Friends don't let friends elect dopes

Click on photo for video.

In my hometown, there's a school system that let one high school get so run down over the past couple of decades that it -- quite literally -- is falling down around the students within. That these students are among the best in the state only makes an embarrassing situation even more so.

A COUPLE OF MILES AWAY, this school system has let another high school become such a run-down dump that it had been scheduled for demolition and reconstruction. But now, in order to save the first school, the second school just might have to be put out of its misery altogether.

Did I mention that School No. 2 serves a predominantly underprivileged student body? And already has had its music and drama programs gutted?

What a mess. Which makes it just another day in the slow death of public education in Baton Rouge, La.

There are 300,000 stories in the Stupid City. Unfortunately, The Advocate's Koran Addo has yet another one of them:

One school’s potential closing begets another school’s reawakening, some students protesting outside of Lee High School indicated Thursday.

Wearing red “Save Our Schools” T-shirts, dozens of Lee High students and faculty assembled outside the school, rallying against a school district panel’s proposal to renovate Baton Rouge Magnet High School and temporarily house its 1,250 students at Lee High. Under that proposal, the Lee High student body would be absorbed into other schools — a proposition that had Lee High student protesters saying they feel like renters facing eviction.

Wayne Alexander, 17, a Lee High senior, described his years at the school as “sensational.” He said Lee High’s distinctiveness — including students from 37 countries — could not be duplicated should the proposal take effect.

“You won’t find another school with this kind of diversity or with the programs we have,” he said. “I’m not knocking any other school, but why close Lee? It’s like taking us from our home.”

One of the rally’s organizers, Lee High social studies teacher Brandon Levatino, said rumors and misinformation about the school’s possible closure fueled anxiety from students who decided they wanted to demonstrate.

“A month ago, we were told Lee was going to be rebuilt; two weeks ago, we heard we were being closed,” Levatino said.

“Now we’re working on a deadline, trying to have our voices heard before the School Board has a final vote.”

The proposal was discussed Nov. 29 at an East Baton Rouge Parish School Board presentation on possible school construction. If approved by voters, construction would be funded by a renewal of a 1-cent sales tax plan. The School Board is expected to finalize construction plans by Jan. 4 — the last date to safely get the proposal on the March 8 ballot.

Lee High alumna Tiffany Theriot, who has two children enrolled at the school, said she attended Thursday’s rally to represent the parents who would have liked to have been there but had to work instead.

Theriot said the proposal pits children from low-income families against more-affluent children. As evidence the school system plays favorites, Theriot cited Lee High’s loss of band, choir and drama programs in recent years while similar programs flourish at other schools.

“The School Board looks at test scores and they look at parents’ incomes and they think we’re disposable,” she said. “As parents, we’re like silent partners: They want us to be seen and not heard.”

WELL, MS. THERIOT can take small consolation that her kids aren't much more disposable than the "smart kids" at my alma mater, Baton Rouge High. The school board is nothing if not an aggregation of equal-opportunity screw-ups.

Then again, that's how what passes for public policy gets accomplished in my home state. Neglect, dismiss, ignore . . . then panic and create unnecessary conflict when ignoring no longer works.

And no one has quite figured out, anyway, how BRMHS' 1,300 students are going to fit in 800-capacity Lee High. That, however, is the best option all the board's horses and all the board's men can come up with for putting Baton Rouge High back together again.

UNTIL THE PROPOSAL to screw over Patriots to save Bulldogs, however, the best plan Superintendent Charlotte Placide could come up with was a lame impression of a bad door-to-door encyclopedia salesman: "You wouldn't want to donate a building for a temporary school, would you? I didn't think so."

Or, as an earlier Advocate story put it:

Placide said her biggest problem remains unsolved: Finding an alternative place for more than 1,200 students to go to school for two or more years while the high school is being renovated. Placide put out a call in July for help finding such a place.

“We need you to help us find a location that is not cost prohibitive,” Placide said.

WHOA! Now that's inspiring. I can't understand why people aren't rushing to help.

Actually, what I can't understand is why the school board and the city-parish aren't working in tandem on this issue. Why Placide and Mayor-President Kip Holden aren't taking the initiative and not only finding temporary quarters, but talking area businesses and civic leaders into helping pay for it -- for the greater good of Baton Rouge.

Oh, sorry. That's what would happen here in Omaha, where there actually is a functioning civic culture and some concept of "the common good," as opposed to my hometown's perpetually fragmented, disorganized, disgruntled and warring neighborhoods, interest groups and racial mau-mauers of all hues.

Here's a news flash, Smiley: If your state sucks, there's generally a good reason -- or good reasons -- why.

Can you sit in the 'bacolny' . . . or not?

I just got a comment on this post, one pointing out how much my old high school resembled a notoriously ramshackle and crime-ridden Baton Rouge, La., motel. The anonymous commenter took issue with the picture above, and with my saying the auditorium balcony no longer was in use. I will repost that comment below, and then I'll have my say in response.
ANONYMOUS WRITES:

"Instead of holding students at assemblies or the public for community events, the balcony of the school's grand old auditorium now holds junk. Not people." While your post raises a lot of interesting points, this one simply is not true. I graduated this past May, as a member of the class of 2007, and I know from personal experience that the balcony is used for seating during events. The picture you placed immediately before this description is also misleading -- the "No public seating on balcony" sign is only used when an event doesn't draw enough people to fill up the downstairs portion of the auditorium. Since it doesn't make sense to have some people sitting downstairs and some people sitting upstairs when the downstairs is not completely filled, this sign is used.

