Shreveport case used for systemic racism trope

Courtesy of Shreveport, the political left has another bullet in the chamber to attempt to indoctrinate the culture into molding the notion of endemic systemic racism in America a non-falsifiable concept.

Over the past week, leftist media outlets have become aroused by the brutal beating in police custody of black Memphian Tyre Nichols that led to his death. Slowly but surely after news of what on the surface appears to be police misconduct, the usual suspects have, as often they do when a black man suffers this fate at the hands of police, begun to use the incident as another alleged indicator of a police war on blacks, as an extension of ingrained and irredeemable racism against blacks in America.

Even though that argument never has had a chance given the data. Although the majority of crimes, including murders, are committed by blacks, fatal police shootings disproportionately involve whites, two-to-one relative to blacks, making whites 2.5 times more likely to be shot fatally by police. Moreover, police are 400 times more likely to be shot fatally by a black man as an unarmed black was to be shot fatally by a police officer. There is no police war on blacks, if there’s a police war on anybody.

Money won't boost LA minority student outcomes

A Legislative Auditor report outlining racial and family income differences in types of schools and quality of schools attendance in Louisiana suggests a couple of tactics to try to close those gaps.

As noted previously, the report provided data that underscored the importance of correctly understanding the nature of poverty. A widely mistaken view of it, chiefly inculcated in the political left, is that poverty comes from a lack of fiscal resources measured by household income, which the left often attributes to an economic and social system that deliberately stacks the deck against some people, particularly racial minorities and women, that benefits others.

In reality, poverty comes from a lack of attitudes associated with a future orientation in the valuing of costs and benefits, which becomes expressed in lower household incomes. Except for the small subset of individuals who physically or mentally have disabilities that significantly impede their abilities to contribute to society, as well as those facing a temporary run of bad luck, among the poor the vast majority in the past made, and many continue today to make, poor decisions (unfortunately for some with significant pressures to do so) that have left them with few skills and/or significant burdens that encourage them to stay impoverished.

Smarter choices to improve schools, reduce poor

Changing Louisiana’s dismal education achievement begins with understanding what the data say about how poverty impacts learning, not what ideology would have you believe.

Last year, lawmakers asked the Legislative Auditor to compile statistics on charter school students. The office expanded that to all schools and released the report last week.

It described several things. Blacks disproportionately represented the student bodies of schools, with the total distribution basically reflected in the racial proportions of traditional schools, but with blacks heavily comprising attendance at charter schools and underrepresented in private schools. Further, blacks disproportionately attended worse schools, which is explained by the charter school numbers: by design, charter schools start at the bottom initially taking students from failed schools who obviously have been low achievers.

Major overhaul can solve LA roads underfunding

As complaints about Louisiana roads in quality and quantity have increased continually, if anything expect things to get worse on these accounts before they get better unless big changes are in the offing.

That implication came through in a recent discussion arranged by the Public Affairs Research Council, involving policy-makers and group representatives. They emphasized a recent Legislative Auditor report that noted the retail fuel excise tax will erode significantly in its ability to provide money for roads in order to tackle a $15 billion in expressed needs.

Two trends drive that: slow but steady improvement in overall gasoline efficiency and slow but steady growth in the proportion of non-fossil fuel engines on the road. Both reduce the amount of gas sold thus tax collected.

LA can't miss again on protecting children

Here’s a chance, after previous missed opportunities, for Louisiana to get atypically out in front and on the right side of an issue and protect children.

It’s the last state to convene its legislature, and many others aren’t waiting to file bills that prevent potentially destructive pharmaceutical and surgical interventions on children. Some already have acted to prohibit sexual transition surgery on children and the administration of puberty blockers without a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports such a position, with an excellent recitation of it as of last year contained in HR 158 by Republican Rep. Gabe Firment, a bill passed in last year’s regular session. Mounting evidence since then has led additional public health authorities worldwide to take that more cautious view encapsulated in the bills now advancing in about 20 statehouses.