new law’s vulnerability. It will put heavy strain on already stressed state Medicaid budgets. Some of his business friends tell him it could have the effect of prompting employers to discontinue their group health insurance plans and simply push their workers over into these new publicly established exchanges of private options (emphasis added).

But, as always, it’s the law and we must abide by the law. In that regard, it would be wise for the state to accept planning money for a state exchange because a state exchange would be better for us than a federal one.

The remarkable thing is that Beebe, even if finessing artfully, has sized up health care precisely. You don’t have to like everything about this law to accept that, unless overturned, it is the law and must be applied as efficiently as possible.

Note that, in the first graf, quoted above, Beebe via Brummett recounts some extraordinarily serious problems that will stem from the implementation of Obamacare. Bankrupting the already expensive and overburdened Medicaid system? Employers dumping health care coverage and dropping their employees onto the exchange? Those are huge issues just to sweep under the rug.

Having passingly acknowledged those problems, Beebe essentially follows up with a shrug. “Oh, well, the law is the law, and we must grimly accept our fate,” and a state-run exchange will be better than a federal exchange, although no one can really explain what the difference will be.

Brummett celebrates this mush-mouthed temporizing as a uniquely brilliant “straddle,” which is completely to be expected, because Brummett’s decades-long man-crush on Beebe is The Great Love Story of Our Age, unseemly though it may be.

Beebe’s game is to divorce the matter of the state health insurance exchange from the larger question of Obamacare, as if that’s possible. I’m guessing he has poll numbers that tell him he can win on this issue if it’s framed simply as a matter of setting up a state-run exchange vs. federal control of the exchange. The key is to keep the focus entirely on the PROCESS of setting up the exchange, while carefully avoiding any discussion of the policy or its effects, which, as seen above, even Beebe recognizes as being dreadful.

But that requires a pretty big leap of logic, because the state health insurance exchanges are, along with the individual mandate, the most significant factor in how Obamacare will be implemented. It’s going to be tough to separate them out, because they’re inseparable. (If you were following the dust-up last week between the Democratic Party of Arkansas and Little Rock’s KARK-TV, lovingly chronicled by The Tolbert Report, you saw just how incoherent that approach can be.)

What’s perhaps most notable about the whole affair is that none of these players—not Mike Beebe, not Arkansas Democrats, not even Brummett—can be bothered to make a case for how the much vaunted reforms under Obamacare might provide any benefits to Arkansans. You would think that “selling the benefits” would be their trump card, but no.

They’re hanging their hopes on questions of bureaucratic administration and applying the law “as efficiently as possible,” whatever that means, rather than trying to persuade anyone that anything good could possibly come of this extraordinarily expensive “reform” effort. Which is understandable, because as they have more and more time to look under the hood, people are realizing that the entirety of the health care reform law was built upon lots of shiny forecasts and promises to be broken.

Do we even have any idea, any more, of what those elusive “benefits” of the new law might be, at this point? Do they even exist? Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow at the (compellingly titled!) Health Benefits Exchange Stakeholders Summit in Little Rock.

*Man, the headlines on this site just get BETTER and BETTER all the time. 

The nightmare that is the state unemployment insurance program has slipped from the front pages, so let’s check in to remind ourselves what’s going on there, and what happens next.

As you’ll recall, last month we learned that the federal government had identified an estimated $161 million in improper unemployment payments issued by Arkansas government from 2008-2011.

The state Dept. of Workforce Services, which administers the unemployment program, has argued that it wasn’t that high—they claim to have found “actual, verified overpayments of $23.8 million“ for the three year period in question. I suspect the DWS estimate is laughably low, given the gulf between the two totals, and I suspect a more thorough review will reveal some number in the middle. Regardless, we’ll still be talking about tens of millions of dollars in poorly administered taxpayer funds.

It’s worth revisiting these developments for two reasons:

1) Because the bleeding continues! The state borrowed more than $360 million from the federal government to meet demand for unemployment benefits. Just last week, on September 26, DWS made an interest payment of more than $10.1 million to the feds on that debt. That $10.1 million vig followed a payment on the debt earlier in the month of $29.1 million. The balance owed currently stands at around $330.8 million, according to the DWS spokeslady.

2) Because we may soon get more clarity on just how large the improper payments were! Two state lawmakers, Sen. Jonathan Dismang and Rep. Davy Carter, requested that the Division of Legislative Audit review the administration of the unemployment insurance trust fund (PDF) to provide a clearer picture of how DWS is administering the funds. That request has been approved, I’m informed, and Legislative Audit is preparing to undertake the review in the coming weeks.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this to see how it shapes up. You should, too.

Democratic blogger Michael Cook at the Look Who’s Cookin’ blog weighs in today on the disputed matter of the Arkansas health insurance exchange. Last week, Gov. Mike Beebe elected to forgo pursuing a $3.8 million grant for establishing the state level exchange after receiving pushback from a handful of Republican lawmakers.

(Pushback = a two-and-a-half-page letter signed by six legislators arguing that they don’t think it’s such a great idea. Man, these Republicans play hardball!)