ACTUALLY, the sign says "No public seating in the bacolny," and it is what it is. That is what I found there years after I graduated -- it's not like I planted the sign . . . or the junk in both balcony entrances. In one entrance, there was no way to squeeze past the discarded desks, etc., to get into the balcony -- or "bacolny," as the case may be. In the other second-floor entrance, I was able to squeeze -- barely -- past the junk to get to the balcony. So, you're telling me that the school staff has to remove all that crap and find somewhere to put it whenever there's a large assembly at Baton Rouge High? Again, the pictures are what they are. And the junk-filled balcony entrances are the LEAST of the school's problems. YOU SAY the post "raises a lot of interesting points," and this is what you seize upon in order to get your knickers in a twist? I'm not raising "interesting points." I'm screaming at the top of my lungs that your old school and mine has been allowed to become a f***ing dump! As in "unfit for human habitation." And that the school board -- and the taxpayers, too -- let it get that way, blithely sending their kids and others' to school there as the place crumbles around them. But dat's Looziana for ya'! And I'm horribly sorry if I misrepresented the usage status of the auditorium "bacolny." Coulda fooled me, and perhaps did.

Money money money monnnnn-ey . . . MONEY!

You know, if I ran a school system and had a $66 million dollar windfall, the first thing I'd do is dedicate a chunk of it to recurring expenses, like giving everybody a raise, with no thought about how people usually expect to keep those raises -- even after that extra revenue paying for them is long gone.

And I'd never give a second thought to dedicating that tax-money bonanza to a desperately needed one-off renovation project -- one all that extra cash could more than pay for right now. Nuh-uh.

But then again, I'm a flippin' moron. And it looks like I'm not alone.

The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La., has the plain poop on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Follies:

With a surplus of at least $66 million, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system is weighing how best to spend, but not squander the money.

For the second year in a row, the school system has ended a fiscal year with tens of millions of dollars in the bank. The strong financial showing is outlined in the school system’s annual audit approved Thursday by the School Board.

Only three years ago, the system was trimming spending and outsourcing custodial, maintenance and nursing services.

The post-hurricane local economy, and millions in extra federal aid, helped create the surplus.

State and local school funding picked up the slack this past year, but is not expected to maintain its post-hurricane pace.

The board on Thursday immediately dipped into the surplus to finance a midyear, across-the-board pay raise for all employees.

Superintendent Charlotte Placide outlined for the School Board some of the initiatives the system is considering pursuing in the near future:

* A new plan for school construction and repair over the next 10 years.
* Instructional audits of low-performing schools.
* More career-based programs.
* A new math initiative, similar to an expensive literacy initiative rolled out over the past two years.
* A new “data warehouse” to allow for better use of existing school data.

“This administration, this staff, is turning this district around,” Placide said forcefully. “I don’t want anyone to say we can’t think out of the box.”

Why I rage against the machine

There's a reason why I rant and I rave and I rage against the daily stupidities, large and small, of Louisiana -- my home state, where I have not lived for almost 20 years.

Part of that reason is -- whether I like it or not . . . and I don't, really, because apathy and indifference is always the easier course -- I still care. I still love the place because it's still home.

I can't always stand the place, but you know how that is.

THE OTHER PART of why I rant and I rave and I rage against Louisiana's proclivity for being "stuck on stupid" is the place can't afford that anymore. As if it ever could.

But especially not now, because it's sinn fein, baby. Ourselves alone . . . or, rather, themselves (or yourselves, as the case might be) alone.

Alone.

The feds ain't gonna be the cavalry riding to the rescue. If the grudging "help" offered by the Bush Administration is any guide, the feds may well turn out to be the Indians, who've come to take you out, Louisiana. Because, to them, you're nothing but a pain in the ass that somebody who rides horses for a living is well rid of.

Of course, they're not going to be honest enough to tell Louisianians that, because it's so much less unpleasant to promise help to the dying while making sure it doesn't get delivered until. . . .

And, besides, you're a pain in the ass.

Anyway, I see this story, courtesy of The Associated Press, as one of those little stories that tell the Big Story in a way you can get your brain around:

In what some see as another bureaucratic absurdity after Hurricane Katrina, FEMA is refusing to pick up the cost of restocking New Orleans' aquarium because of how the new fish were obtained: straight from the sea.

FEMA would have been willing to pay more than $600,000 for the fish if they had been bought from commercial suppliers. But the agency is balking because the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas went out and replaced the dead fish the old fashioned way, with hooks and nets. That expedition saved the taxpayers a half-million dollars but did not comply with FEMA regulations.

"You get to the point where the red tape has so overwhelmed the process that there's not a lot you can do to actually be effective," Warren Eller, associate director of the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute at Louisiana State University, said of FEMA's actions.

Katrina knocked out power to the tourist attraction at the edge of the French Quarter in August 2005, and the staff returned days four days later to find sharks, tropical fish, jellyfish and thousands of other creatures dead in their tanks.

Aquarium officials wanted to reopen the place quickly. So even before the $616,000 commitment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency came through, they sent a team on an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys and Bahamas, where they caught 1,681 fish for $99,766.

Despite the clear savings, the dispute has dragged on for 17 months.

"FEMA does not consider it reasonable when an applicant takes excursions to collect specimens," FEMA quality control manager Barb Schweda wrote in a 2006 e-mail. "They must be obtained through reputable sources where, again, the item is commercially available."

FEMA's refusal to reimburse the aquarium is grounded in the Stafford Act, the federal law governing disaster aid that has been criticized as inadequate for Katrina recovery. The Stafford Act says facilities can only be returned to their pre-disaster condition, not improved. Under those rules, the aquarium would have to buy fish of the approximate age and size of the lost specimens.

