New scoring reveals hard truths about LA schools

Parents and researchers might be pleased with Louisiana’s new accountability scoring system, but a lot of school board members and educrats won’t be.

This week, the state’s Department of Education released academic year 2025 results, times two. It reported school and district performance scores using both the current 150-point metric that separates elementary, middle, and high schools where elementary schools had three components, middle schools four, and high schools five components in score computation, along with new a 100-point scale approved last year based upon the proportion of students who achieve certain benchmarks with high schools having three components and all others two.

Specifically, elementary and middle schools would have 54 percent scored on student growth in math and English, with special attention paid to the lowest achieving students, and 46 percent with student proficiency in math, English, science, and social studies. For high schools, the former would be proportioned at 42 percent and the latter at 33 percent, with the additional component of 25 percent comprised of on-time graduation, readiness on a nationally recognized exam, and preparation to enter the work world or further studies.

Renewable energy, not data centers, cost consumers

Louisiana may stand to profit both in having lower electricity rates and increased economic growth, from the policy stupidity of other states

As the number of data centers explodes throughout the country, only now is Louisiana starting to gain traction with the proliferation. The state ranks 35^th in number with ten operational (out of 1,926 in the country), but with nine under construction is third-most in ratio of being built to existing yet is close to the bottom of ratio of announced to existing (even if the two announced are massive in size). It’s 23^rd in space and 13^th in wattage used, so it punches above its weight and both totals should increase sharply within the next couple of years (the Hyperion project alone when expanded to its full capacity will increase wattage by over two-and-a-half times all existing state center output).

One reason why Louisiana is off to a good start is its energy prices. Among industrial users, the most recent (August) pricing ranked it lowest in the country. At 6.28 cents per kilowatt/hour, it’s almost a third less than the national average of 9.06, and well below the costs of the top states in numbers of centers (only Texas is close).

BC Council should make good ordinance great

The Bossier City Council should take a good idea – to the chagrin of Republican Mayor Tommy Chnadler – and extend it further and seriously.

This week, the Council will take up an ordinance to give its members at least a passing acquaintance with all of the dozens of mayor nominees and Council potential confirmations. The intended new law would require the mayor to present nominees in some fashion, even if already serving and up for reappointment, to councilors along with biographical information and records for incumbents at least 30 days before an approval vote. Further, a previously denied nominee could not come up again for reappointment for at least 90 days after the negative vote. And all nominees would have to appear in front of the Council at a meeting of it.

Councilors, four of whom just started mid-year with the remainder having completed just one term, appear tired of the old wink-wink-nod-nod system characteristic of the graybeards washed out of the Council over the past two election cycles, allied as the deposed councilors were with former mayors who off to the side decided beforehand who would get to hand out what patronage plum to whom. Names, sometimes with no publicly-revealed qualifications and/or never appearing in front of the Council, would pop up on agendas without any warning to all councilors and stamped into their slot like on an assembly line.

Glimmer of hope for NO, but clowns still in charge

While East Baton Rouge Parish’s metropolitan government is trying to right a ship taking on water, New Orleans elected officials and voters are showing at least a few signs they are halting the rearranging of deck chairs and actually want finally to do something about reversing the protracted agony of their sinking ship, events culminating in last week’s elections demonstrate.

Mismanagement has been a historical feature, not bug, of ruling New Orleans, but since the late 20^th century this has gone onto steroids. Most of the 21^st has featured all of a male hustler who misplayed an unfortunate but unanticipated chance to make major headway in arresting the city’s demographic and economic decline into using his influence corruptly to earn an orange jumpsuit, a lackey legacy more concerned about making symbolic political statements than in trying to reverse the decline, and a female hustler who checked out long ago concerning city governance to live high off the hog on taxpayer expense that may earn her an orange jumpsuit as well. City councilors for their part, if not getting convicted, either actively have participated in benign neglect or gone along with digging the hole deeper.

A month ago, the city found itself in its worst human-caused disaster ever, fiscal in nature. Democrat Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who gives the appearance that she can’t wait to get out of office and work on her criminal defense, spent Wuhan coronavirus money like a drunken sailor and budgeted entirely unrealistically in watching revenues evaporate and expenses mount to send the city calling on the state to bail it out. After various state officials demanded real accountability, it hesitated as if its officials – now really led by incoming Democrat mayor and current City Councilor Helena Moreno – thought they could get a better deal. Reality intruded and instead they struck a face-saving deal essentially the same as the one they had tried to reject: oversight by a state official, Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack’s office, in exchange for a $125 million bridge loan for a narrow range of authorized expenditures, at a lower rate than first proposed.

Tax-weary EBR voters turn back sketchy renewals

Last weekend, the “Thrive” plan didn’t thrive in the voting booth. It’s important to understand why and what are the implications.

The consolidated government of East Baton Rouge Parish had on the ballot a corrective plan backed by Republican Mayor-President Sid Edwards. Upon his taking office, it soon became clear that metro government was facing a deficit that only promised to grow, so Edwards came up with the plan. This largely was a consequence of the leaving of the cash cow that now is the separate city of St. George that subsidized the profligacy of past elected Democrats that was so egregious St. George residents constitutionally compartmentalized and fought off a lawsuit from the perpetrators trying to cancel that.

In essence, the plan would slice money from three over-funded dedications and divert some of that to the general fund for ongoing operating expenses. Money going to the parish library system would be the lion’s share affected, but little slices of funding for pest abatement and for the Council on Aging also were targeted. Additionally, the city-parish would divert over $52 million of the fat $121 million the library sat on – far above its projected capital outlay needs with plenty of recent transfer already to the Capital Projects Fund for that purpose – to pay off debt and use the savings as another source of funds.