Governor Jeff Landry’s Education Policy Council provides its recommendations on improving public education. Jeff Palermo has the story…
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To increase public awareness of police misconduct in the state, The ACLU of Louisiana has launched a comprehensive dashboard of police killings and violence. Brooke Thorington has more.
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Governor Landry’s K-12 Education Policy has released its recommendations for improving public education. Erin Bendily with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy served on that committee and she says one of their recommendations is to expand school choice…
Bendily says there are options to traditional public schools, including home schooling, charter schools and micro schools, which are smaller schools loosely structured with private schools.
Republicans in the Legislature the last couple of years have pushed for education savings accounts. Bendily says they are optimistic it will approved this year and that would allow families to use state dollars to pay for private schools or other learning expenses…
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Bendily says K-12 education policy council also recommends bolstering teacher recruitment efforts and provide flexible state funding for teacher compensation to allow school systems to meet their greatest local workforce needs…
Bendily says the report also recommends that the state revamps its school rating system. She says schools should receive more credit for improving students’ scores on standardized tests, even if the overall score is below average.
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Louisiana has not executed anyone since 2010 but Governor Jeff Landry will push for legislators to find new ways to carry out executions in next month’s special session. Landry says the session will focus on crime and highlight the suffering of victims’ families whose killers remain on death row.
The state has had trouble obtaining the drugs to carry out executions.
Landry says other states including Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama have continued capital punishment despite a shortage of drugs by pharmaceutical companies. He says death penalty cases can be lengthy and cost the state millions.
Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas as a new method to execute a death-row prisoner last week. Landry opposed granting clemency to more than 50 death row inmates last year.
Landry says there are families across the state that have suffered tremendously from the loss of a loved as a result of crime. He says the state has promised those families justice.
The state currently has 59 people on death row.
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To increase public awareness of police misconduct in the state, The ACLU of Louisiana has launched a comprehensive dashboard of police killings and violence. ACLU Data Analyst Elijah Appelson says they created the dashboard to increase accessibility to the data and amplify the voices of individuals who are victims of police violence.
A third reason for the dashboard is to ensure police accountability.
Appelson says as they compiled the data, they found three disturbing trends. Between January 2013 and January 2024, there have been 116 police killings over the 132-month period, almost one a month.
The data also indicated 76 percent of those police killings were for non-violent offenses. For example, traffic stops, domestic disturbances, and mental health checks.
Because there are no mandates for law enforcement to report misconduct, Appelson says policing data is difficult to come. The ACLU is hoping the public will gain a better understanding of the prevalence of police violence in Louisiana and that local agencies can do their own analysis with the data.
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The ACLU also encourages those who’ve been victims of police violence to report such incidents on their website.
You can view the dashboard at LAaclu.org
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In Avoyelles Parish 36-year-old Joshua Nugent was killed Saturday after he barricaded himself in his Evergreen home. Sheriff’s deputies were called after Nugent allegedly made bomb threats to his neighbors and destroyed property. Master Trooper Casey Wallace says State Police negotiators and SWAT also assisted.
Wallace says they negotiated with Nugent for several hours.
The investigation is ongoing.