re: Baton Rouge council OKs $1.7 million purchase of land in Rouzan for new library branch

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Shut it down. The most OT post ever. AIN'T NEED NO MORE BOOKS, PAAAAAWWWWWWLL.

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Well, let's just build 100 libraries. Let's put one on every corner

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yep. but the ISDs are an unfair comparison. the culture "5 hours to the west" is different than the culture in the BR public school system. Thats what certain areas of the

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I believe everyone involved knows that children that do not have parents that care about education as a whole are not going to do as well in school as children who have parents that care about education and stay on their kids to learn.

What school officials want to have you believe is that they can overcome this enormous issue if you raise school taxes so they can give teachers pay raises, build new schools, repair schools, and provide better discipline which will not fix the basic problem.

EBR went this route twenty years ago and scores are still bad and schools are still failing.

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Mudminnow knows this subject backwards and forwards

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Yeah he works it into every post in every thread.

Klark Kent would your wife be able to point us in the right direction of comparing ISDs in Houston area and baton Rouge and suburbs.

I have no statistical information regarding the quality of education. I have talked to many from Louisiana here in NW Houston. Basically all their kids had to have a tutor in several subjects for the first year to get caught up and that's coming from Zachary, Prarieville, etc.. Two of my neighbors are teachers and often said same thing and some of the private school kids in Louisiana needed tutors. Many don't believe that but just what I've been told. My oldest is 4 and in pre-K so don't have much to compare.

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Klark Kent would your wife be able to point us in the right direction of comparing ISDs in Houston area and baton Rouge and suburbs.

I have no statistical information regarding the quality of education. I have talked to many from Louisiana here in NW Houston. Basically all their kids had to have a tutor in several subjects for the first year to get caught up and that's coming from Zachary, Prarieville, etc.. Two of my neighbors are teachers and often said same thing and some of the private school kids in Louisiana needed tutors. Many don't believe that but just what I've been told. My oldest is 4 and in pre-K so don't have much to compare.

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i can ask. but i doubt she would have access to that type of data. she isn't in an administrative position in the ISDs she works for. She teaches AVID (college prep) and sponsors Student Council.

but i don't doubt that there are some children from EBR and surrounding area schools that would need tutoring when moving to a good Houston area ISD. (not HISD).

I've met a few of her top ranked kids, extremely intelligent individuals who i have no doubt will succeed in college and whatever career they so choose.

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No one spends money on libraries like Baton Rouge

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The Goodwood library is awesome. I'm not sure why the city needs to give that crook Spinosa any money though.

Doubled, I don't think so. Most are connected to college campuses free for the public to use or attached to a museum or other venue. I will need to look into that. But I haven't seen many stand alone.

They have a bunch of classes offered for the public through the library but may be at a learning center or educational complex.

$1.7 million for the land

$3.4 million probably for the building

$1.0 million per year probably for a few dozen employees, ~ $5.0 million over the first several years

$0.2 million per year in utilities and maintenance, ~ $1.0 million over the first several years

Add that all up and you get over $11 million for a library... you could buy an awful lot of smart phones (20,000+) and give them to people so they could have access to the internet and find literally anything that they’d find at the library.

But people wouldn’t get their kickbacks that way.

I love these “libraries are stupid” threads from people who never use our libraries and so never see the throngs of people that do use them.

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I'd be good with us having 3 or 4 but we have like 15

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For shits and giggles I looked at some other municipalities and their populations.

Baton Rouge (EBR Parish - 440,171): 14 branches
Mobile (Mobile County - 412,992): 9 branches
Birmingham (Jefferson County - 658,466): 19 branches
Houston (Harris County - 4,092,459): 34 branches
Austin (Travis County - 1,024,266): 23 branches
Jackson (Hinds County - 245,285): 14 branches
NOLA (Orleans Parish - 343,829): 14 branches
Lake Charles (Calcasieu Parish - 192,768): 13 branches

The bigger cities have higher population density and consequently likely have larger branches, so a better metric would have been land area.. but that was way too much work on my phone. Point being that BR doesn’t really have any more or less libraries than other cities. It’s just that the downtown branch has given everyone a sour taste (for good reason).