Cook is, predictably, certain that this is yet another of Beebe’s tactical masterstrokes, but that’s mostly because Beebe is the master and Cook’s job is to stroke him. “It’s a rope-a-dope strategy, see! Why, yessir, ole Mikey’s got them no-account Republicans on the ropes now, boy howdy!”

Except probably not.

The argument that Beebe is advancing, with the help of his swooning handmaidens in the state media and at the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce (which we’re required to pretend is an independent organization representing the business community, but which is in fact an unofficial arm of the Beebe administration), is this: Either Arkansas can set up a health insurance exchange, or the federal government will set it up and run it. Who would you rather have in charge? Huh? Who? Well?

It’s a nonsense argument. In fact, the much-vaunted “state control” of health insurance exchanges is likely an illusion, given the heavy hand of federal rules and regulations that Obamacare brings. That’s according to health care policy whiz Ed Haislmaier at the conservative Heritage Foundation:

The combined effect of these regulations and grant requirements are that a state would have to agree to surrender any last vestiges of meaningful control over how Obamacare is implemented. Thus, a state would now have no more real control over an exchange it set up than over one HHS established.

While just 24 months remain until exchanges must open for business, HHS has made little discernable progress toward creating federal fallback exchanges.

Consequently, at this point the best course of action for states is to neither apply for nor accept exchange establishment grant funding.

Moreover, there’s also the question of why, if the health insurance exchanges are such a winner, so many states are moving slowly to establish them. (According to the National Council of State Legislatures, 14 states have moved to establish exchanges in the 18 months since Obamacare was passed.)

Florida has opted out, turning away millions in federal grant money. Kansas and Oklahoma returned federal grants totaling $32 million and $55 million, respectively, rather than accept the chains that come with Obamacare. Even in deep blue New York, obstreperous Republicans in the state Senate blocked the state from pursuing federal money to set up the exchange—the same grant rejected by Arkansas Republicans, who, let’s not forget, do not control either arm of the legislature here.

And anyway, why all the posturing and maneuvering from Beebe? If he wants to continue pursuing federal money to set up the exchange, he has control of the executive branch and his party has control of the legislature. And we’ve already established that Beebe doesn’t need Republican lawmakers to give him the go-ahead. If moving forward with setting up the exchange is the right thing for Beebe to do, as Cook and others would have it…what’s stopping him?

In a column published Saturday under the uncommonly compelling, informative and evocative headline “Obstruction is the preferred conservatism” (“Great headline writing! Nailed it! Time to call it a week.”—Arkansas News Bureau headline writer), Brummett takes those six (6) Republicans to task for “playing politics” on the issue of health care reform. The six (6) lawmakers took the extraordinary step of sending a letter to the governor politely explaining that they don’t think it’s a good idea to apply for federal grant money to plan the exchange.(Full letter here, PDF)

Of course, Brummett notes in his column that Beebe is also playing politics on the issue, since, as he reports

I’m told that Beebe believes the politics of all this could play to the benefit of Democrats and to the detriment of Republicans.

He thinks “local control” could resonate, especially when sought by the relevant and affected private sector, including, tentatively, the powerful lobby known as the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce.

But that’s different, you see. In BrummettWorld, Beebe’s political play does not offend, because the governor is a acting on calculation to achieve an advantage, rather than principle. The horrifying thing about these Republicans is they might actually believe what they espouse. “Why, I was so appalled I almost dropped my mustache comb!” Brummett declares.

Brummett

Downplayed in Brummett’s dissection is the fact that the six (6) Republicans involved don’t actually have the power to stop Beebe moving forward with planning the insurance exchange. If the governor thinks pursuing federal funding is the way to go, he can do so.  That’s because the authority to request a federal grant to continue with the planning rests with the Arkansas Insurance Department headed by Jay Bradford and with the governor, not the legislature. (This point is ably made by our friend Jason Tolbert at The Tolbert Report as well.)

Here, don’t take my word for it—let’s just look at the application materials on the Arkansas state web page dedicated to the exchange. Go ahead and scan to page 11 of this PDF grant application and let’s see what’s required under “Eligibility Information”:

No legislative approval is necessary. By the standards of “obstruction,” the letter from the six (6) Arkansas lawmakers expressing their opposition to the exchange is pretty weak tea. If this is all the “obstruction” it takes to get Beebe to call off the hunt for a $3.8 million federal grant, then he’ll be reduced to a quivering mass of jelly, cowering in a corner of his office, should these Republicans actually take control of one or both legislative chambers in the 2012 elections.

The Red Arkansas blog offers a more pungent take on the contretemps. Poke him with your long sharp stick, Red Arkansas!:

From our perspective, it appears Mr. Beebe was looking for some political cover for his own legislative minions in 2012 by putting Republicans publicly on the spot to support this grant application. After all, if Republicans supported this grant application to fund ObamaCare’s health exchanges, they couldn’t really use Democratic support of implementing ObamaCare in Arkansas as a campaign issue, right?

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: Governor Beebe was playing politics with health care in order to bolster his party’s chances to control the General Assembly in 2012. 

Say, just where ARE those legislative Democrats on the question of this grant and the planning of the exchange, anyway?

*”Another great headline! Nailed it! Time to call it a week.”—David Kinkade