Letter: How to draw educated populace
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The Advocate asked what would make educated people want to live in Louisiana?
Here are the answers of an educated person:
1. Roads: Build the loop. Make trucks use it instead of Interstate 10. Widen Interstate 12. Connect all the cities and rural areas with divided four-lanes with wide shoulders. Getting stuck behind farm equipment is no fun. Even rural areas should be accessible if we want educated people to live here.
2. Public transportation. Educated people are green. The bus system in East Baton Rouge Parish should be a small equivalent of Atlanta’s MARTA and connect with state-mandated regional systems in the other metro parishes. No one should be out of reach of a bus. For the future, consider light rail from Sorrento to St. Francisville connected to buses, commuter trains to all the cities and express buses to the plants.
3. Fix the schools: Make quality school buildings a priority. Hire only fully certified teachers with education degrees. Dispose of teachers who cannot pass the PRAXIS. Require a master’s degree within five years of employment and pay off all student loans for those who agree to work in Louisiana schools for five years. Pay teachers above the NATIONAL average. Allow teachers to unionize and make job protection and contracts universal. Allow only teachers to be principals and superintendents. Do not allow the Legislature to consort with religious groups to educate our children. Ensure that any school that gets state money is required to educate all special-needs children. Develop multiple options for graduation that meet the state’s employment needs. Treat teachers as gold. We are among the most educated of professionals.
4. Tell Gov. Bobby Jindal to stop courting religious extremists and letting them dictate government policy. Discourage “value voting.” It is selfish, ignorant, uneducated voting. Conservative churches aren’t going to refuse to assist Louisiana in a disaster. That would make them Sodomites (Ezekiel 16:48-50).
5. Eliminate excessive prison sentences, dangerous juvenile jails and trying children as adults. Emphasize rehabilitation. Educated people like it when lawbreakers get their lives together. Dispose of prosecutors who become ecstatic about imposing the death penalty. A sentence of life without parole should be rare and positive alternatives to incarceration the norm.
6. Create government policies that make job-based prejudice unacceptable. Reinstate job protection for gay state employees. The Jena 6 and David Duke running for governor were both gross embarrassments to the entire Southeast, not just Louisiana.
Most Fortune 500 companies have domestic partner benefits and policies to prevent discrimination. Why would the educated owners of these companies want to locate in a state that mistreats minorities?
Support equal rights for all minorities, strong hate crime laws and the real family values of acceptance and equality for all.
Rhonda Browning
educator
Gonzales
Here are the answers of an educated person:
1. Roads: Build the loop. Make trucks use it instead of Interstate 10. Widen Interstate 12. Connect all the cities and rural areas with divided four-lanes with wide shoulders. Getting stuck behind farm equipment is no fun. Even rural areas should be accessible if we want educated people to live here.
2. Public transportation. Educated people are green. The bus system in East Baton Rouge Parish should be a small equivalent of Atlanta’s MARTA and connect with state-mandated regional systems in the other metro parishes. No one should be out of reach of a bus. For the future, consider light rail from Sorrento to St. Francisville connected to buses, commuter trains to all the cities and express buses to the plants.
3. Fix the schools: Make quality school buildings a priority. Hire only fully certified teachers with education degrees. Dispose of teachers who cannot pass the PRAXIS. Require a master’s degree within five years of employment and pay off all student loans for those who agree to work in Louisiana schools for five years. Pay teachers above the NATIONAL average. Allow teachers to unionize and make job protection and contracts universal. Allow only teachers to be principals and superintendents. Do not allow the Legislature to consort with religious groups to educate our children. Ensure that any school that gets state money is required to educate all special-needs children. Develop multiple options for graduation that meet the state’s employment needs. Treat teachers as gold. We are among the most educated of professionals.
4. Tell Gov. Bobby Jindal to stop courting religious extremists and letting them dictate government policy. Discourage “value voting.” It is selfish, ignorant, uneducated voting. Conservative churches aren’t going to refuse to assist Louisiana in a disaster. That would make them Sodomites (Ezekiel 16:48-50).
5. Eliminate excessive prison sentences, dangerous juvenile jails and trying children as adults. Emphasize rehabilitation. Educated people like it when lawbreakers get their lives together. Dispose of prosecutors who become ecstatic about imposing the death penalty. A sentence of life without parole should be rare and positive alternatives to incarceration the norm.
6. Create government policies that make job-based prejudice unacceptable. Reinstate job protection for gay state employees. The Jena 6 and David Duke running for governor were both gross embarrassments to the entire Southeast, not just Louisiana.
Most Fortune 500 companies have domestic partner benefits and policies to prevent discrimination. Why would the educated owners of these companies want to locate in a state that mistreats minorities?
Support equal rights for all minorities, strong hate crime laws and the real family values of acceptance and equality for all.
Rhonda Browning
educator
Gonzales
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