Mentally ill ending up in jail instead of hospitals
The rushed efforts to privatize Louisiana’s hospitals have resulted in yet another unintended consequence — residents with mental illness no longer getting the treatment they need. According to the Advocate, the number of mentally ill people in East Baton Rouge Parish prison has doubled since Earl K. Long was closed. The hospital had a specialized program for treating the mentally ill. While the Department of Health and Hospitals is trying to get a similar programs up and running elsewhere,  the process is slow.

Meanwhile, the funding mechanism for the privatization deals is facing more scrutiny from lawmakers, the AP’s Melinda Deslatte notes in her weekly column. Legislators are concerned that there’s “no Plan B” should the federal government not approve the contracts, and about the influx of uninsured patients at non-partnership hospitals. Sen. Ronnie Johns, R-Sulphur, said uninsured patients are pouring into emergency rooms at two hospitals in the Lake Charles area that aren’t part of the partnership arrangement with the state after the Jindal administration closed the LSU hospital there. “Those hospitals are not being compensated one penny for those coming in,” Johns said.

Report: Low-income and minority students less likely to have an effective teacher
Students in high-poverty schools are three times more likely to have a teacher rated ineffective than their peers at wealthier schools, according to a new study. The report, issued by Center for American Progress, looked at schools in Louisiana and Massachusetts. Similarly, students in public schools with larger minority enrollment are more than twice as likely to have an ineffective teacher as are students in schools with fewer minority children. However, a program designed to increase the number of effective teachers in all schools seems to be working in Ascension Parish, which according to the study, had an even distribution of effective teachers between high- and low-poverty schools. As Nola.com reports: The report says more school systems in both Louisiana and Massachusetts could benefit from a program helps raise teacher effectiveness. “The new evaluation data, which are already indicating that there is inequitable distribution of excellent teachers, are a reminder that this problem has not been solved by education reforms over the past decade,” the report says.

Advocate: The legislature should find money for career development
Despite chronic budget problems, the state legislature should find a way to fund Gov. Jindal’s WISE program, says an editorial in the Advocate. Why is the grandly named Workforce and Innovation for a Stronger Economy Fund an exception? Because of the impact of as much as $60 billion in new industrial construction that will hit the Bayou State over the next few years.

The WISE Fund is a way for colleges, including community and technical colleges, to jump-start specific training programs or expansions of enrollment in areas related to the industrial boom — from carpentry to welding to engineering and sciences.

Recovery for whom?
While the increases in the U.S. economy continue to concentrate in the hands of the nation’s wealthiest, one group has been hit particularly hard by the recession: millennials. That’s according to an editorial in the New York Times, which says those currently in their 20s and 30s have higher unemployment, are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to own a home than older generations were at their age. What is shocking is that despite the known danger and despite the prolonged bad economy, more government resources have not been used to prevent and reverse such a huge waste of human capital. Instead, public resources for job creation and even for unemployment benefits have been too little and too late, if available at all.