State experts and others counter that acquiring thousands of duplicates in the marketplace is nearly impossible, and a waste of public money.

IF THERE WERE any political percentage in undoing the Catch 22, I suspect the Bush Administration would set about that with the same zeal it had for getting us into Iraq and then keeping us there, no matter the cost in lives and dollars. But there isn't any such percentage.

Americans might be mad that Bush screwed up the immediate Katrina aftermath, but it's not like they want him to make it right at this late date or anything.

Sinn fein.

Alone.

Root, hog, or die.

WHICH BRINGS ME -- and you knew that it would -- to Baton Rouge Magnet High School. The sad saga of Baton Rouge High, my alma mater, is another of those sad little stories that help tell the Big Sad Story.

In a sinn fein world, the few first-rate high schools Louisiana has make up a precious resource, one more important than crawfish or oil and gas. The oil and gas are going to run out. Not everybody likes crawfish. And when the fossil-fuel deposits are gone from Louisiana, only the most crustacean-crazed Americans are going to give a mudbug's chimney about the Gret Stet.

Louisiana, absent some radical attitude adjustment, then will be seen as offering no return on a hefty pain-in-the-ass investment.

ON THE OTHER HAND, young minds, and the ideas and big dreams inside them, are a renewable resource. Unfortunately, Louisiana has been maltreating and squandering its most precious resource -- its children and their dreams -- forever.

Baton Rouge High is a dump now. Baton Rougeans seem to be OK with sending their precious children to a dump to be educated . . . however much of that can occur in a crumbling hovel.

And Baton Rouge High is not the only crumbling dump Louisianians send their children off to for 13 years of whatever -- in too many of those hovels -- passes for "education." Far from it.

The faculty, staff and students of Baton Rouge Magnet High are heroic. From every measurement, it would appear that amazing things still happen there educationally, just as in my day during the late 1970s. But heroes are singled out for a reason -- there aren't that many of them, as a rule.

But every child, I think, knows when society has screwed him over. Louisiana, one of this country's least-educated states, nevertheless has earned a Ph.D in screwing over its children.

IT IS REAPING what it has sown forever, though the harvest comes in in various forms. Some kids just grow up undereducated, unmotivated and unproductive. Some turn to crime . . . born innocent only to end up rotting in Angola prison.

Others just fall short of their full potential, meaning Louisiana does as well.

Many of the best and brightest -- who, for the most part, got that way with little help from Louisiana, thankyouverymuch -- take their revenge via U-Haul. And Ryder.

After all, what in the world could a state that cared so little about them then offer them now?

AFTER SEEING WHAT I SAW over several hours one late-September day at Baton Rouge High, after seeing what was allowed to become of my old school . . . on behalf of myself and on behalf of the kids who go to BRMHS now, I walked out of there feeling absolutely violated.

A civilized people does not do this to anybody's children.

I was born and raised in Baton Rouge and, knowing what I know, I have to admit that I swing back and forth between thinking Louisiana has a slim-but-real chance at long-term survival and succumbing to utter despair for the place.

Again, I am someone whose Louisiana roots go back to the 1780s.

So if I feel that way, what the hell do you think the feds and the rest of the U.S. think? They think Louisiana not only is hopeless, but probably that it ought to be more-or-less politically and civically euthanized.

Because we're that kind of country now.

THAT'S WHY Baton Rouge High matters. Places like Baton Rouge High are Louisiana's only hope, because it IS sinn fein, baby.

And look what the hell Louisiana has done -- is doing -- to its last best hope.

God help them.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that I first saw the "sinn fein, baby" riff in print on Ashley Morris: the blog out of New Orleans last year. I recall having pretty much the same thought around the same time, but I don't remember using it in print. Ashley did, and it was bugging me that I had overlooked giving credit where credit is due for a hell of a good line.

One of these things is just like the other

This is the Alamo Plaza in the Mid City area of Baton Rouge. In 1941, it was a showplace . . . a sparkling way station for modern wayfarers, sitting out on the edge of town, on the road to a place called America.

This is Baton Rouge High School, also in the Mid City area of the capital city. In 1927, it was a showplace . . . a sparkling way station for the city's best and brightest, sitting a good half-mile past the end of the streetcar line, on the road to a place called The Future.

SIX DECADES ON, the Alamo Plaza ain't what it used to be. What was the epitome of an ascendant America, a symbol of all that was luxurious and modern, of an America now wealthy enough to drive away in automobiles and discover itself at its leisure . . . well, it's the symbol of something quite different now.

Eight decades distant from the grand opening of the "new and modern" Baton Rouge High, the old school now is known as Baton Rouge Magnet High School. What this has meant, since 1976, is that in a city of great opportunity and greater inequity, the city's "best and brightest" still hang out at 2825 Government St., still dream grand dreams and still try to make sense of a city congenitally indifferent to "best" or "bright."

Still.

AFTER AT LEAST a couple of decades of serious neglect, there are dangerous places at the Alamo Plaza where you wouldn't want to mislay your children. For that matter, there's not really anywhere there -- at least, according to an expose in the most recent issue of Baton Rouge's 225 magazine -- that's better suited for human habitation than it is as a breeding ground for rats and roaches:

Because The Alamo Plaza doesn’t operate a restaurant, it’s not required to have a permit from the state’s Office of Public Health. But the agency does investigate complaints of unhealthy conditions, and records show at least 10 complaints in the past five years.

In June, one motel guest complained that her room was “infested with rats, fleas, spiders, etc.”

In February, a woman who stayed at The Alamo said the place was so disgusting she had to change rooms three times. In her complaint, she wrote: “One room I stayed in was full of baby rats. I was scared to go to bed. There were roaches everywhere.” She also called the motel “a gateway for crime,” a description J. Edgar Hoover would have no doubt agreed with.

Health inspector Artis Pinkney was sent to investigate the woman’s complaint. According to his written report, he found rat droppings in the sinks, faulty wiring, broken fixtures and heavy structural damage.

“All of the rooms seem to be in the same condition,” Pinkney wrote. “The manager does not repair any of the rooms. In my professional opinion, I would suggest the building be condemned.”

After at least a couple of decades of abject neglect, there are dangerous places in the Baton Rouge High building where you don't want your children. Or anyone else.

Instead of holding students at assemblies or the public for community events, the balcony of the school's grand old auditorium now holds junk. Not people. Graduation ceremonies no longer are held where I proudly walked across the stage in 1979.

It would seem there's not much that's not crumbling at the old Alamo Plaza, like this doorjamb.

225, as part of its Alamo Plaza story, had writer Chuck Hustmyre screw up his courage and set out to spend the night at the crumbling old motor court.

He didn't make it through the night in Room 2708:

To say that my room was dirty and quite likely a health hazard would be a significant understatement. Room 2708—which I have no reason to suspect was much different than any of The Alamo’s other 89 rooms—was a combination pigsty, hovel and slum.

The room had to be close to 100 degrees when I stepped inside. The maintenance man, who doubled as a security guard judging by the badge clipped to his pants, turned on the air conditioner for me and warned me, without further explanation, to keep the curtains closed at night. The window above the wheezing AC was boarded up with plywood and reinforced with two-by-fours. Broken shards of glass from the window lay inside the air conditioner vent.

As I waited for the temperature in the room to dip into the double digits, I took a good look at my accommodations. The room had no phone. The television was unplugged and the power button had been punched out. There was no lamp, no chair, and no table. Potato chip-sized chunks of paint were peeling off the walls. Loose wires dangled from the busted smoke alarm above the bed.

In the bathroom, there was no towel, just a washrag and a threadbare hand cloth. Part of the baseboard had rotted away, leaving a good-sized hole in the wall and easy access for night crawlers. The stained sink had a steady leak, no drain plug, and only one temperature setting for the water—scalding hot.

The walls of the closet were covered with dark splotches (either toxic mold or just plain mildew, I couldn’t tell). But I held my breath just in case as I stepped inside to snap some pictures.

(snip)

Back in my room, I had nowhere to sit. The paper-thin, stained bedspread wasn’t an option, so I found a plastic chair outside and brought it into my room. I stayed for a few hours, long enough to meet my next-door neighbor, who said his name was Art. He wanted to know if I had a car, and he twice invited me into his room to have a beer. I declined.

I left sometime around 2 a.m.

STUDENTS HAVE TO STAY a full eight hours a day at Baton Rouge High. Five days a week. Nine months a year.

Faculty and administrators put in longer hours.

Well, this is disgusting. Quick! Is it the decrepit old motor court where bums stay and drug dealers ply their trade, or is it the "flagship school" of the East Baton Rouge Parish public system?

It's the decrepit old motor court, of the dopers and down-on-their-luckers.

THIS is a rest room at the decrepit old high school. The one parish taxpayers and the parish school board apparently think is acceptable for the parish's children.

The one over which the school system dithers -- Do we fix it? Do we tear it down? Do we ask voters to pass a dedicated Baton Rouge High tax? Meanwhile, the school board mulls over how to spend its minimum $66 million surplus from the 2006-2007 budget year.

Above, we again have a lovely room view from the Alamo Plaza.

And we have a lovely shot from the women's room in the Baton Rouge High gymnasium. There's a bird nest in the exhaust fan.

Leaky, damaged ceiling at the Alamo Plaza. Did I mention this is a scandalous haven for those on the margins of society?

Leaky, damaged ceiling at BRMHS. Did I mention this is where taxpayers' teen-age children spend their days, attempting to get an education?

When ordinary folks think of a miracle of God, they picture the parting of the Red Sea or Jesus curing lepers and raising Lazarus from the dead. I think of these as well, but nowadays I likewise think of how young Baton Rougeans receive a first-class education here amid Third World squalor.

And since returning to Omaha from a visit to my hometown -- and from a visit to my alma mater, Baton Rouge High -- I picture this when I think of Baton Rouge:

ABSOLUTELY METAPHORICAL, don't you think?

And absolutely baffling that professional journalists -- spanning the spectrum from the glossy and newsfeaturey 225, to the daily Advocate, to the Baton Rouge Business Report to channels 2, 9 and 33 -- remain blind to that, remain blind to the plight of a city's children and blind as to why that's going to be the death of a city (and a state) because they will not see.

Alamo Plaza? C'est toi.

UPDATE: For those of you new to the Baton Rouge High Story, here are some links to the full ugliness of what the East Baton Rouge Parish school system hath wrought:

My reminder

Not even a crumb from the rich man's table

Home is where the heartbreak is

More scenes from 'America's next great city'

Disbelief in Omaha, or No Frame of Reference

When we let our kids' schools deteriorate into dumps, is it a human-rights violation?

My reminder

This is my personal reminder.

It's a chunk of the basketball court in the Baton Rouge Magnet High School gymnasium, and I pocketed it from -- for lack of a better term -- a pothole, an indoor pothole on the floor where high school students attempt to carry out such activities as gymnastics, volleyball, physical education and . . . basketball.

This sits in my home recording studio, on a counter, atop a paperweight. I see it every day . . . many times every day. It doesn't let me forget how little some people in some communities in the richest nation in the world care for their children.

