Federal LSP report lets enabler Edwards skate

And while the case of Ronald Greene ends in a whimper, a related federal investigation it spawned also ended disappointingly in that it failed to pursue something vitally relevant to it – the politics behind Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards’ quest to stay in office.

Greene, a black motorist, died at the hands of law enforcement in May, 2019. After a high-speed chase ending in a minor fender-bender, a mix of white state troopers and a local deputy battered and restrained him for nearly an hour, with him eventually dying on route to medical care. From the start the Louisiana State Police mendaciously reported that Greene had died in an accident even as several months later they began investigating the events around it, having known the truth all the time.

That investigation, completely out of the public eye and which also covered an attempted LSP coverup, over a year later led to disciplinary action against the troopers, where the one most seriously involved in brutality dying in a solo car crash just after its conclusion that had all the hallmarks of suicide-by-reckless-driving. The others lost their jobs, and the deputy retired.

Don't have report distract from DEI solutions

If the recent Act 641 report fools policy-makers into thinking all is clear from the perniciousness of diversity, equity, and inclusion inculcation into every day business at Louisiana higher education institutions, then it will serve as a distraction and not as a tool to counter that perniciousness.

This report, promulgated as part of a recent law, mandates institutions to report spending on activities that classify individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, culture, gender identity, or sexual orientation or promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification. It is for fiscal year 2024 and shows for that year that about $3.5 million spent on DEI activities, a good chunk of which went to programs for international students and study of Acadiana culture.

It's interesting trivia and a cudgel defenders of DEI can use as the tip of an iceberg that they disingenuously claim the underwater body of which doesn’t exist by saying the money spent is but a tiny fraction of total academic spending. This line of argument about foundational DEI misdirects not only by stumping for the idea that spending proportion as an indicator shows it has little sway but also in deflecting from the fact that spending tells us next to nothing as an indicator of DEI spread.

Small stuff paying big dividends for LA education

As is often the case when successful public policy bears its fruit, it’s not headline-grabbing stuff that really made the difference but the nuts and bolts as to why Louisiana is finding more teachers available in public education.

Last week, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education as part of its January meeting received the annual Teacher Exit Data Report, which contains data about trends concerning teachers leaving their current positions in Louisiana public education as well as forecasts of numbers of those being prepared to teach. In academic year 2024 for the second year running, the number of teachers rose in traditional public school classrooms (in other words, not including charter schools), while a lower percentage were leaving these classrooms and for the first time in at least a dozen years a higher number were in the pipeline to enter classrooms in the near future.

This century, for its first fifth Louisiana saw a 23 percent increase in its public school teacher/pupil ratio, although in the past few years it has started to edge downwards even as that might in part be an artifact of fewer students in public classrooms, that ranks by the latest data eighth highest among the states. And while the evidence is at best weak that smaller class sizes improve student performance, lowering the ratio means that more teachers are instructing in fields in which they have competence and they face reduced workloads which both encourage entry into and continued work in the profession.

Another insider ready to take Bossier top job

It’s time for one of Bossier Parish’s plenary-run governments – in this case, the Police Jury – to pick a new administrative leader, and yet again it’s going to be another inside job.

Both the Jury and the Bossier Parish School Board have a long history of disdaining outsiders for their top jobs of, respectively, parish administrator and superintendent. Last year around this time it was the Board’s turn to pick the district’s head and, after unusually actually having a search outside the parish for the job the previous time it was open in 2019 but which then predictably ended up picking the then-interim superintendent Mitch Downey, dispensed with any search and elevated another long-time employee, the health clinic-mastermind and flogger of parents who want school choice as Jim Crow acolytes Jason Rowland was into the position.

Now it’s the Jury’s turn with current administrator Butch Ford riding off into the sunset. In the past, this often meant the parish engineer – as Ford had been – would take the helm, which in this case would have been Eric Hudson (meaning he might have had to take a pay cut, as he makes about $5,000 more than does Ford).

Ruling to aid reducing LA homelessness problems

Even as Louisiana suffers among the least of the states in homelessness, the state has picked up another tool to combat its worst effects.

Last month, the federal government released its annual statistical report on homelessness. At 8 per 10,000 population, Louisiana ranked in the bottom three of states and bucked the national increase of 18 percent by going up only about half of that. The main driver of this record jump seemed to be uncontrolled borders that allowed illegal aliens to flood some of the nation’s largest cities.

However, of those homeless, Louisiana’s 44.8 percent unsheltered rate was among the top 15 states. It is among these people that are found the highest concentration of those with some kind of mental illness that leads a significant portion of them to substance abuse, joining a smaller portion not mentally ill but who abuse substances.