After a seemingly off-colored comment regarding the arrest of two N.P. Moss students on rape charges landed him in this month's PAS BON section of IND Monthly's POOYIE!, Lafayette schools Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper has responded.
Here's our response to the superintendent's original comment, as printed in the February edition of IND Monthly:
PAS BON
We've been fairly unabashed in our support of Lafayette schools Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper. He’s shaking up a dysfunctional, mediocre school district and has a proven record of success as super in other districts. But we couldn’t help chime a collective “c’est what?!!!” after reading what he said to IND Monthly staff writer Patrick Flanagan in a Jan. 11 report about two N.P. Moss students being arrested on rape charges: “It’s unfortunate, but it’s not like these are our star students. [N.P. Moss] is where all the kids who didn’t make it anywhere else are sent.” We were long under the impression that Dr. Cooper was from the “any child can learn — even poor kids” school, but we are pained to imagine that this was merely a poor choice of words.
Here's Dr. Cooper's response, received by The IND this morning:
Letter to the editor:
I wish to thank the Independent for pointing out what seemed like a callous and thoughtless statement on my part. The fact that it came across that way to the reporter is something I have to be more careful about and that I have to take responsibility for in any conversation. In fairness, however, the answer I gave was not to criticize or be demeaning to the students, but instead it was in the broader context of taking responsibility for us not having enough security, procedures, and precautions because these students are our most troubled students and we certainly have to understand that and take the necessary precautions. They are not our star students academically or behaviorally perhaps, but they are stars because they are our students. Anyone who knows my career efforts and philosophy will know that I never blame the children.Dr. Pat Cooper,
Superintendent
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed