Letter: Jindal commitment to education questioned
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s commitment to education has always been unconvincing, but two recent failures on his part confirm that the last thing we need to do is allow him to have a destructive rubber-stamp Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Exhibit A is the possibly intentional failure to honor an $80 million dollar grant agreement, which would have provided for Internet access to rural areas throughout the state. For a governor who constantly touts workforce development and practical education, this failure is mystifying. Any educator and practically any employer would tell us that having high-speed access to information technology and having literacy in that technology are pretty much necessities in today’s world. However, if Jindal’s aim is to keep over half of Louisianans in the dark, then he’s succeeding.
Exhibit B is the certainly intentional failure to secure early childhood education funds. We could drown in the studies, statistics and anecdotal evidence that demonstrate how a child’s future can be easily predicted by whether or not he or she receives pre-kindergarten education. With Louisiana’s typically negative education record, high dropout rates, below average standardized test scores, lack of preparedness for higher education and mid-to-high-skilled vocations, our governor should’ve swallowed his ideological pride and personally delivered the $60 million available dollars to Louisiana’s pre-K programs. However, if Jindal’s goal is to promote an easily exploitable underclass, then he’s blowing the grade curve.
In view of those failures, which were most likely willfully achieved, the runoff elections for members of BESE are an opportunity for the people who value this state’s future. To make sure Jindal’s education demolition crew does not have the opportunity to plant saboteurs in what is becoming one of Louisiana’s most important governing bodies of education, voters should make sure that BESE is composed of people with diverse, not monolithic, ideas on how to improve education in Louisiana. We and, most importantly, Louisiana’s children need truth-searching arguments and healthy proposals coming out of that board.
Our state needs an education board that will not answer primarily to the governor, his political allies and his friends in business; our state needs one that will answer first to professional educators, parents and students. To put it another way, maybe we should look at the Finnish model of education instead of the failure model.
Louisiana’s colorful but checkered history has shown us how cronyism sacrifices the many for the few. It’s no time to fall back on bad habits now, and education’s no place for self-righteous and self-serving opportunists.
The legacy we leave for Louisiana’s future generations is in our hands as we press those buttons in the poll booths.
Ben Lanier-Nabors
educator
Brusly