"Nightline" obtained the results of a nine-month undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States. A Humane Society investigator took a hidden camera inside the New Iberia Research Center for most of 2008. The video shows what the Society says is the way monkeys and great apes are treated behind closed doors.
The New Iberia Research Center is a public facility, and its research includes contract work for pharmaceutical companies and hepatitis studies. The lab receives millions in public funding but limited public scrutiny.
"Facilities are very secretive in general," said the investigator, who asked to remain anonymous because of the investigation. "It's hard to get a lot of good information out of what really goes on. You rarely see images other than what is kind of posted on the Web sites. Going undercover in a place is the only way you'll see what's the truth."
The Humane Society investigator told ABC News that chimpanzees, often perched several feet off the ground, are shot with sedation guns, with little regard for their safety. The video shows chimps crashing to the floor.
"The sedated chimp would be sort of rocking slowly on the perch, then, out of nowhere, they just smack to the floor," the investigator said. "It was horrific to watch and to hear."
The Humane Society investigator who gained access as an employee shot video of a lab worker striking a restrained monkey's teeth three times with a pipe. The investigator says the employee wanted the monkey to open its mouth.
"The man is sort of threatening him [the monkey] with this pole and smacking his teeth at the same time," the investigator said, describing the video.
Another piece of video shows a lab employee hitting an infant monkey in the head and swearing when the monkey bites at her finger.
In response to "Nightline's" repeated requests for an interview, the University of Louisiana, which houses the New Iberia Research Center, issued a statement to ABC News, which said in part:
"The university takes very seriously the New Iberia Research Center's responsibility to care for the animals housed at the center. The highly qualified and experienced staff veterinarians responsible for the care of these animals are extremely dedicated and respond aggressively to reports of potential animal abuse," wrote Dr. Joseph Savoie, president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. "We have a clearly stated and direct no tolerance policy when the welfare of any animal in our care is threatened, and we will continue to strictly enforce that policy."
The Federal Animal Welfare Act, the law designed to protect these primates, requires labs to ensure that procedures avoid or minimize distress or pain. The law also requires that animals be handled with proper care.
LOUISIANA HAS a great many laws and policies proscribing a great many things. Always has. The catch, however, has been twofold -- obeying the law, and then enforcing the law.
This strange fact is a good starting point for a discussion about grace. Grace means that a lot of the really ill-considered things we do as youngsters -- Ill-considered? More like dumb . . . silly . . . perilous . . . idiotic -- end up as fodder for funny stories told by middle-aged survivors of their own youthful folly.
A $100,000 campaign, funded by businesses and possibly the state, will carry the “Welcome Back to Baton Rouge” theme through outdoor advertising and targeted business and specialty magazines.
It’s not associated formally with the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s Creative Corridor campaign for branding the Interstate 10 and Interstate 12 corridor. But the chamber campaign does seek a similar result, BRAC’s Adam Knapp said: bringing back young but seasoned workers to a Baton Rouge region that’s changed much for the better in the past decade.
“We have envisioned a program for marketing our available jobs in these areas where our college graduates are most dense, which is Houston, Dallas and Atlanta, and we’ll be launching a program along those lines,” said Knapp, the chamber’s chief executive officer.
(snip)Beginning in January, the chamber will seek to interest people with seven to 12 years of work, including management backgrounds, people who already have started families and people who may not have been considering taking their careers and families to Baton Rouge but who’ll listen to that possibility.
The campaign will drive those candidates to a Web site that taps them into the current state of Baton Rouge possibilities, including job opportunities and resources for trailing spouses making a move.
The second phase of the campaign would organize social events in each of the cities beginning in mid-2009 to tell expatriates “This isn’t the same Baton Rouge you left 10 years ago,” Odom said.
Baton Rouge Magnet High . . . and why most of it is slated to be rebuilt.
AMERICANS NEED to remember that the next time some Louisiana politician or another arrives in Washington, hat in hand, whining about:
* How the state was "wronged" by the federal government over Hurricane Katrina.
* How the state can't possibly pay its 10-percent share of rebuilding New Orleans-area levees.
* How Uncle Sam is "holding back" the rebuilding of New Orleans because Washington has been so unbearably niggardly with federal aid.
* How there's a perfectly good excuse for the latest Bayou State nonsense and -- by the way -- how Louisiana needs to make just one more claim on your federal tax dollar because "We're a poor state."
Right.
