School choice for children and parents has long been a passion for Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister.
“It has been a long journey that began in 1988,” McCollister recalls in his latest column. “I remember when Gov. Buddy Roemer implemented teacher evaluation—only to have the last ‘Gov. Edwards’ come into office and roll it back. That set back Louisiana children. Edwards failed them, and we must not have history repeat itself.”
McCollister says that after recent monumental education reforms and expansion of school choice in Louisiana, there are serious concerns that Gov. John Bel Edwards and his fellow Democrats and teacher union supporters have introduced bills in this session aiming to repeat history.
“We can’t let that happen to our children again,” he writes.
McCollister hopes that “this time there is too much parental and community support for school choice because of satisfied customers who don’t want to go back to a monopoly of government-run schools.”
He notes that the 2016 Louisiana Survey revealed that more than two-thirds of Louisiana residents support increasing the number of charter schools, while about half support vouchers to give students and their parents more choice.
“I believe many more elected officials and voters want their tax dollars used for the educational benefit of children—not simply the employment of adults,” he writes.
Also in his new column, McCollister touches on the controversy surrounding the potential move of BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo from its current home in Baker to one of two sites in south Baton Rouge identified in a recent report from a consultant. The report recommends moving the zoo to either BREC’s Airline Highway Park or a vacant site near the intersection of Nicholson Drive and Bluebonnet Boulevard.
“As I have said, this is a parish asset and to survive and thrive it needs a new location where there is traffic and access,” McCollister writes. “The consultants are listening to the marketplace, not the NAACP or politicians who want to keep things as they are. The BREC board needs to acknowledge the expertise of the consultants and that a new zoo must attract locals as well as tourists from other parishes to generate revenue. They should make a wise economic decision for the future, not a political one.”
Read the full column, in which McCollister’s also highlights the upcoming Urban Congress on African American Males in Baton Rouge, the April 9 special election to fill late state Rep. Ronnie Edward’s House District 29 seat and WBRZ reporter Chris Nakamoto’s recent arrest in White Castle. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
