No more Blue Ribbon Schools in Louisiana as Trump ends longrunning national program

For the past four decades, a few Louisiana schools each year have been identified as some of the best in the country — until now.

The Trump administration has abruptly ended the National Blue Ribbon Schools program, a long-running annual award for outstanding public and private schools, according to a recent notice sent to state education leaders. Last year, seven Louisiana schools were awarded , an honor bestowed on just a few hundred of the nation’s more than 100,000 schools each year.

This year's winning schools were set to be announced this month. But in a Aug. 29 letter to state education chiefs, a U.S. Department of Education official said the agency “hereby discontinues the national program.” Citing President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle the federal education agency,