A sobering thought on the level of public education in Orleans Parish...

Louisiana has the worst public school education system in America based on almost all national watermarks.

Orleans Parish is 66 out of 66 parishes.

This means that Orleans Parish's Public Education System is the single worst local area educational authority in America. In AMERICA, people...

Another somber note regarding public education in Orleans Parish...It's the only educational authority in America in which there are more children enrolled and educated by private schools than public schools...

What kind of a commentary is it that people not only realize the problem with the education of their children, but make their own solutions, and its become so prevalent a solution, that the solution now outweighs the problem?

New Orleanians continually pay taxes into this Parish for this school system, but would rather pay exorbitant amounts to educate their children in private schools rather than wrest control of the Parish School Board and the Parish School System away from the ridiculously Machiavellian power hungry and punchdrunk members of the current Board and the current politicos that populate the system?

I blame the public that puts their children into the private schooling as much as I blame those that are so corrupt the state has had to step in. If they would put their money and their time and effort spending making that money into making a change in their own school system, perhaps we don't get to this point...

I digress...

 

What's the alternative - the state legislature running it?
Anyway, what's their plan for improvement?

 

The BESE Board could not even quantify substantive change nor wrestle control of the OPSB away from those that have hijacked it and used it for a pulpit of personal advancement. Anyone who has dared question their authority has been labeled a racist and an impatient individual...

They have lagged behind every system in the state, and for them to drag their feet, even in the face of the realization they are dead last out of 66 on a local basis in a state that's dead last out of 50 states, is unconscionable...

Here's where the fact that I am a registered independent vexes you again, JD....Rob Marionneaux, who LABI has trotted out Tim Johnson against to try to take away his Senatorial seat in Senate District 17 (Iberville, WBRP, and Point Coupee Parishes, as well as some more), has introduced legislation and has railed against the current MFP formula that distributes educational dollars to individual parish school boards.

It is skewed in its present form, and parishes like my home-Livingston-and West Feliciana, who have benefitted, are able to pay significantly more in comparison to his home parishes. Teacher pay, support pay, educational facility improvements, books, curriculum additions, etc...all have been improved and our increased because of this inadequacy...

He-along with other State Congressional Democrats-wish to reformulate the Industrial Tax Exemption, in which companies that located to Louisiana are exempted from property taxes for 10 years.

I have no problem with that in principle. I think it's a wonderful incentive to bring companies in, though much more needs to be done in concert with a simple tax incentive.

What I have a problem with is the fact that Louisiana is the only state in the union which allows companies and businesses to be exempted from property tax collection from educational tax authorities....in other words, not allowing them to pay property taxes that go directly to parish school systems.

Why not allow them all those exemptions, but make them pay their fair share to help educate our children. I think that allowing educational tax authorities to collect taxes as a "exception" to the Industrial Tax Exemption is a wonderful start...

It has to come from the Legislature to help change this ITE...and Marionneaux and a man I villify as quite possibly the most crooked Politician in the Louisiana State Legislature, none other than Cleo Fields, are championing this change to help schools bridge the financial gap.

The Legislature is full of bright ideas for education and good starts to help school systems get ahead...

Curses! JD now realizes that TE can support both Jindal and Bush, yet also support the IDEAS of Democrats, and their views on education...I can even also stomach support of Fields legislative efforts on behalf of education, while DESPISING him in almost every other cadre of his professional body of work...

Ah, the advantages of being an open minded individual without being tied down to some archaic and decaying national level party that doesn't communicate anything of substance to the everyman we're looking out for with this discussion topic...

 

I agree - the NO schoolboard is a fiefdom for those associated with it.

But let's face it - the reason that the NO schools rank 66/66 is because they probably also rank 66/66 in average family income, 66/66 in number of 2 parent families, etc. And it's self generating - people with any means - and that means anything above the poverty line - are going to a private or parochial school. Any bright kid will get a scholarship, if she seeks one out. So they only get worse.

I believe that the key to the success of a school is the strength of its principal - principals are interred by the bureaocrats in NO

At its core, the problem is directly related to the problem NO has ALWAYS had - a very insular city, where the wealth is horded (meaning that it isn't invested in local activities and plowed into the economy - it sits in the Whitney Bank trust department and invested in NYC instead of NO), society is closed and new money frowned upon, such that it says screw it and moves to Atlanta.

 

The cylical situation you speak of can be corrected, but it was a vicious cyle that the OPSB should have recognized was spiraling downward and out of control...

It should have encountered and battled it long ago...

Approaching the Junior League and asking them to take a role in helping revive the public school system and a very public one at that would have been a start.

But, instead, those in control threw charges of racism around continuously anytime someone questioned them...

Theirs is an archaic institution of fiefdoms like the one you speak of 'Ole New Orleans' monied class and their habits...

 

Let me ask you this.

I've hear the racisim cries - did seem like some crazies basically howling at the moon, but perhaps it's more rampant.

However, there were racism cries over the new CEO, who was hired by the school board. What do you think of that and what do you think of him?

 

To be honest, I am honestly probably not as informed as to the current situation as you are...I know that they are entrenched like an Alabama Tick...

I will have to read up on the subject...Matter of fact, I'm off to Google...

I'll be back later, and I might have an opinion then...

 

So I should allow my two kids to be guinea pigs

to fight for public education? No, thank you! I will pay me taxes and me tuition.

 

Alright, JD, I'm back...

I read a few articles about an ex Marine with NO educational degrees, who only ran an OCS for the Marines from 95-97...

This guy is a joke...though concentrated groups of trusted employees instead of slow-moving, sloth-like committees is a good idea to evaluate problems...

Shows me that they're throwing sippy cups full of water at a 3 alarm fire...

You need to hire a Marine from the Pentagon to turn your school system around? Gimme a break...The sooner the state takes over that school system, the BETTER.

 

I really don't know much about it, but I think he's a clown too, thought he was a clown when hired, yet they hired him knowing they'd take a lot of heat, which they did. I still haven't figured that deal out.

NO is such a geographically (not socially) integrated city (except for the ghettos below the french quarter) that neighborhood schooling should be able to work. All you have to do, IVV, is get all of your neighbors and friends to join together and support the neighborhood school, you could lift it up yourselves, be the beacon for New Orleans, and also help some of the less fortunate in your own neighborhood. The world needs heroes, IVV!!!

Seriously, though, that's what it will take.