How To Improve Public Education In Louisiana

Hy and Christopher ponder how to improve public education in Louisiana, and one of the best opportunities that is going on is happening up in Monroe. The first International Baccalaureate school, with the IB educational program available for students from the very beginning opens its doors in Monroe.
Educator Adam Ryland joins us to talk about the opportunities of multidisciplinary education and engagement with students. St. Frederick High School in Monroe is an IB World School offering the Middle Years Program (MYP) for grades 7-10, focusing on inquiry, international-mindedness, and holistic student development. While this is a prominent IB school in the area, other schools worldwide offer various IB programs, such as the Diploma Programme (DP) for the final years of high school. It offers hope for the Pelican State’s moribund educational system.
Hy, then, embarks on a monologue on the impact of Charlie Kirk on free speech and the political environment.
We also mentioned the Mayor’s race and the impact of turnout…
Duplessis’ Fight for Black Votes
By Christopher Tidmore
The L.I.F.E. Ballot endorsed Councilwoman Helena Moreno for Mayor of New Orleans. The Louisiana Federation of independent Electors, an organization of which Dutch Morial co-founded and for which Marc Morial served as guiding force for decades, has advocated for a white candidate to become mayor. The organization most identified with the fight to elect the first Black mayor nearly nearly five decades ago now endorses a white candidate.
This is just a glimpse of the climb that Sen. Royce Duplessis must accomplish by 8 PM on October 11. He must convince a supermajority of Black voters in Orleans Parish to cast for him in order to have a shot at a runoff slot and another month to fight. The state Senator’s original strategy of creating a biracial coalition, particularly with Republican support, has collapsed as 53% of GOP voters back Moreno and the remainder tend to support the Republican candidate Frank Janusa.
Duplessis’ best hope would be to force a runoff by a narrow margin, and the chances of that are as narrow as electorally conceivable. Moreno commanded 49 percent in a University of New Orleans survey last week, followed by Duplessis with 15 percent and Councilman Oliver Thomas with 13 percent.
However, one in five respondents remain undecided, with an overwhelming number of these African-American voters, and upon this Black electorate Duplessis has gambled. The state Senator runs on a strategy of African-American dissatisfaction with the fights between the city council and the mayor and anxiety of electing another Caucasian mayor of New Orleans in a Black majority city. Consequently, he seeks to drive up African-American turnout, with himself as the beneficiary. It is the only means for Duplessis’ gambel to pay off and earn a runoff slot— if Black voters respond to his message.
The state Senator responded to a question in a recent forum that underlines his strategy. He subsequently broadcast this question on every social media platform, almost minute by minute. As Duplessis explains his campaign thesis, “The one thing we’re not gonna do is ignore race. Because race-bases issues cannot be solved by avoiding the conversation around race. Your question pointed out the stark racial disparities around economics in New Orleans. New Orleans is still a majority Black city, but we’re not just a majority Black city. We are one of the most culturally rich cities in the world where the contributions of Black people mean so much—not just a New Orleans culture—but to the entire world.”
However, Helena Moreno has done a very good job in courting African-American voters, and their leaders, which could thwart the state Senator’s strategy. Congressman Troy Carter, heads the other political faction in Orleans Parish, and he endorsed the Councilwoman’s campaign, just like L.I.F.E. and a myriad other Black elected officials—leading to questions of whether higher turnout will even affect Moreno’s glide-path to 50.1 percent on October 11.