It reminds me that if we can physically abort our children while they're still fetuses, we sure as hell can civically abort them, politically abort them, educationally abort them and emotionally abort them long after they emerge from the womb unscathed.

THIS CHUNK of the Baton Rouge High gym floor -- where long ago I did calisthenics, played basketball and danced The Bump with a pretty redhead -- reminds me that while I take pride in my home state, I also am deeply, deeply ashamed of it.

This chunk of 57-year-old hardwood -- still painted Bulldog green, scoured loose by water from an ever-leaking roof -- reminds me of when my alma mater was still a really pleasant place to spend several years of your adolescence. When we never worried that we might be knocked silly by a falling ceiling tile in the middle of American history.

It reminds me of when BRMHS was the crown jewel of the city's schools physically as well as academically. Of when there was at least one school the perpetually lousy East Baton Rouge Parish school system didn't manage to taint in some way.

Funny, isn't it, that such an ordinary chunk of debris holds such meaning for a middle-aged man three decades removed from his glory days? Yes, but I imagine you have your totems, too.

But here it is, a new one of mine. A chunk of wood pilfered from a fetid gym as I took damning photographs and held back tears for what had become of my old school.

My totem. It reminds me that we can do so much better, but usually don't.

Forgive us, children, for we have sinned.

Not even a crumb from the rich man's table

I'm not going to comment on the following story about the East Baton Rouge (La.) Parish school system's huge budget surplus this past fiscal year. If I did, there wouldn't be a word fit for an even minimally family-friendly blog.

And if it were a movie, it'd probably get an NC-17. But I will run some pictures with this post -- pictures of the parish's "flagship" school, Baton Rouge Magnet High.

That ought to be comment enough.

FOR YOU FOLKS down in Baton Rouge, you poor souls who haven't fled the Gret Stet . . . yet . . . here is your government at work, as reported by Charles Lussier of The Advocate:

The East Baton Rouge Parish school system is still reaping the benefits of the post-hurricane economy and in the process amassing one of its biggest surpluses ever, according to its annual audit released Wednesday.

The school system finished fiscal 2006-07, which ended June 30, with $66.1 million in undesignated money left in the bank. That’s $8.6 million more than it had left over the previous fiscal year.

New revenue grew by 2.3 percent last year, barely outpacing spending, which grew by 2.1 percent for the same period.

The annual audit was conducted by the firm Postlethwaite & Netterville and was presented Wednesday to the School Board’s Finance Committee.

The auditors gave an unqualified high opinion, finding no material weaknesses in the system’s internal controls. They gave special credit to the finance staff, which, year after year, wins awards for the quality of its accounting work.

Mike Schexnayder, a partner in the firm, said the big surplus, or fund balance, is especially good news.

He noted the surplus equals 20 percent of the system’s general operating expenses. Just four years ago, the system had only the equivalent of 5 percent in reserve. The state Department of Education recommends that the school district keep the equivalent of 10 percent in reserve.

Later in the meeting, the committee recommended immediately dipping into the surplus to finance a midyear, across-the-board pay raise for all employees.

The higher surplus, however, makes the parish system a bigger target for lawyers from the new Central school district, which began operating July 1. Central claims it deserves 5 percent of the parish’s surplus, but State District Judge Wilson Fields rejected that argument last month. The case is on appeal.

The conclusion of the audit means the lawyers will have precise numbers to argue about rather than projections, and the actual numbers are much larger than those projections.

UPDATE: For those of you new to the Baton Rouge High Story, here are some links to the full ugliness of what the East Baton Rouge Parish school system hath wrought:

Home is where the heartbreak is

More scenes from 'America's next great city'

Disbelief in Omaha, or No Frame of Reference

When we let our kids' schools deteriorate into dumps, is it a human-rights violation?

Dat's Loosiana for you!!

According to The Advocate in Baton Rouge, the local school system -- that of dilapidated facilities fame -- is spending the big bucks on a public-relations campaign.

I'll give 'em one for freakin' free. (See above.)

Unbelievable. Here's the story in this morning's paper:

East Baton Rouge Parish residents may see something these days that they might not expect from the parish school system: advertising.

It started in August with print ads in several local publications. In January, the school system will have ads on billboards and radio, all part of a new public awareness campaign.

“We just kind of want to get the public re-acquainted with the school system,” said Chris Trahan, director of communications.

The campaign began in May and June with a public opinion poll. Trahan is already planning future marketing campaigns, focusing on increasing community and parental involvement.

Under the logo “Better Schools. Better Futures,” the ads highlight facts about the school system that people may not know, such as:

The system had 24 national merit finalists in 2006.

Forty-seven percent of the system’s teachers hold advanced degrees.
The system led the state in the number of Nationally Board Certified teachers.
The school system is also increasing its marketing of its specialized programs.

Today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Mall at Cortana, the school system is holding its annual EBR Mania expo for students who want to apply to its 14 magnet schools.

For the first time, gifted-and-talented programs — 14 schools now offer this service, up from nine last year — also will be on hand to showcase their wares.

Also, starting next week, Superintendent Charlotte Placide is holding three community forums to determine what kind of school construction residents want over the next decade. The forums are scheduled at Scotlandville High School at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Woodlawn High School at 6 p.m. Thursday and Capitol Middle School on Nov. 5 at 6 p.m.

School system leaders know they have a tough task re-engaging a community that in many cases bypasses the school system for private schools or suburban public schools.

At its peak in 1976, the parish school system had almost 69,000 students: 60 percent white and 40 percent black. By 1983, in the wake of a controversial busing order, the school had lost 13,000 students, and its racial breakdown was half white, half black.

