U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) will chair a Senate committee hearing Oct. 13 on LSU’s campus, according to a news release from Cassidy’s office.
His visit to the university will be the second of two Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Hearings Cassidy will chair that day — both titled “Developmental Perspective on Testing for Dyslexia.”
The first hearing will take place at the University of New Orleans’ Lakefront Campus at 10 a.m., and the second will be held in the LSU Energy, Coast & Environment Building’s Dalton J. Woods Auditorium at 3 p.m.
Cassidy said he made the decision to move the hearings to Louisiana because of the state’s recognized system for educating dyslexic students.
“There’s only two [public charter schools] in the nation …that extend a science-based curriculum for a dyslexic student in a public setting where the parent doesn’t have to pay extra. Both are in Louisiana,” Cassidy said.
Cassidy said his goals for the hearings are to create a body of knowledge regarding dyslexia and promote information about the learning disorder throughout Louisiana and the rest of the country.
He said he hopes the hearings highlight whether government interference in dyslexic learning curriculums is beneficial or harmful to students.
“Typically, several regulations hurt, so we’re trying to highlight the way that federal regulations get in the way of addressing the needs of a student with dyslexia,” Cassidy said.
The committee hearings come 11 days before a statewide gubernatorial election, in which Cassidy has already endorsed his colleague, Sen. David Vitter, R.-La.
“David’s an incredibly hard-working, incredibly hard-working candidate who has both the ability to break eggs and also to be pragmatic,” Cassidy said.
Vitter is currently in an electoral dead heat with state Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, according to an Advocate/WWL-TV poll released Sunday. Among those surveyed, both candidates scored 24 percent of the vote in the primary election. In a runoff scenario, Edwards scored 45 percent of the vote to Vitter’s 41 percent.
“I think conventional wisdom is that John Bel Edwards and Sen. Vitter will probably be in a runoff … and the conventional wisdom is that David would then win,” Cassidy said.
Dr. Bennett Shaywitz and Dr. Sally Shaywitz, both co-directors of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, will serve as witnesses at both committees.
Other witnesses at the LSU hearing will include Margaret Law, the Dyslexia/504 Coordinator for the Central Community School System, Rev. Derrius M. Montgomery, associate minister at Greater King David Baptist Church and mass communication senior Allyce Trapp.