This is a blog about Louisiana. A blog written from not-Louisiana; reporting on Louisiana as observed from the rest of the country. The idea here is that a good Louisiana boy, born and bred, transplanted Up North to seek his fame and fortune, now shares with you Louisiana as it appears to the other good people of America.

Frankly, it's never been an easy tale to tell. Usually all the newspapers here report is 'Congressman Indicted' this and 'Senator and Prostitute' that... along with stories about just how backward things still are in the land that President Jefferson swindled from that French dandy, Napoleon.

But I thought I'd inaugurate this maiden voyage with an inspirational report, a stirring story of how Louisiana is leading the nation. Just to get things off to a nice start. Here is the headline in The Washington Post, Page A4, from Sunday, December 13th, 2009:

"Louisiana serves as model in teacher assessment"

Now there's a headline you don't see everyday -- Louisiana serving as a model of civic improvement. Especially in education. This is a banner day in news from my home state.

The article starts off in Room 46 of J.W. Faulk Elementary School in Lafayette. Now I couldn't find out who J.W. Faulk was from the first ten search pages in Google, but I'm sure he or she is related to Amos Faulk, who used to guide my daddy and brother and me when we went duck hunting out of Chateau Charles down in Hackberry. So I know that we are talking 'heartland' Louisiana. The reporter tells about a teacher preparation program that the U.S. Secretary of Education calls "a model for the nation." It states that "Louisiana has become the first state to tie student test scores into a chain of evaluation that reaches all the way to teacher colleges."

"A lot of people are talking about doing it," said Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College of Columbia University, "but Louisiana got there first." Now that's THE Columbia University, where the North keeps it's big brains -- saying that we got there first. You don't see that every day...

And it just makes me so proud. To think that great minds in my home state have been working hard during the past three governorships to design a program to palpably improve teacher training and classroom learning -- to think that we lead the nation in that task -- just makes my heart glow.

There's so much to be done. From the Upper 49 it always seems so clear that the easiest thing Louisiana could do to raise itself up is competently educate it's citizenry. Our standing in the rankings is not good, I'm at pains to say. Yet here, here is progress, here is promise. And in a school that is 96% African-American...

Wait a minute... I thought we'd gotten past segregated schools...

Oh well, I suppose there's always more to be done.

Let's see how it goes...


- Anonymous Rex