And remember that, in such a "poor state," this is a "broken-down car":
AND THIS is what passes for "the crown jewel" of the Louisiana capital's public-education system:
Broken-down car:
Top-of-the-line high school:
ANYTHING ELSE you need to know before opening up that checkbook, America?
Now somebody go inform members of the Louisiana Legislature that ideas -- and the words used to express them -- have consequences. Especially when one's hat spends so much time in one's hand.
THE SAD FACT of the human condition is that some people are less visionary than others. And some people are less intelligent, too. And some people just flat-out don't like to work and play well with others.For Omaha, it would seem the stars are aligning. After a civic donnybrook, the dust has cleared and there's going to be a new downtown baseball stadium right here in River City. And the College World Series will remain in the Big O until at least 2030.
And the city might be getting a brand-new streetcar system as part of the bargain. With the price of oil climbing into the stratosphere, that's not only cool, but practical.
WE READ the World-Herald today, oh boy. About a lucky city that made the grade:
Fresh from reaching an agreement with the NCAA to play the College World Series at a new downtown stadium, Mayor Mike Fahey is turning his attention to what's next.
Out of his drawer, Fahey pulled plans for a $55 million streetcar loop that would join the Old Market and Creighton University to north downtown. That loop would go by the front entrance of the new stadium on Webster Street."It's incumbent on any mayor to continually think about the next move," Fahey said today. "We want the momentum to continue."
Fahey has been talking about a streetcar system for several years and received a privately funded proposal in the fall of 2006. But the streetcar plan sat on the back burner as Fahey fired up the effort to land a long-term agreement to keep the CWS in Omaha.
That 18-month effort is now close to completion with the NCAA agreeing Wednesday to keep the CWS in Omaha for at least 20 years after the current contract expires at the end of the 2010 championship.
"It seems to make sense economically," Fahey said of the streetcar system. "If you look around the country at progressive cities, better mass transportation systems are part of the equation."
The city may need to move quickly, perhaps this summer, to come up with a financing plan to fund the cost of a streetcar, Fahey said.
(snip)
The downtown streetcar loop was proposed as the first phase of a more extensive system that could connect downtown with the new Midtown Crossing residential and commercial development and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Another branch could run south from downtown to the Henry Doorly Zoo.
Mutual of Omaha, the developer of Midtown Crossing, has talked with the city about opening the western branch sooner rather than later, Fahey said.
While the stadium and streetcar are separate projects, they complement each other, said Fahey and Doug Bisson, a community planner with Omaha-based HDR.
"One project by itself is cool," Bisson said, "but the two together are really amazing."
Bisson, who suggested a downtown ballpark in a 2005 study of north downtown and worked on the streetcar project, said the new stadium linked to other downtown attractions would create "that wow factor."
"What it would do is turn our downtown into a true downtown," Bisson said.
But first things first. Fahey wants to turn the CWS agreement into a firm contract. That's likely to happen before the series opens at Rosenblatt Stadium on June 14.
CWS Inc. President Jack Diesing said a championship contract that runs through at least 2030 is an unprecedented feat of which Omaha should be proud. The city has hosted the CWS since 1950 with a series of one-year to five-year contracts.
"The NCAA does not have any agreements that are five years, let alone the 20-year deal we have," Diesing said.
The exact length of the contract is still being negotiated — it's possible that the final contract could be for 25 years.
CIVIC LEADERS from my hometown like to take road trips -- junkets to study some big-time place or another to collect ideas on how to turn Baton Rouge into America's Next Great City (TM). Likewise, there have been any number of grand plans, blueprints that surface long enough to make a splash in the news media before slowly sinking into the primordial muck of the Bluebonnet Swamp, never to be heard of again.
There once was a man who campaigned on a message of hope and change. In his victory speech he promised never to succumb to a worldview in which “lobbyists begin to look larger and the people begin to look smaller.” In exchange, he asked voters to help him “defeat cynicism” by believing in him and themselves.READY TO PUKE? No? Well hang on, then. Read this and, soon enough, you'll be purging like a New York model after a cheesecake binge:
For schools, for government, for business, “change is not just on the way . . . Change begins tonight,” he proclaimed, his quick grin and young family breathing life back into a process gone sour, his unique life story bringing voters from unexpected backgrounds.
Sound familiar? It should. You’ve heard the media tell the story a thousand times a day. They’re just telling it about the wrong guy.
