Will Louisiana Catholic Bishops Push Jindal 's Education Reform Package to Victory ?

The Governor has started to unveil plans for Education Reform that are revolutionary for Education in Louisiana. No matter if you think this revolution is a good or bad things. This is right up there with Huey Long making Textbooks free in big moments in Louisiana education history.

See a few tidbits here and here.

In the background of all this is the Louisiana Catholic Bishops. If this is any indication I suspect they will be quite open for this plan for obvious reasons.

FIRST TO BE CLEAR I HAVE NO INSIDE INFO ON THIS.

The question is how proactive will the Bishops be in this regard. Again this is touchy business. Lots of Catholics work in the public schools of course. However I suspect they might go out for this plan. That is quite an asset for Jindal.

Each Bishop will have varying degrees of influence with perhaps Bishop Duca of the Diocese of Shreveport having the least since he has the less Catholic schools by far. However from the Diocese of Alexandria the influence will grow literally by the miles as we head South.

One big upside to this plan is it will help make sure Catholic education is not just the domain of the well off. A voucher system would tend to help Catholic education ) and maybe expand it in areas of the not well off.

My bet is Jindal has had conversation already with key Catholic education leaders in the Dioceses of Lake Charles, Lafayette, Houma Thibodeaux Baton Rouge and the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

There are of course some dangers. A expanded Charter school system might be seen as a threat to some schools. However I expect the Bishop will be confident that their school could hold their own against that.

Should be fun watching.