School Enrollment Estimate Down 11% (State Taxpayer Aid Rises By 44%)
by WILL SENTELL - Advocate (excerpt)

When Louisiana public-school doors reopen next month, enrollment will be 11 percent lower than it was at the start of the decade, education estimates showed Thursday.

Meanwhile, basic state aid to public schools has risen by 44 percent during the same period, according to separate figures provided Thursday by the state Department of Education. The enrollment figures were compiled by the state Education Estimating Conference, which tracks public-school trends.

Together, they offer a snapshot of public schools near the start of a new school year, and how things have changed. Residents leaving the state during the 1980s and early 1990s after the oil bust are a key reason for the drop, said Raymond Brady, a consultant for the conference. “The effect of it is the childbearing population declined,” Brady said Thursday. “What you are seeing now, more than anything else, is the effect of that.”

COMMENTARY: ADVOCATE ARTICLE EXCERPT (May 17, 2008)

“We’re going to hold him accountable,” said Penny Dastugue of Mandeville, a member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget spent 90 minutes discussing the job performance objectives that they ordered the BESE to devise. They reviewed the components of Pastorek’s pay package: an annual base salary of $271,611, a housing allowance of $54,000, a yearly car allowance of $30,000, and about $50,000 in retirement benefits. They talked about the state’s poor rankings in education.

Finally, Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, told the committee it was time to vote and made a motion to approve the contract. The committee voted 22-4 to approve the package, which gives Pastorek a nearly $50,000 pay raise.