Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Nine civic groups have been speaking up for the silent voices who slip through the cracks in Lafayette’s public education system, and a majority on the school board are listening. By Heather Miller
When nine local civic groups coalesced to face the state of public schools in Lafayette Parish, their message was as emphatic then as it is today: Toss the notion that our poorest kids can’t learn. We can’t — and won’t — wait 30 years for a sizable increase in our high school graduation rate.
It’s been two years since the Lafayette Public Education Stakeholders Council came together and later crafted its bylaws. Six months ago, someone started listening.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
As the likelihood of a costly lawsuit against LCG over a now-blocked waste transfer facility ramps up, the story of how the deal was cut gets weirder. By Heather Miller
Sunbeam Lane residents have waged a legitimate and so-far successful battle over the construction of a trash facility in their north Lafayette neighborhood, but weeks after the City-Parish Council took action on the project and thanks in part to the pre-election day timing of the controversy — the stink over Sunbeam Lane still permeates.
Board games are tainting LPSS super search. By Heather Miller
Some called it a “miscommunication.” Others went a step further and deemed it “misinformation.” But the events leading up to a heated Lafayette Parish School Board meeting Oct. 25, at which the board voted to widen the superintendent candidate field from 10 to 11 applicants, were nothing less than “troubling,” says board attorney Jimmy Simon.
Dr. Pat Cooper, one of 10 superintendent applicants selected by the board to be interviewed for the district’s top administrative slot, confirmed last week that if selected for the job he would be unable to start full-time until May 2012, five months later than the start date outlined when the board advertised for the position.
A Nov. 9 summit aims to find out. By Erin Z. Bass
In 2003, Southern Business & Development magazine named Lafayette one of the 10 “Coolest Cities in the South.” In 2006, Entrepreneur magazine named Lafayette a “Hot City for Entrepreneurs,” and in 2008, SB&D followed up by calling Lafayette one of the “Top 10 Great Innovation Markets in the South.” Since then, the Hub City has also been touted as best for job growth, music, food and digital media.
Parsing the precincts suggests charter repeal was most popular in Lafayette’s minority community. By Walter Pierce
A funny thing happened on the way to deconsolidation being shot down: Support appears to have been strongest in Lafayette’s “inner city.”
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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