Toward a Better Louisiana
If tomorrow, Louisiana could become the state we all want it to be, what would it look like?
That, in essence, is a question the Council for A Better Louisiana has been asking citizens for six years, and their answers have been specific and consistent. They want a state where they don’t have to worry about the quality of education or fear they will be a
victim of crime. They want better opportunities for their children, jobs that pay a good wage and the promise of a prosperous future. For this to happen they expect elected leaders to act ethically, put the state’s needs first, and focus on the things that will make Louisiana a better place to live.
The good news is that there are encouraging signs of progress. State leaders have sharpened their focus on education and begun a long overdue effort to hold our schools accountable for results. They have acknowledged the value of higher education and created a community and technical college system to better educate and train the majority of Louisiana citizens who will never earn a college degree. And they have explored new approaches for bringing quality jobs to the state.
After years of stagnation, many people believe we are finally moving in the right direction, but they also acknowledge that making Louisiana the state it should be is a work in progress. That work must continue.
With Louisiana’s national rankings so low in so many categories, we know things must change. If they don’t, too many of our citizens will continue to leave the state. More and more of our limited resources will go toward dealing with the symptoms of our problems, and our quality of life – already lagging other states in many catego- ries – will deteriorate.
In this edition of The People’s Agenda Report Card, we are looking at the things citizens tell us they would like to change about Louisiana, and identifying some of the barriers that keep our state from becoming the type of place we really want it to be. As part of this effort we have developed a list of indicators which CABL will track on a regular basis – including goals to aim for. We see these indicators as important guideposts that will tell us whether Louisiana is truly making progress in critical areas – not just passing laws or devising plans that gather dust on shelves.
In a sense, this report represents the outline of what must become Louisiana’s agenda for the future. Our hope is that current and future state leaders will continue to focus on these common sense issues and make them part of their agenda for Louisiana. While there is no single, easy solution for any of our problems, there are many creative ideas which elected leaders should pursue.
Allowing things to stay the same cannot be an option.
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