BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal told a business luncheon today that he will ask lawmakers at the April session to pass a bill that will allow businesses to team with charter schools for a "win-win for the students and the businesses." Jindal asked business executives at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the...
BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal told a business luncheon today that he will ask lawmakers at the April session to pass a bill that will allow businesses to team with charter schools for a "win-win for the students and the businesses."
Gov. Bobby JindalJindal asked business executives at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state's largest business lobby, to help him pass the legislation by supporting the concept and then using it if it becomes law.
Jindal said his concept would allow businesses to provide "a facility or land to a charter school -- as well as partner with a school on career counseling, technical education and mentoring -- in exchange for a minority percentage" of the seats on the boards that govern the charter schools.
His proposal also would allow half of the seats in the schools to be filled by children of the business operators and half would be set aside for students who live in the areas of the schools.
If half of the enrollment is not sought by students of the business officials, their seats would be turned over to the general pool of students in the neighborhood Jindal said.
If more than half of the seats are sought by students of the supporting business, he said, a lottery would determine which students would be admitted, but half of the seats would still be reserved for the area's students.
Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, chairman of the House Education Committee, said the proposal caught him by surprise. He said more details have to be fleshed out before he would say if he could back it.
"I don't have a problem with it per se," Badon said, but "the devil is in the details."
Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayine.com or 225.342.5810.