Out-migration, by both black families and white families, continues, though overall enrollment has stabilized. As of Oct. 1, the school system had 46,341 students, almost 23,000 fewer than 30 years ago. The racial breakdown is now 83 percent black, 11 percent white and 6 percent Asian, Hispanic and other ethnicities.

(snip)

School Board member Jill Dyason, who has two children in public schools, said many residents in her southeast Baton Rouge district don’t even consider public schools. With the end of the desegregation case this past summer, they should reconsider, she said.

“We are in a different place. The instability is not there like it was,” Dyason said. “We now can listen to you, the parents, about your needs. We can try and address it, and we don’t have our hands tied.”

(snip)

Dyason said if people will just step through the door of a public school, even if they have no children in those schools, they can quickly separate fact from fiction.

“I hope that this will encourage people to take a real look for themselves, and not be misguided by the negative perceptions,” she said.

MS. DYASON -- a junior-high classmate of mine -- had better hope that when people step through the door of a Baton Rouge public school, the ceiling doesn't fall in on them.

I feel another ad coming on . . . gratis, of course.

Louisiana, help thou mine unbelief

My friend Rod Dreher has written an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal about Louisiana's latest flirtation with reform. There is sweetness and light and new hope down on the bayou; the wunderkind Bobby Jindal will be governor, having won in a primary-election landslide.

Well, you know what I think about this. If you don't, it's here.

At any rate, Rod is "proud and hopeful" that the folks back home apparently did The Right Thing. I am, too. Kind of.

Reading Rod's piece, I delight in how well he channels the deepest emotions of all us Louisiana expatriates. And I want to believe. I want to believe in hope, because my home state . . . it do get into your blood and you can't get it out:

You notice something, though, when Louisianians meet in exile. Everybody misses home and will take any opportunity to talk about it. Our friends--Yankees, mostly--get the biggest kick out of our honest-to-God tales of Bayou State life (political and otherwise). My wife, a native Texan, confessed that when we first started dating, she thought my stories about my homeland revealed me to be a pathological liar--until I took her there to see for herself. She visited my Uncle Murphy's grave and saw the headstone he'd won playing bourré (a Cajun card game) with an undertaker. He had it inscribed with the epitaph: "This ain't bad, once you get used to it."

Louisiana makes a lot more sense if you read the beloved picaresque "A Confederacy of Dunces" as an exercise in literary naturalism. There's simply no place like Louisiana. You will not find more generous and life-loving people anywhere, and Lord knows, you won't eat or drink better. It's hard to get over that. But you do, mostly. Last Sunday, I ran into a couple I know at a Krispy Kreme shop here in Dallas. We got to talking about the Jindal victory, and the wife, a non-native who had fallen in love with Louisiana as a Tulane student, said warmly that she'd love to move back. The husband gave her a look that telegraphed, "Yes, we all would, dear, but come on."

Despite all the sentimental longing for LSU Tigers tailgating and the scent of Zatarain's crawfish boil on your fingers, moving home rarely crosses the minds of us expatriates. Louisiana is a great place to be from, but the sense of fatalism that pervades life there casts doubt on whether it will some day be great place to be. In Louisiana, to be educated is to love the state and hate the state--and, for many, to leave it.

I WANT TO BELIEVE. I do.

I want to believe, despite my memories of voting for the reformer Buddy Roemer in 1987. Despite my memories -- following the news in subsequent years from my new home in Nebraska -- of how Roemer got chewed up and spit out by the unholy trinity of Dat's How We Do Things in Loosiana, Dat's Loosiana for You and, the grafters' favorite, How You Gonna Hep Me Out Here? (wink wink).

I want to believe in the power of one man -- this Brown- and Oxford-educated son of immigrants who came home instead of doing the sensible thing -- to right in a term or two what the natives took 300 years to f*** up this badly.

Dammit to hell, I want to believe. I want to believe. But then I remember this:


And I remember this:

I HAD LEFT LOUISIANA by the time David Duke beat out the incumbent Roemer in the 1991 gubernatorial primary. The onetime Klan leader and Nazi foot soldier damn near became governor of Louisiana, losing to the crook Edwin Edwards but nevertheless winning a majority of the white vote.

Did I mention that, before running for governor, he served in the state House, representing Metairie, a mostly-white suburb of New Orleans?

When Duke made the governor's runoff, I threatened to never set foot in the state again if the little Nazi won. And I was dead serious. I was prepared to boycott everything about Louisiana, cutting off my pittance to the LSU Alumni Association and even giving up my beloved Community Coffee.

I told my parents this . . . my parents, the ardent Duke supporters. And on Election Day, they cast their votes.

For David Duke. I guess that tells you everything you need to know.

HOPE REQUIRES that I believe that the citizenry of my home state wants reform. Wants change. Wants better than what they have now.

I am to believe this of the self-same Louisiana citizenry that tolerates sending their children -- or somebody's children -- to unsafe, crumbling public schools . . . the same Louisiana citizenry that has embraced the likes of David Duke as a mainstream candidate for high office . . . the same Louisiana citizenry that is OK with maintaining a Third World enclave in the richest country in the world.

Compared to that leap of faith, it's kid stuff to believe Jesus Christ makes Himself present flesh and blood, soul and divinity in a wafer of unleavened bread and a chalice of wine. As a Catholic, I most certainly believe the transubstantiation thing.

As a native Louisianian, when it comes to the reality of true reform back home . . . not so much.

This I do know: You can't turn a supertanker heading full-steam for Hades on a dime. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of time. And if it's the SS Louisiana, a lot of dumb luck, too.

