re: Spinoff: Why can't Louisiana be more like Texas economically?

education

Mention the word taxes in La, and everyone freaks out. We pay a crap ton of taxes over here.

You price them out of your major population centers then.

As shitty as that sounds. Its what you do to fix that issue.

Lol wut?

I lived in Austin last year and I've never seen schools that compare. Those high schools are better than most major universities I've seen in Louisiana.

I've lived in NC, CA, went to college in CT, and lived briefly in MA and none of those school systems compare to schools in the Austin area.

Education, education, education.

If Louisiana woke up tomorrow with equivalent public schools to Texas, then I think within two generations the states would be much more akin.

But when your state ranks 49th in the country in education, it's kind of a "you reap what you sow" situation.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this in two pages...

Louisiana has some of the worst infrastructure in the country. Roads, bridges, water main, sewers, storm drainage, telecommunications, etc. With such a decayed infrastructure, it makes financial investment in Louisiana unappealing. Corruption, like with education, has a huge impact.

The main difference is the people. One is a culture on independence and one is a culture of dependence. That existed well before oil or even the industrial revolution. I am not trying to make a political statement here, philosophically they have different views of the role of government. Louisiana also started out with an aristocracy that did not exist in Texas, which furthered that modern philosophy.

Years of political corruption is definitely a factor. Ending the corruption and the lobbying, and promoting high tech, high skilled employers to come to this state would keep the kids that go to LSU from graduating then heading to Houston, which is a fairly large percentage.

But the most important factor is education.

1) Poor families that rely on government handouts don't typically encourage education for their children which breeds even more uneducated welfare recipients. Ergo, a very broad statement of the poor doesn't value education is somewhat accurate. There are outliers
2) These same kids, are going to failing schools. Many of these schools can't be closed for political fallout. Some of the educators in these schools are failing teachers. Due to the bureacracy, they can not be fired, and are simply pushed back to "re-education seminars" for failing teachers, where they typically waste a couple weeks playing on their phones rather than find ways to improve their teaching abilities.
3) Today's schools, especially in BR, are lorded over by 1 person, and a school board that makes decisions for all the BR schools. Yes principles have some input on their schooling, but any changes come from the bureacracy of the school board.
4) The trades are not emphasized enough. Not every person is college material. And kids need to know, you can make a damn good living by learning a trade.


These are just some things i see. How do you fix it? Well some of it can be fixed by ending teachers unions, and some education reforms that doesn't need additional funding, but just put the schooling decisions with the school, and embrace more neighborhood/local schools.

The biggest change has to come with the parents of these kids. I don't know how you force parents to care for the betterment of their children. The only way to do it, IMO, is reforming welfare. Stop enabling cradle to grave government dependency. Cap welfare and UE benefits. Hard lessons have to be learned, but no one has the political courage to do this.

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population demands of politicians

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Define 'demand', because there is no way all of them even vote.

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If Louisiana woke up tomorrow with equivalent public schools to Texas

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What makes good schools?