BATON ROUGE - Louisiana officials learned Friday that a private foundation has awarded the state up to $3.6 million over three years to strengthen educational leadership at schools and parish school districts.

Richard Laine, director of education for The Wallace Foundation, told Gov. Kathleen Blanco and the Blue Ribbon Commission on Education that Louisiana was one of six states chosen for the grant out of 21 states that applied.

"It's not just because you write well," Laine said as a room full of educators chuckled. He said Louisiana's track record of making education improvements in recent years, its political leadership, and the collaboration of leaders of elementary and secondary schools with state colleges and universities played a major role in the state's selection.

"You will have the spotlight on your state and your districts to be an example to the rest of the country," he said

Blanco said the grant - which was $400,000 larger than she thought the state might get - "is going to help us put our plan of action in place much faster than we imagined."

The state has a program for improving school administrators, called the Principals Academy, but there hasn't been enough funding for providing wide-scale training.

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