Oh, Louisiana, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Louisiana elects a Band-Aid, buys a little time

A New Orleans blogger apologizes for saying Louisiana governor-elect Bobby Jindal was "a right-wing nut job." He, apparently, should have said Jindal "seems like a right-wing nut job."

Well, we all have our opinions. And calling somebody a nut job, in the realm of politics, is definitely a venial sin.

Me, I think -- looking south from up here in Omaha, Neb. -- that Jindal might be a lot of things, but "nut job" isn't one of them.

I am not a right-winger, and I'm not even a Republican. The last New Deal Democrat standing . . . maybe.

BUT IF YOU ASK ME -- which you haven't -- Louisiana is in such bad shape that I don't think standard politics, or standard political thinking, cuts it anymore. I mean, I pretty much deplore how Jindal toes the Bush party line in Congress on many things. And I say this as someone who's the oddest of political birds, the Socially Conservative Political Progressive.

Jindal, however, passed the Who'll Run Louisiana Test on three counts:

1) He has a brain . . . and something of a plan,

2) He has a strong reputation of not being "ethically challenged," and ran on an ethics-reform platform,

3) He's not your typical Louisiana knuckle-dragging, good-ole-boy incompetent.

IN THE SHAPE LOUISIANA'S IN, that's all that matters.

The Crescent City blogger (Editor B, whose site I greatly enjoy, by the way) is disturbed by Jindal's seeming support for the "intelligent design" approach to "origin studies"-- which, by the way, is distinct from "creationism" ("science" slathered over a literalistic approach to the Genesis account of creation).

I can appreciate how that might be of interest. On the other hand . . . so what? As a Catholic, I (with my Church) am agnostic on how God created the universe and life on earth. If scientific evidence points toward evolution over billions of years, fine.

(My problem with "intelligent design" isn't that I think it ultimately is untrue, it's that I think it's philosophy, not hard science.)

BUT I DIGRESS. "Intelligent design" isn't an issue, because it's not gonna be taught (the courts will see to that), and Jindal has bigger fish to fry than trying to make it so.

The bottom line is whether Jindal can make any difference in bringing effective governance to what pretty clearly is a failed state. The problem with Louisiana is the same as it was 140 years ago (and more) -- a deeply deviant civic culture.

Simply, Louisianians have had serious, serious problems figuring out this self-governance thing ever since Thomas Jefferson bought the place and imposed democratic rule. Louisianians, I am ashamed and sad to say, have had serious, serious problems in crafting government capable of fostering an overall standard of living on a par with the rest of the First World.

FOR A WHILE NOW, I have referred to my home state as high-functioning Third World. And New Orleans might not even be that.

In a situation as desperate as that, all the fine points of political haggling go out the window.

There is no such thing as a messiah in politics, but Louisiana simply has no chance whatsoever (and it is down to its last chance before descending to some sort of permanent American Chechnya) without a critical mass of competent, visionary and honest leaders.

I think Jindal came closest to that standard, and I'm glad that Mitch Landrieu will keep his job as lieutenant governor. Frankly, faded country-music star Sammy Kershaw would have been an embarrassment the state hardly could have afforded.

BUT EVEN WITH SOMEONE like Jindal as governor, I think the state still faces extremely long odds. And I think I've found the near-perfect "little story" that illustrates the "big story." (You've heard this before, but it's worth repeating over . . . and over . . . and over again.)

Go to these links:

* Home is where the heartbreak is

* More scenes from 'America's next great city'

* Disbelief in Omaha, or No Frame of Reference

* When we let our kids' schools deteriorate into dumps, is it a human-rights violation?

THESE POSTS contain pictures of my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High, that I took last month when I was back home on vacation. I suspect there are schools all over Baton Rouge -- all over Louisiana -- that don't look much different.

This doesn't look like the United States. This looks like a rural school in a poor Chinese province -- I know; I just saw one last week on the NBC Nightly News. That poor Chinese school looked like a tiny version of Baton Rouge High.

What does it say about Baton Rouge, or Louisiana, when conditions most American communities would deem unfit for stray animals are thought to be perfectly OK for children? And when such has been deemed OK for children for a very long time?

After all, it takes a couple of decades of complete neglect for a school to turn into the kind of dump BRMHS is now.

Trust me. When I graduated from Baton Rouge High in 1979, it was the nicest public school I'd ever attended. (My entire school career was spent in Baton Rouge.) Back then, BRMHS was nice. All the other public schools I'd gone to were varying degrees of dumps.

Now, this is what the city's "flagship" public school looks like.

And this is exactly what a failed state looks like.

If the electorate doesn't care any more than that for public-school children -- for their own children, and for the children of every family that can't afford private school -- all is lost.

BOBBY JINDAL CAN'T FIX THAT. He can't make Louisianians give a damn or even pretend like they belong to a functioning civilization. Only Louisianians themselves can do that.

But until they do, Jindal is the only slim hope of even postponing the day when the rest of the country gives up on Louisiana for good.

When we let our kids' schools deteriorate into dumps, is it a human-rights violation?

Let's ask the United Nations Human Rights Council . . .

Treaties and Human Rights Council Branch
OHCHR-UNOG
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Friday, Oct. 5, 2007


To Whom It May Concern:


I realize this may be something of a stretch -- all right, a big stretch -- but I was wondering whether the deplorable condition of many U.S. public schools, particularly in the context of the United States being the richest nation on Earth, might constitute violations, at least in principle, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I was thinking, particularly, of Articles 24 and 26:

Article 24

1. Every child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.

Article 26

All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Attached are photographs I took last week at my old high school, Baton Rouge (Louisiana) Magnet High School, from which I graduated in 1979. What I found there would seem to indicate that the school, which was not in that condition when I attended there, has been allowed to deteriorate into a state of abject ruin by the East Baton Rouge Parish (county) School Board. It would appear there has been no meaningful maintenance on the building in the 28 years since my graduation, and that the copious amounts of peeling lead-based paint, crumbling terra cotta and plaster, pothole-sized craters in the gymnasium floor, rusted-over metal surfaces and gym lockers, as well as fetid, deteriorating restrooms pose a clear and present threat to the health and well-being of students who spend eight-plus hours a day there.

