Some responses to last week's RSD/OPSD properties posts:

Thanks to Jindal, we are now going to pay parents with our tax for sending their kids to private and parochial schools thus undermining and sabotaging our public schools system.

And I saw few if any bloggers chastise Jindal for this plan. I wonder why?

Yeah, crucify him on Hannah Montana but for destroying the public schools system with this tax deduction?

People can talk all they want but from what I have seen, they are not walking the walk, unless the pathway leads to Holy Cross, Brother Martin or Country Day.

As for those schools you mention? Tear them down and make parks. Finish what Katrina started, what Jindal continued and what the big mouths hypocrites will take advantage of when they privately fill out their tax returns while pointing out the woes of our schools system. (You do know you have to request that tax break when you fill out your state tax forms, so you actually can skip it that could benefit your public school system, levees, roads, public school teacher raises, etc; if you really want to.

Actually, D-BB, I did imbed Schroeder's note of Jindal's tax bailout to parents looking for better schools in this post...and I'm glad you brought it up outside of the context of that post of mine that focused a bit more on the biases of New Orleans magazine than it did on the schools. Measures such as the ones Jindal endorses won't just tank the traditional public schools - it will also cause the charters to scramble for even more money that is getting scarcer as the economy goes under. At least we aren't in California - things might just come down to a greater amount of home schooling on the part of many more parents or guardians here.

Really, the only ammo left in the charter schools' arsenals is a certain amount of under the table selective enrollment:

Does anyone ever stop and wonder why all these schools only enroll 5th grade and 9th grade? That's because charters, unlike RSD schools, have the advantage of only accepting students who have passed the 4th grade and 8th grade leap--meaning that they are essentially all selective admission schools that do not have to take on the challenge of 4th graders who can't read or write. I can't even guess how many charter schools there are now that have only one grade. Then they move the fifth grade kids up to sixth grade and weed out the ones they don't like--and they are not obliged to enroll any new kids. In the end, they graduate a class of cherry-picked kids and claim they worked miracles for the same revenues (and hide millions in foundation grants that supplement their state revenues)

Yep, I'm still taking pictures. The worst I came across recently was Moton Elementary, not far from the Desire projects site.Three wide-open gates to the outside grounds. Seven open doors to the building that I could see. Took on one foot of water, according to the RSD building summary. Very little has been touched in this building since 2005 - the furniture hasn't even been removed. The kitchen ovens and the stench of rotted food are still there.

And, in the darkened auditorium, rows of chairs still sit, awaiting an assembly that is never going to come.