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Friday, September 21, 2012

Louisiana Educator: Chicken Processors Preferred to Teachers

Louisiana Educator: Chicken Processors Preferred to Teachers:


Chicken Processors Preferred to Teachers

Why would the state of Louisiana spend millions of taxpayer dollars to keep a chicken processing plant in North Louisiana from closing, yet next year the state will allow local school systems to lose teaching jobs to out of state providers? The reason the Governor and his staff gave for awarding a chicken processing plant a large subsidy a couple of years ago was to protect local jobs from being sent out of state because of the closing of a Louisiana facility. The jobs to be saved by subsidizing the chicken plant were by all accounts low paying minimal skills jobs. In the case of the Course Choice program which allows Louisiana teachers to be laid off so that students can get almost unlimited classes from out of state instructors, tax monies are being used to send college trained jobs out of state!

In many of our rural parishes, education is one of the biggest industries. Governor Jindal has often pointed out that his administration prefers to attract and retain jobs that require college trained workers. Why would Louisiana want to ship college educated jobs out of state particularly in rural parishes where education workers