Posted on 10/14/2002 5:24:29 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Ruston senator savors first major triumph of pre-K program Wiley Hilburn / The Times Posted on October 14, 2002 Bill Jones was so excited he spit the Skoal into the wastebasket instead of his omni-present Diet Coke can. The Ruston senator (District 35) pounded on the desk in his modest Alabama Street office, before catching himself.
"I'm sorry," Jones said, creaking back into his chair, "but this is what I went into politics for."
Jones, 56, has a right to be excited. The at-risk, pre-K program (now called LA4) he authored - with more than a few hoots from the Legislature and education bureaucracy - has passed its first big test.
Passed is not really the word. A group of private national evaluators give the pilot program a landmark "A" in its first five months of existence.
"We wanted to be able to prove what the educators have been saying for decades," Jones said, "early childhood education is vital to future success in the classroom; we proved it."
The report does prove it. Eighty percent of the Louisiana children in the startup were at risk, pre-testing in the bottom national quartile. After five months in the program, 70 percent of the participants soared out of bottom quartile - not to the next level - but to the upper levels. That's huge.
Jones can savor this triumph. Though typically the Ruston senator did all his homework and documented pre-K's value well ahead of introducing his bill, many legislators looked at him like he was crazy.
Jones put his political helmet into that historic Louisiana lethargy like he would a crossing receiver when he was playing college defensive back in 1969. Feelings were hurt and Jones was often seen as a maverick but a highly visible thumbs-up from Gov. Mike Foster, Louisiana's modern education governor, silenced the critics. Jones won his pre-K pilot.
Jones will likely have opposition when his term ends. His hard-driving crusade for early childhood education alone has created incidental debris. He will never be in labor or LABI's or anybody's pocket. He thinks too much for that and Jones won't mind opposition if it does come.
"Our Louisiana kids are better than any other kids," he says, waving the LA4 report, bright-eyed, looking as puckish as a kid himself.
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Wiley Hilburn is a Times columnist and the head of the Department of Journalism at Louisiana Tech University. His column appears Mondays. Write him in care of
The Times, P.O. Box 30222, Shreveport, LA 71130-0222. E-mail to: living@shreveporttimes.com.
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