RE: Closing the gap: Louisiana continues to lag behind the rest of the nation, can a new governor and a new Legislature change things?

By Penny Brown, Advocate staff writer

Published: Jul 15, 2007

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/8515062.html

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Dear Representative Jindal,

You've got a lot of supporters out there and I'm one of them. This article really concerns me, though.

Why is the Baton Rouge Advocate reporting on the front page of Sunday's newspaper, 15 July 2007, that the public school dropout rate for Louisiana in 2002 was 7% as compared to 3.9% nationwide?

That was five years ago! Is that supposed to make us feel better that's what it supposedly was in 2002? Where did those statistics come from, anyway, might I ask?

According to a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Urban Institute released on 19 May 2005 – (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ - ED489170 Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis in the South) – only about 68% of all students nationally who enter 9th grade will graduate "on time" with regular diplomas in 12th grade. That means the dropout rate was 32% nationwide in 2002. Big difference from 3.9%, I would say.

In 2002, the dropout rate in Louisiana was 33%; and that’s a lot of people who don't have high school diplomas. I'll bet they have a hard time reading, too, just like a lot of people who end up being incarcerated.

What else isn't right about this article?

LSU Associate Professor Jeffrey Sadow is quoted about the hold of populism in Louisiana and how the state foots the bill. Well, it's our money, isn't it? What, the good ol' boys with "the dulled drive" don't have enough yet and they want to rob the low-income and the workers for more of the few benefits that help sustain our poverty-stricken lives?

Some of this situation was created when the unpaid workers of the 1800s were sent out into the world with no land to work. And now, innumerable poverty traps abound here, trailer parks among them, but the good ol' boys must be making a lot of money off them because they don't seem to be going away. Most of them have lots of kids but no playgrounds.

Let's get real - a lot of people still live in substandard housing – the kind that shocked me as a child along with the "white" and "colored" drinking fountains when we traveled down here from our home in Denver, Colorado to visit our grandparents in Ponchatoula. Yes, I am old enough to remember that. In some ways, things have not changed very much here at all.

Education is a way out – but I see an alarming illiteracy that shouldn't even be happening. Why does the Department of Education allow so many thousands of children to go through school and still be practically illiterate? I bet if we started teaching two-year-olds to read we wouldn't have any problems. The older kids need any individual attention they can get.

What does handle troubling population shifts mean? Not enough of the middle or moneyed classes? That's the trend in the United States - 50% of the wealth being shifted to 10% of the population. And all the while, taxpayers are going in debt $10 billion a month - to the Chinese - for the war in Iraq and the Chinese are building up a very big army, people.

I digress – back to Louisiana. Oh, yeah, in Loyola University Professor Bill Quigley's article, How to destroy an African American city - lessons from Katrina

(People's Weekly World 02 July 2007 - http://www.pww.org/article/view/11341/), he sounds a little frustrated with the system – like maybe he wants to stick it to the man. I know exactly how he feels. Professor Quigley's taken a sabbatical - I hope he's having a wonderful time because I bet he sees himself as one of the lucky ones, too.

Why are homeowners so frustrated with Road Home – does anybody care? IFC Corp. and Road Home should be answering a hell of a lot more questions than they are, people. This is our money we are talking about – they're getting paid $750+ MILLION to hand out money to homeowners that had to be FINGERPRINTED and PHOTOGRAPHED many months ago! What's going on? Is this just a way to get dope on people or what? Who's making money on Road Home – really?

And why are renters and public housing residents getting the shaft? If Katrina and Rita had happened in Boulder, Colorado, well, I bet people would have a decent place to live by now. Why don't we just give the public housing to the residents – is the state afraid of letting people have that much power? And did people forget while that the beautiful brick buildings in New Orleans public housing DID NOT FLOOD and are still in good shape, they are still CLOSED?

Have people forgotten that hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes in the hurricanes and 1,800 people died? Well, I haven't.

Good that we're coming back so now we can have all the laid-off state workers scrap it out with all the other unemployed people for all the low-paying and risky jobs. Wow, and just think, one might have one of those good state jobs one can hang on to if one is lucky. Although the state can abuse one as much as it wants because there are no unions or Labor Board for the workers.

Sounds to me like this move to change things is going to make low-income and working people's lives even more miserable than they already are. Maybe we'll just move someplace else or scrap it out with the Latino invasion. Too late people, we've already taken over.

If any of this bamboozle is what you are is going to do when you get in the governor's office, I'm taking back my vote. Please tell me it ain't so, Bobby!

Sincerely,

Catherine Ann Burns

Springfield, Louisiana

Thank you, Afro-Goddess.

I too am sick of this assumption that Obama's blackness is cause for instantaneous receivership of my black vote.

Guess what? Black people are as concerned with other socio-economic and global issues as any other ethnic group. Why is there still this mentality that we vote as some monolithic entity?! Black guy running, well you know the blacks are gonna vote for him....ummmmm...NO!

I know I have a crapload of other things that I am concerned about as a citizen of this country and planet, that don't have a damn thing to do with being black.

And it surely seems white people are more obssessed with his blackness than anyone else....and you thought we were all living together nicely in a melting pot....umm. NO!

It's still early and I haven't made any decision on who is getting my vote. The one thing you can count on is that it won't be a Republican...sorry, had enough of that, but I bet you already assumed that, didn't ya.

Frankly, I need for these candidates to start throwing down some specifics on how they are going to actually pay for and execute their many grand plans for improvement, prosperity and growth of this nation.

PS - Kudos on the call for some black writers on Salon!

D. Dickerson, I just don't even have the words...a sad representation...she does keep it spicy up in here, but she's no sista of mine.