Few students held back for low reading scores

Fewer than 3% of Louisiana third graders were held back for failing to pass a mandatory reading test, which is required under a 2023 state law. Almost a quarter of students did not earn the minimum score needed to advance to the fourth grade, but additional instruction time and exemptions reduced that number significantly. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Patrick Wall reports:

The relatively small share of Louisiana third graders who were held back last year is in line with other states that also allow students to retake the reading test and exempt certain students, including those with disabilities. … The laws aim to give students more time to master essential reading skills. Proponents cite research showing that students who can’t read proficiently by the end of third grade are less likely to graduate from high school.

The third grade law was part of an effort by state leaders to improve student literacy rates:

“When you looked at states that had made significant gains in literacy, this third-grade ‘gate’ kind of focused everybody’s attention — the students, the parents, the teachers, the systems — on really achieving those goals,” said Richard Nelson, the president of Louisiana’s community college system, who as a state legislator introduced the third grade bill.

Louisiana officials focus on infrastructure projects

Legislative leaders are hoping the new Office of Louisiana Highway Construction, which is located outside of the Department of Transportation and Development, will help reduce the time it takes the state to build and maintain roads and bridges. Veronica Camenzuli and Sheridan White of LSU Manship School News Service report:

Rep. Ryan Bourriaque, R-Abbeville, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said the new office represents “a litmus test to make sure that we’re not going to repeat issues that we’ve had in the past where funds were appropriated but projects were not implemented.” …  A report from the Boston Consulting Group found that in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023, only 26% of the highway projects that were ready to go through the bid process received funding to go forward.

Bourriaque is excited about a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would create a new transportation bank to help chip away at a $19 billion backlog of infrastructure projects: 

A previous bill to create an infrastructure bank passed the Legislature, but it did not survive because it relied on a constitutional amendment that voters rejected. However, the idea might make a comeback for review this year. The purpose of the bank would be to finance and match funds for revenue-producing projects, like roads, bridges, ports and transit. The bank would provide loans that could be reissued as they are paid off, giving the Transportation Department a revolving door of funds.

Reality check: The analysis from the Boston Consulting Group also found that the transportation department needs an additional $1.2 billion per year to address the state’s infrastructure backlog . The easiest way to do that is by raising Louisiana’s gasoline tax, which hasn’t budged since 1990.

States use TANF as slush fund

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides states with federal dollars that are supposed to be used, in large part, to provide basic cash assistance for low-income families with children. But as the Wall Street Journal’s team reports, much of TANF’s funding is diverted elsewhere: 

TANF funds flow annually through block grants to states, which have wide latitude to spend them and minimal reporting requirements—a structure critics say hampers oversight. Meant to allow states to be creative in serving needy families, it has resulted in a shift: States now award most of the money to nonprofits, companies and their own state agencies. An average of about 849,000 families got direct cash aid each month in fiscal 2025, federal data shows, down from about 1.9 million in fiscal 2010.

States sometimes funnel TANF dollars to areas that have no relation to the program’s intended purpose:

Questionable expenditures have included college scholarships that benefited middle- or upper-income families, antiabortion centers, a volleyball stadium in Mississippi, and an Ohio job-training nonprofit where leaders and employees were later sentenced to prison after prosecutors said they used TANF money for vacations, real estate and salaries for people who didn’t work there. Both conservative and liberal groups—and repeated reports from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog—say the federal government for years hasn’t paid enough attention to how states use the money. 

Louisiana has diverted millions of dollars intended for poor families to controversial crisis pregnancy centers. 

Too many eligible Americans don’t get SNAP

Millions of Americans across the country do not receive crucial food assistance despite being eligible, according to new analysis from Data 4 the People. Marty Schladen of the Columbus Dispatch explains how the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is one of the federal government’s most effective anti-poverty tools: 

Benefits under SNAP … are modest, about $6.20 per person, per day. … SNAP has been shown to help people maintain employment and bridge gaps between jobs. It’s also been shown to help kids succeed in school. In 2024, Columbus-based Scioto Analysis estimated that the program kept 1.5% of Ohioans out of poverty, second only to Social Security among government programs protecting against poverty.

SNAP covered 101.9% of Louisianans living in poverty in 2024. But new work reporting requirements included in the harmful tax and budget megabill could reduce the number of eligible households receiving food assistance. About 1 in 8 adults reported losing their SNAP benefits in 2024 – before the megabill became law – due to paperwork issues. 

Number of the Day

-0.3% – Decline in real wage growth for low-income workers in 2025. (Source: Economic Policy Institute)