The Recovery School District ranks first among more than 100 school districts nationally for its school choice offerings, a report from the Brookings Institution said Tuesday. The state-run district was judged by The Brown Center on Education Policy, with results posted on Brookings’ Education Choice and Competition Index, a web application that ranks school districts […]
Category: Government & Politics
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Schools
Live blog recap: Jindal speaks on education policy at Brookings
Gov. Bobby Jindal is in Washington, D.C., today to deliver a keynote address at a Brookings Institution event on education. According to Brookings, Jindal will offer “his reflections on education reform in his state and the nation in the context of school choice and competition.” He will speak at 12:50 p.m. CST. Jindal will undoubtedly […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Live blog recap: City Council approves water rate increase
The New Orleans City Council voted 5-2 to double water and sewer rates over the next eight years. The proposed rate increase has roiled city politics in recent days after Council President Stacy Head called on her six colleagues to postpone the vote in order to obtain more information. The city’s Sewerage & Water Board […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Water board details spending plan as rate hike vote looms
With a vote scheduled Thursday that could double water rates in New Orleans by 2020, Sewerage & Water Board officials on Wednesday bowed to public pressure and spelled out how they plan to spend $582.7 million in extra money. The New Orleans City Council appears likely to approve the rate increase, backed aggressively by Mayor […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
No clear answers on what city water rate increase would pay for
Less than two days before the New Orleans City Council decides whether to double water and sewer rates over eight years, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and city officials haven’t explained exactly how the $583 million in extra money would be spent. The Lens has asked the Sewerage & Water Board for concrete answers since Thursday but […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Schools
BESE approves online providers despite judge nixing pay plan
Forty-five online schools, colleges, and other educators are one step closer to instructing Louisiana public school students, a committee from the state’s top education board decided Tuesday. That’s despite a ruling by a Baton Rouge-area judge last week that using state education money to pay these providers violate the Louisiana constitution. The Board of Elementary […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Council president seeks delay of vote on huge water-rate increase
New Orleans City Council President Stacy Head accused Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Monday of trying to ram a doubling of sewage and water rates through the council on Thursday, without, she said, the issue having been fully vetted. Head is asking her colleagues to postpone the vote because she said the Sewerage & Water Board […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Schools
Ethics Board faults Moton principal for hiring kin
The principal of Robert Moton Charter Elementary School employed and promoted two of her daughters-in-law, in violation of ethics laws, state officials contend. The Louisiana Board of Ethics filed charges against Moton principal Paulette Bruno on Nov. 19. The charges were posted Monday on the board’s website. The Division of Administrative Law’s Ethics Adjudicatory Board, […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Opinion
With staffers flacking online, Letten didn’t need enemies
Jim Letten I’ve read several lamentations about the damage Perricone’s activities might have done to the image of Letten’s office in the public mind. But if the image conjured is, in fact, a more accurate one than what Letten’s fans in the press tend to cultivate then what will we have lost besides a distorting […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Old debt pushes up cost of state pension systems
In the past five years, schools have had to pay more to participate in the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana — rising from 15 percent of an employer’s eligible payroll in 2008-09 to about 25 percent in 2012-13. Why the jump? The short answer: The teachers retirement system is trying to make up for underfunding […]