Friday, May 16, 2008
HOT TOPICS
Closing The Gap: Louisiana's Challenge
| 2007-08-12 | |
| By most any measure, Louisiana roads and bridges are a mess. “Our roads are crumbling,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco told lawmakers earlier this year. A national transportation research group, TRIP, panned the state’s system in a report issued last January. Some states have problems with traffic congestion and bridge conditions, Frank Moretti, spokesman for the group, said in a recent interview. Other states are plagued by funding shortages, highways riddled with potholes and increasing road fatalities. | |
 | |
| The push to increase state aid for roads and bridges by at least $500 million annually next focuses on this year’s race for governor and the Legislature, highway advocates say. The aim? Convince enough state lawmakers and Louisiana’s next governor that road improvements need a huge investment in 2008. “We will hit the campaign trail,” said Derrell Cohoon, a consultant with the Louisiana Association of General Contractors. | |
| |
| When Indiana needed to find money for a long list of crucial highway work, state officials did something unusual. They leased the state’s 157-mile Indiana Toll Road, in operation for half a century, to a private venture for $3.8 billion for 75 years. The lease created a source of money to build new highways and repair others. | |
| |
| 2007-08-05 | |
| Over the past 12 years, Paul Vallas has gained nationwide attention for helping improve public school systems in Chicago and Philadelphia. Now, as the newly hired superintendent of hurricane-damaged schools in New Orleans, Vallas has laid out an ambitious agenda. He says the plan could finally close the huge gap in classroom performance between black and Hispanic children and white and Asian children. | |
| |
| In the late 1990s, Gov. Mike Foster launched an ambitious system of accountability for public elementary and high schools. Annual testing, along with penalties and rewards, was supposed to spur higher student achievement. Despite notable improvement over the past nine years, Louisiana still has among the lowest high school graduation rate and student achievement in the country. | |
| |
| Students in Louisiana's public schools trail their counterparts in other states on many fronts. Addressing the problems can be complicated. Here are some of the challenges the state faces, what might be done to help and what stands in the way. | |
| |
| Rankings of Louisiana education. | |
| |
| 2007-07-29 | |
| Higher education funding is first to be cut when budgets are short or changed for the year. This lack of dedicated funding creates gaps in the number of people who pursue higher education. |
| |
|
| Louisiana's high school dropout rate is the highest in the southern region. This dropout rate is affecting the number of individuals who will seek higher education in Louisiana and therefore affecting the economy. |
| |
|
| Jordan Blum, Advocate writer, talks about higher education and the effect more grant or research dollars could make to our economy. |
| |
| Louisiana must improve its universities, community colleges and technical schools to produce a better work force and spur the economy. Here are some of the challenges the state faces, what might be done to help and what stands in the way. | |
| |
| A look at Louisiana education against the national averages. | |
| |
| When Louisiana’s petroleum-based economy tanked in the mid-1980s, the state’s colleges and universities were among the biggest victims. Just before the oil bust, funding for Louisiana’s higher-education system had risen enough to be on par with many other states in the region. That success was short-lived. Higher education — one of the most vulnerable parts of the state budget — has long been a prime target for cuts. By 1990, state funding for state-supported colleges and universities had slipped to 61 percent of the Southern regional average, according to the Louisiana Board of Regents. | |
| |
| 2007-07-22 | |
|
| Advocate business writer, Gary Perilloux, says Lousisiana should look at new industries to help rebuild the New Orleans economy. |
| |
|
| Louisiana business owners give the economy in Louisiana a C and discuss the obstacles of doing business here. |
| |
|
| Gary Perilloux, Advocate business writer discusses how Louisiana ranks when compared to other state economies. |
| |
| The recent bidding battle between Louisiana and Alabama for ThyssenKrupp’s $4 billion steel mill exposed a poorly kept secret — states covet big capital investments with lucrative jobs. Alabama offered $811 million in incentives, plus a 30-year tax credit allowing the steelmaker to recoup its entire investment. Louisiana offered $1.6 billion in incentives, plus a mechanism to match Alabama’s 30-year deal. The scale of the packages speaks to the keen competition for mega-deals. | |
| |
| NEW ORLEANS — Chevron is relocating to St. Tammany Parish. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold moved to Phoenix. Tidewater is eyeing Houston, and the hurricane-damaged Dominion Tower office building across from the Superdome remains shuttered nearly 23 months after Hurricane Katrina. | |
| |
| Two business lessons Louisiana should know by now are that economic development isn’t cheap — and the rules can change overnight. Witness the summer of 2005. A year after Gov. Kathleen Blanco landed her first big business coup — a $100 million investment in Alexandria lured by $65 million in incentives — Union Tank Car had 235 skilled welders poised to build rail cars. | |
| |
| 2007-07-15 | |
|
| LSU political scientist Kirby Goodell looks at governmental reform and progress in Louisiana. |
| |
|
| WBRZ reporter John Pastorek looks the challenges facing the state and the next governor. |
| |
|
| Advocate reporter Penny Brown discusses her article and the problems facing the state. |
| |
| It’s the perpetual punch line to a very old joke: When state rankings come out on education or the economy or almost anything else that truly matters, Louisiana is first among the worst and last among the best. But there’s a growing sentiment that the time for such self-mockery has long since passed. A feeling that Louisiana — with its pockmarked roads, trailing schools, burgeoning poverty, dubious politics and mass exodus of its college-educated youth — has reached a do-or-die point. That this year just might be the time to do something about how far the state has fallen behind the rest of the nation. | |
| |
| 2007-07-14 | |
| |
| |
| Louisiana's Challenge | |
| |
ADVERTISEMENTS
Now on 2theadvocate.com