Furthermore, I've been informed that Baton Rouge Magnet High School is far from the only East Baton Rouge Parish school in that condition, just a particularly egregious example. One could find many schools across the American South -- and in many Northern urban centers -- in similar condition. Again, this in the context of the richest country on Earth.

I also note that -- while many Baton Rouge schools were in relatively poor condition when I matriculated some three decades ago -- Baton Rouge High's deterioration seems to have coincided with the school system's transition from 65-percent (or so) Caucasian to roughly 80-percent African American in racial makeup.
To my mind, this reflects the abject failure of school-system governors, as well as the local electorate and political and civic leadership, to provide clean, safe and adequate educational facilities for all the community's children, regardless of race, class or socio-economic status. Could not this be interpreted as a clear violation of Articles 24 and 26 of the Covenant? After all, parents with the income and inclination are able to shield their children from fetid educational facilities; the poor and working-class, largely, are not.

Is not a proper education in clean, safe, reasonably maintained facilities -- according to the standards and means of their particular country and region -- a basic human right? And is it proper for parents to expect they must pay a surcharge in private-school tuition to obtain what world governments are charged to provide as a basic service to their citizens?

These are the questions I have, and I eagerly await guidance in this matter.


Sincerely,

The Mighty Favog

cc: Charlotte Placide
Superintendent
East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools

Disbelief in Omaha, or No Frame of Reference

There's one important thing I think Louisianians need to grasp that many just have no clue about: They need to know that the dysfunction and, indeed, squalor that many never give a second thought is genuinely puzzling and horrifying to most Americans.

A CASE IN POINT is that the Third World conditions at Baton Rouge's "five star school of academic excellence" leave ordinary people in, say, Omaha, Neb., shaking their heads in disbelief that a community would subject its children to such a dilapidated pit. Ordinary urban folk out here on the edge of the Great Plains have no frame of reference for what I found when I recently went back home . . . to Baton Rouge Magnet High School.

And likewise, I fear ordinary Louisianians have no frame of reference for what a functioning education system looks like. What putting your kids first -- at least as a community -- looks like.

This was brought home big-time when my wife told me about the conversation she had with the film-processing guy when she went to pick up the rolls of black-and-white pictures I shot last week at BRMHS.

AS MRS. FAVOG TELLS IT, the fellow's first question was "Do kids still go to school here?"

Yes, she replied.

"Is it in New Orleans?"

No, she said. She asked how he knew the photos were from Louisiana. He said he saw the state seal on the floor in a photograph.

Mrs. Favog told him it was a school in Baton Rouge, La.

"Was it damaged in the hurricane?" he asked. "I took one look at this and figured it was a photo from the hurricane."

No, that's just the school board's neglect of a school over 30 years, she explained, adding that the history behind BRMHS was similar to some schools here in Omaha. In other words, a magnet school created during desegregation.

Mrs. Favog told him Baton Rouge High was my lifeline -- that it was a magnificent old school when I went there, was on the historic register and that it was the first place I learned there were possibilities out there beyond a working-class life. She then explained that now, many alumni were fighting to get it renovated while the school board seemed to want to tear it down.

"Oh my," he said. "I looked at the photos and thought, 'Oh, those poor kids in New Orleans, having to attend this school after it was damaged in a hurricane.' "

He was sympathetic, and wished the BRMHS alumni and students good luck with our efforts. My wife reports the gentleman seemed genuinely stunned that anybody would be expected to attend school in such a building.

WHAT DO YOU SAY when it's your old school that shocks unsuspecting Midwesterners so? I can't speak for Baton Rougeans, but as an Omahan born, raised and educated in Louisiana's capital city, I'm deeply ashamed.

We pretty much have known for decades that the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board is incapable of shame . . . or of properly running a school system. And we pretty much have always known that there's something in the Gret Stet's drinking water that renders the population incapable of competent self-government.

But are average folks back home capable of shame anymore? Is anyone deeply, soul-shatteringly, unable-to-show-your-face ashamed that this is the best America's Next Great City (TM) has to offer its "best and brightest" teens?

IS THERE NO VOTER who's hang-your-head ashamed of hiring the incompetents who run the schools that educate their children but can't be bothered to keep them from crumbling like a Western ghost town? And whose solution to their own managerial indifference is to tear down the evidence of their crimes against Louisiana students, replacing the blight by throwing up something new that will be in the same sad shape in a generation or so?

Have they, at long last, no shame? Is their blindness, instead, merely a refusal to see?

Magnificent schools like Baton Rouge High -- great despite what and who birthed them and wonderful despite the ruins that house them -- gave many of us children of Louisiana the eyes to see the dysfunction standing plainly before us.

And we were sooooo out of there when we got the chance.

I OFTEN WONDER whether I ought to have stayed and fought. I wonder, too, whether it would have made a damned bit of difference.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, cher! But don't be surprised if, someday soon, you're rouler-ing all by your lonesome.

UPDATE: Don't forget to read the previous two installments of this Baton Rouge High trilogy of posts and pictures here and here. Heck, for that matter, just go to the front page and peruse the whole blog.

You'll be glad you did (wink).