These days, Bobby Jindal is working for change in a city that could eat the ethical foibles of Obama’s Chicago for breakfast, like so many shrimp upon a bed of grits. Elected governor of Louisiana in 2007, he replaced the politically deflated Kathleen Blanco, who did not seek reelection.
Jindal is keenly aware of the problematic legacy he inherits. Inside Huey Long’s sky-scraping capital building, “I wonder what crimes were committed here?” is a not infrequent visitor question, posed not quite jokingly. The state’s political history is fraught with the kind of men Southerners often euphemistically call “colorful,” who given proper federal investigation, end up being very uneuphemistically corrupt.
He’s also aware of the opportunity his state offers. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were talked about, on a national level, as revelations of persistent poverty in America. In Louisiana, they were a reminder, too, of the political perfidy that’s perpetuated it.OH. PUH. LEEZE. Just because the Democrats of Louisiana are, indeed, sad specimens it does not therefore follow that the state's Republicans -- headed by Jindal or no -- are exactly a bunch of Einsteins.
“Shame on us if all we build is what was here before,” Jindal told a small group of bloggers at the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge last week.
Unwilling to accept Louisiana as it was — one of the most uneducated, unethical, and unhealthy states in the union — Jindal made ethics reform his first priority, working on the theory that being a national punchline doesn’t draw business investment.
The 36-year-old governor slid into a January special legislative session on the strength of his political capital and came out with one of the strongest ethics reform packages in a nation awash with attempts at reform.
(snip)
To Jindal, the big-government response to Hurricane Katrina betrayed conservatives’ lack of confidence in their own ideas, and his first three months in office have gone a long way toward showing he has all the courage of conviction he needs.
The Republican Party remains the party of ideas in Louisiana, under Jindal’s leadership. And, as the unabashed policy wonk runs through four-point plan after four-point plan in his detailed recipe for Cajun-style reform, his 3-year-old son big-wheeling through the foyer of the governor’s mansion, one can’t help but think, “So this is what real change looks like.”
No, this is the time for change, real change. This is a time for someone whom everybody knows to be the rising star of the GOP, the new governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.
And what a governor! Having taken office in January, after winning 54% of the vote in the open-field primary, Mr. Jindal immediately called a special session of the legislature and persuaded them to pass his 64-point agenda for ethics reform. They said ethics reform couldn't be done in Louisiana--a state whose reputation as a cesspool is legendary--but he did it in a two-week session. Now he's calling a second special session to pass the tax cuts necessary to jump-start the post-Katrina economy in his state.
The problem with conservative ideologues like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is that rarely do they "conserve" anything. Except, of course, the ability of radical individualists to blow up society for their own profit.The governor spent little time in his prepared remarks on the tuition tax deduction proposal. But teachers union lobbyist Steve Monaghan said afterward that it could define the tax portion of the session.
At a $20 million cost -- allowing parents to deduct half of each child's tuition cost up to $5,000 per child when figuring their taxable income -- the plan is a blip on the state's budget radar. But the precedent, Monaghan said, would establish that the state's educational priority list is no longer topped by public schools.
"This is a distraction," said Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. "If we're truly concerned about building a world-class public education system, then we have to stop sending mixed messages. Why incentivize sending children to private schools?"
Jindal said the idea, which was not part of his campaign platform, came from several legislators and other advocates of "school choice."
"They made a persuasive case," the governor said. "We think it's important for our families to be able to send their children to high-quality schools all over Louisiana."
Welfare for the at least moderately well off is what Jindal's proposed tax credit is, too. And it's what passes for sound public policy in the eyes of Jindal's buddies in the "school choice" movement.
One of those "school choice" friends is Rolfe McCollister, publisher of the Baton Rouge Business Report and a founder of the city's Children's Charter School.
McCollister, who's had his scrapes with the local school system, recently penned a column calling on voters not to renew a penny sales tax that funds part of teachers' salaries and provides funds for school construction and renovation. He decries the local public schools' poor performance, particularly their record with at-risk students.
This despite his own charter school's barely passing grade from the Great Schools website, which uses publicly available data and parent ratings to grade America's schools. In fact, according to Great Schools, McCollister's Children's Charter School had the second highest pupil-teacher ratio of any school within a five-mile radius, while earning only a 6 rating on a 10-point scale.
One would think Children's Charter School would be drawing the at-risk children of the most motivated of at-risk parents. Parents you would assume at least gave enough of a damn to try a charter school. Yet. . . .
