It’s likely only a matter of time before Baton Rouge’s public schools completely collapse

We haven’t done anything about this in the past week, mostly because I didn’t feel like I could give it enough attention. But if you’re not aware of the controversy surrounding the selection of a new school principal in East Baton Rouge Parish, you’ve missed a perfect snapshot of the mindset of the people currently running things.

Our regular readers will understand the concept of Weaponized Governmental Failure, where Democrats in charge of cities deliberately destroy the governance of those places in order to drive away middle class voters who might otherwise gang up on them and remove them from power. The middle class will often vote Republican, of course, but they can’t do that in a suburban city. So when you deliberately steal their tax money and misuse it for purposes that are contrary to those stated, and the services that money is supposed to provide are thereby reduced to nothing, the result is not accountability for bad leadership, but instead emigration and a captive voter base that will never vote the machine out of power.

Baton Rouge Democrats have been perfecting the Weaponized Governmental Failure game for a century. And earlier this month, as the parish school system sought a new superintendent, you saw a key element of that game at play.

The goal, in fact. Namely, power for power’s sake. In other words, that the people engaged in Weaponized Governmental Failure know that what they are doing is ruin, but that they are okay with that as long as they get to rule over it.

We’re talking about LaMont Cole, the outgoing city councilman and the new school principal.

You probably know Cole as one of, if not the leading, plaintiffs in the lawsuit to stop the incorporation of St. George. That lawsuit squandered years of potential progress in infrastructure, economic development, and other areas of public policy that could have been achieved if the people of the new city had been allowed to incorporate; instead, the city-parish has been able to walk away—so far, at least—with over $100 million in tax revenue that would have gone into St. George’s coffers.

It turns out that the lawsuit against St. George was just one of Cole’s WGF actions.

The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board earlier this summer put together a list of candidates for the vacant principal’s position. They rejected the interim principal, a small-time public servant named Adam Smith, who had taken over after the previous principal, Sito Narcisse, left.

And then the most predictable thing in the world happened.

This meant that the Democrats on the school board systematically rejected all the qualified candidates on the list. They let them know that they would be unhappy in the job, so they withdrew all their names from the selection.

And when Smith was left alone, Cole was suddenly brought in as the new director to make the status quo acceptable.

Cole is not a principal. He has been a principal at a couple of high schools in Baton Rouge.

The whole thing disqualifies East Baton Rouge’s school district as a viable system. With this kind of Byzantine politics and literally putting a partisan Democratic hack politician in charge of the system, it’s impossible to move Baton Rouge’s schools forward.

And yes, the teachers’ unions are enthusiastic about this move.

Soon, St. George will have its own school district, and it will be one of the best in the state, along with schools in Central and Zachary. And what about the schools in East Baton Rouge Parish?

Just look at what happens to them. But when you do, realize that none of this is incompetence, and it’s not bad luck. The bad morals, the low standards, the money flying out the windows… it’s all done on purpose.

They don’t want good schools. Good schools mean kids who are capable of social mobility, and they mean middle-class voters who won’t tolerate Weaponized Governmental Failure.

I can’t have that.

Memo to State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and members of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: Don’t wait to act, because you have been warned well in advance of the disaster that awaits Baton Rouge.