BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco's legislation allowing the state to take over most New Orleans schools was approved Wednesday by a House committee that also passed an even farther-reaching rival bill that would take all the city's schools away from the beleaguered local school board.
Both bills survived close votes in the House Education Committee and go next to the House floor. Both were offered during a special legislative session that Blanco called to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans. The city school board was operating 110 schools before Katrina hit on Aug. 29. All are currently closed and only a few are expected to re-open in the coming months.
Blanco made a personal visit to the committee to ask for passage of her measure, repeating her contention that the Katrina disaster gives the state a rare opportunity to try to improve education in New Orleans.
"Even before the storm, New Orleans schools were not educating our children as they so deserve," Blanco said. [Read more - WWLTV]
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