On a college grade scale, 60 percent is a D. Barely. On my old high-school grade scale, 60 percent is a solid F. And one nearby public, non-charter school at least managed a C. Barely.
IF I'M BOBBY JINDAL, I'm going to be seeking out advice on education policy from "D" educators? And I'm going to be following these folks' advice to pursue a policy of undermining public schools . . . for what, exactly?
There are none so blind as right-wing pols who refuse to see.
"Conserving" a civic culture and a functional society does not include aiding and abetting the "school choice" of the relatively privileged while abandoning the rest to a "separate and unequal" public-education system. There is no "conservative" principle, properly understood, in tolerating decay and dysfunction as the normative environment of those "left behind" in public schools.
(East Baton Rouge Parish public schools, in the wake of court-ordered desegregation, now are 83 percent minority and 79 percent African-American. Most students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.)
And there is nothing "conservative" about opening the public coffers, wholesale, to private groups for carrying out the public's business. In this case, that would be educating Louisiana's children.
"Conservatives" have forgotten -- utterly -- the flip side of freedom. That would be "duty." Just because middle- and upper-class folk have the ability to "escape" a struggling school system, that freedom to do so does not therefore become an entitlement underwritten in whole or in part by the state.
And it certainly does not translate into some "right" to cast the less privileged into an abyss of voters' making, either by commission -- as in the separate but unqual of Jim Crow days -- or by omission . . . as in the separate but unequal of some McCollisterian "I'm not paying a cent of tax money for 'failed schools'" dystopia.
When, by default, most white children attend private schools partially underwritten by public monies and most black children attend public schools abandoned to decay and dysfunction, it is difficult to discern how the "desegregated" present differs substantially from the darkest days of de jure segregation.
LONG AGO, before de jure school segregation had breathed its last in Baton Rouge, my parents used to threaten me with being sent to "the nigger school" when I misbehaved at the officially all-white Red Oaks Elementary. That was supposed to imply a fate worse than death to a young mind indoctrinated, from birth, into a white, racist milieu.
Now, in my hometown, they're working on making every public school "the nigger school" -- with all the awfulness that once meant to little white ears -- and all you have to do to get your kid sent there is not have enough money (or luck, or whatever) to get into this generation's "white school."
And if you don't have the dough (or luck, or whatever) to get into the "white school" in the first place, I don't see how Bobby Jindal -- or his proposed tax credits -- can offer you any hope. Any hope at all.
Let me know how that works out for you, Louisiana.
Taxpayers are now faced with the proposition of either sending more money to the same system or being labeled as “against the kids.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I, for one, will vote against the tax—not because I’m against spending the money, but because I am against wasting the money. I would support any number of different approaches and, in fact, could support sending even a greater amount of money to a system that I believed put the kids first and not “the system.” I have witnessed firsthand the system making decisions that protect them while sacrificing potential opportunities for our kids. For example, the system turned away KIPP Academy—a nationally recognized charter school provider that specializes in serving urban kids. They turned down the Children’s Charter School in their attempt to expand—despite that their student body is 98% at risk and scores above the state average on school performance scores. Children’s Charter operates an 11-month school year with extended day for the same amount per pupil as the system. Furthermore, for years the Children’s Charter operated exclusively out of temporary buildings. Why can’t the system do some of these same things?
HERE'S A NEWS FLASH, podna. When you willfully advocate a politcal course of action that will force teachers to take a pay cut of between 2 percent and 22 percent, you're not only against the teachers . . . you're "against the kids."And when you willingly advocate a politcal course of action that will doom the parish's students to remain in crumbling, outdated and squalorous "facilities," you're "against the kids." In fact, you're guilty of child abuse.
But that's OK. Baton Rouge's public schools now are 83 percent minority.
So it's not like the children of actual white people are on the line here. At least not enough of them to represent an unacceptable level of collateral damage when you blow up the public schools so that a magical voucher scheme might descend from the heavens and set everything aright.
BUT WAITING FOR GODOT is what my fellow Louisianians do. They're good at it. And the state's periodic political messiahs are happy to offer up the latest hare-brained scheme to throw Bubba a sop and stick it to the Negroes in the name of "reform."
Gov. Bobby Jindal (PBUH) is the latest to try that approach, just today calling on legislators to approve a tax credit for private-school tuition. In other words, welfare for people who have the money to pay thousands per year in tuition for their kids to go to private schools . . . so they don't have to give a damn about public schools.
