The core to education is the community

While not directly related to urban development, the recent plans for education in Louisiana have many ramifications to development both local and statewide. I guess I didn't truly understand the importance between education and community development until I moved to Louisiana. I may have grown up in a rural, poverty setting. But public education was very important. I now live in the inner part of Baton Rouge, and would hesitate sending my children to private schools (or risking a lottery for a charter school). Thus my suburban job makes me realize why people still move to the suburbs with children.

My overall thoughts about the governor's proposal would create a huge education gap between haves and have nots; all while getting rid of public education in general. But that’s more my political view coming from a family of public school teachers. From an urban development view, education needs to be tackled at the core. Louisiana has a huge income, poverty, and racial divide. These factors run deep in Louisiana and create unstable communities, and thus unstable families. The failing points in our schools aren’t generally teachers, it’s the overall situation. A child's environment is directly related to their performance. The blame can be thrown back on the parents that they “aren’t working hard enough”, or “just want hand outs”, etc, etc, etc… but even in the rare case this is true, why is that the child’s fault. 

Nor is the problem embedded in the school buildings and teachers performance. Blaming teachers is the last thing we want to do.  That will just encourage the good ones to leave the state. All while allowing private schools to pick and choose which students they can accept; leaving behind a massive group. In the last fifty years Louisiana went from a strong state social system, to a very weak social system. State run colleges are so underfunded that we have no prestigious state school. Our healthcare system is dumping the uninsured. Our infrastructure is failing badly. Yet we have this new culture of “no government is good government”. Thus the state government has underfunded all these programs which is the foundation to our state’s economy. Education already has a history of non-importance in the state. All while the school’s are still recovering from segregation of less than fifty years ago. That problem in itself doesn't go away overnight (although a good portion of society seems to think it did).

Thus there is a huge list of problems that need to be tackled. It’s complicated. If it was easy, previous governors would have done it a long time ago. Heck, the solutions in the plan aren’t even revolutionary. The action steps are the same ones conservatives have been touting for years (where are the results?).  Our governor is just getting on board? In his second term? The plan needs to be revolutionary, not the same. There needs to be community based plans in place like Detroit. Plans at the community and family level within the school areas. Instead, the government is just saying “we failed”, and now if your special enough we will try and fix the problem. Assuming all the pieces fall into place – like, is there room at the school you want to attend? Can you provide transportation to that school? Are your parents willing to partake in your life? There are so many unknowns. Yet the governor says that his solution is “easy” and “cheaper”?

Meanwhile, our inner cities continue to drain like it's the 1980's. Leaving behind neighborhoods segregated-era created neighborhoods. Our past history requires the state to focus on the many social aspects of education. Not just the infrastructure within the school.