Welfare is only a dirty word when it applies to minorities -- whose children are left to rot in defunded ratholes.
Gotcha.
IN OTHER WORDS, things ain't changed much in the Gret Stet since Gov. Earl Long stood at the dais in the Senate chambers and laid into one of its members, arch-segregationist Willie Rainach. In his book, The Earl of Louisiana, the journalist A.J. Liebling recounts the scene:
AFTER THAT, they put Uncle Earl in the nuthouse. Being in favor of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . that'd always get you in trouble in the Gret Stet of Loosiana."After all this is over, he'll probably go up there to Summerfield, get up on his front porch, take off his shoes, wash his feet, look at the moon and get close to God." This was gross comedy, a piece of miming that recalled Jimmy Savo impersonating the Mississippi River. Then the old man, changing pace, shouted in Rainach's direction, "And when you do, you got to recognize that niggers is human beings!"
It was at this point that the legislators must have decided he'd gone off his crumpet. Old Earl, a Southern politician, was taking the Fourteenth Amendment's position that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States . . . nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Still will, I suspect.
The Government Street school, decades behind in maintenance, is crumbling around the National Merit semifinalists it produces.OH, BUT IT GETS WORSE than that. Here's an excerpt from a story about Baton Rouge High and the plight of local public schools in McCollister's other publication, The Baton Rouge Business Report:
Plaster flakes from classroom walls. Mold and mildew feed on intruding moisture behind the crumbling brickwork, which has separated from the building’s exterior. It’s so bad it routinely sickens students and faculty.
“The mold and mildew on the third floor are just out of control,” Principal Nanette Greer says. “You wouldn’t believe the number of people who are sick or have problems due to allergies. It’s unbelievable. We’re all sick. I’m on allergy medication as is most of the staff. We don’t complain because it is what it is.
YES, THE "PROBLEM" IS BIGGER than Baton Rouge High and Lee High. The "problem" is as big as an entire city -- an entire state -- where public education, and generations upon generations of students, just aren't that big a priority.The findings were no surprise to Dot Dickinson, who watched a tile fall from the ceiling before a performance of the school’s orchestra, which included her son, in the mid-1990s. Luckily, the wayward tile landed on empty seats.
“Seems someone would have noticed the need for maintenance at that time,” she says.
Most likely someone did. But at the time, every public school in the parish needed work, and there was virtually no money to pay for it, school officials say. The system isn’t in the crisis mode it was in 10 years ago, but there are still a number of school buildings that are drafty, leaky, moldy or otherwise disheveled.
The School Board was scheduled to discuss—and most likely finalize and vote on—the system’s facility plan on Jan. 10. The futures of Baton Rouge Magnet High, which is in line for a $62 million renovation, and Lee High School, which the system had considered closing before Superintendent Charlotte Placide proposed building a new Lee High on the same site, have elicited the strongest emotions.
But the problem is much bigger than two schools.
Thirty percent of children in East Baton Rouge Parish do not attend public schools, nearly double the state average of 16%, which the Louisiana Department of Education says is the highest rate in the nation. The private schools can pick and choose whom they want to let in, while public schools take all comers. Public schools tend to have nearly all of the special education and special-needs students, while private schools grab many of the high-achievers.
For middle- and upper-class children, private schools are the rule, not the exception. Nearly 77% of the students left in East Baton Rouge public schools are poor, as measured by how many qualify for free or reduced lunch. Often, poor children come from unstable homes or dangerous neighborhoods, and they bring those problems with them to school. Parental involvement in a child’s education, a key factor in academic success, is often lacking in poorer homes.
IT TAKES A BIG MAN -- and a classy city -- to kick kids who already are down. And, in the case of Baton Rouge High, an added bonus is getting to kick the crap out of the really smart kids Louisiana desperately wants to stick around.SO, WHOM ELSE is Rolfe McCollister willing to shaft to make the point that he's mad as hell, dammit, and he's not going to take this anymore?
If you run a business, you get to choose the best and the brightest people with which to surround yourselves. You get to choose from which suppliers and vendors you will purchase your raw materials to make/create/perform your products/services. If an employee is failing to do his/her job at a high enough standard, you get the luxury of firing him/her. We don't get that luxury. We have students that come to us with varying negative backgrounds, poverty, no adult supervision, no structure, exposure to violence, etc. over which we have NO control. We have students that come to us from homes where they are taught that the teacher is always wrong and "out-to-get-you." Sometimes, when I discipline a student in class for negative behavior, that student tells me "I'm going to tell my mom. She's going to come here and get you."REALLY, if you're willing to make children suffer for pique's sake, what's ruining the life and finances of a schoolteacher? It's all in the name of reform, right? Even if you don't have a Plan B yet to deal with the wreckage you leave behind.
Yet, despite this, we work as hard as we can. We go above and beyond the call of duty. Even when we have NO support from administrators, and sadly sometimes no support from parents, we make strides to take kids from nothing to something.
I like my job. I like what I do. I love to teach and talk to the kids and see them learn and grow. I like to hear them laugh. I live for that rare moment when a kid tells me "thank you."
So, if you have a problem with the way the school system runs, then get involved. Work to make changes. Go into the schools and observe. Volunteer. Maybe you could offer your advice on something (since you obviously know so much about education). But, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT take it out on us. Do not take it out on the kids. Do not take it out on the hard-working, dedicated teachers.
And, finally, if this renewal does not pass, my annual salary will drop by exactly $5218.00. How would you like to suddenly lose $5218.00 of your salary just because people don't like the school system for which you work. If I lose that salary, I won't be able to afford the house that I worked so hard, took a part time job, and struggled to be able to buy five years ago. I guess I will have to move back in with mom and dad.
IN SHORT, Rolfe McCollister is calling on his readers to put a bullet in the head of a school system that has come up lame:
GOT IT? The school system is failing. Ergo, let's take away the money to fix and rebuild crumbling schools, let's make sure teachers are paid less than surrounding school systems, let's give the school board a symbolic fickle finger of fate and see whether things get any better.I had a neighbor tell me last week, “I have never voted against a school tax, but I am going to have to vote no this time.” I think that’s the conclusion many folks have come to for the special March 8 election. I certainly have.
“Outrageous,” you say.
No, what is outrageous is what my neighbor said to me after he proclaimed his position. He said, “We have become the New Orleans school system.” Now that should make the hair on your neck stand up. Fact is, he is referring to the old New Orleans system characterized by poor performance, declining enrollment, resistance to change and a constant hunger for more money. New Orleans, as a whole, has been innovative about its school system since Katrina and drawn lots of attention. It still has issues and is struggling, but it has signs of new life and hope. Can you say the same for East Baton Rouge schools? This election is your opportunity to answer that question and speak out so the school board and the community can hear you loud and clear.
So why would folks oppose the school taxes?
It’s not because we think education isn’t important. It is very important. And many of us opposing the taxes have been involved in supporting education in many ways for many years.
It’s not because we aren’t concerned with the needs of children, particularly lower-income children. They are the ones who have been denied a choice and stuck in our failing system. More of the same provides them with no hope and no way out.
It’s not because we don’t appreciate teachers and the tough job they have. We have supported teachers and pay has increased—but are teachers and the classroom a priority for funds? Have the best teachers been rewarded and the worst removed?
It’s not because we aren’t patient enough. We have allowed time and supported previous taxes. We have watched for progress for years and passed millions in new taxes [property and sales taxes] and renewals. And what are the results we have to show for that commitment and investment?
The school board points out they have done well in the last 10 years and built seven new schools, with three more under construction. They have repaired 40 schools, spent millions on technology and created six new alternative schools. So with all these millions spent, these accomplishments, facilities and new assets, we still have an F system, we’re losing students and now the state is even taking our schools away.
And the school board is asking us to sign up for 10 more years and spend $870 million more. For what? More of the same?
This is exactly why a tax is set up for a limited duration: So you can decide if it generated the desired results and if you want to re-invest. I would conclude we got little return on our investment, and we need to look for something new to invest in. This system is broken down like a car with no engine. Why would you paint the body and hire a driver when it is going nowhere?
WHAT DOES McCOLLISTER propose Baton Rouge invest in after it again cuts off its nose to spite its face? U-Haul? Ryder? Mayflower Van Lines?
Baton Rouge never has been, is not now nor ever will be "America's Next Great City (TM)" so long as it is dominated by reactionary, spite-driven, race-tinged politics. It will never progress beyond "Southern backwater" in the eyes of the nation until folks down there figure out that they're all going to pull together or fly to pieces.
