As Jindal starts 2nd term, expanding vouchers to be focus

9th January 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

At the December orientation for new Louisiana legislators, a seemingly innocuous education seminar became a screaming match.

New BESE member Kira Orange Jones had just joined the majority of her Board of Elemen­tary and Secondary Education colleagues in complimenting RSD head John White. Jones said she looked forward to White becoming Louisi­ana Superin­tendent of Education, a platform plank on which the reformist candidate ran in her Orleans-dominated Black majority district.

The comment brought response from the audience supporters of her recent opponent, former BESE incumbent Louella Givens. White, they contended, would destroy public education in New Orleans.

It was a strong statement, one to which White, who has dedicated his live both in the Pelican State and in New York to educating poor children, deeply objected, and it may be true—from a particular point of view.

Orange Jones and her majority colleagues on the board back Governor Bobby Jindal’s proposal, made on the eve of his second inaugural, to drastically expand school vouchers. Eventually, sources within the Governor’s Office tell this newspaper that Jindal would like to see the menu of choices for schoolchildren expanded beyond the Charter System employed by the RSD to include private or parochial Schools.

In other words, schools, or school districts like Orleans, taken over by the Recovery School District, would not only allow the per student funding to follow children to whatever charter or conventional public school they wish. The funds would be allowed to flow to virtually any qualified Catholic, Denominational, or Non-Sectarian school that their parents choose; provided, of course, that the school gives the State LEAP tests in the 4th and 8th grades as public schools do.

Right now, the law allows BESE to close down failing schools, and provide full public school choice, either to traditional or independently-run charter schools. In essence, the new proposal would allow full school choice for students trapped in chronically failing public schools to go to any schools they wish. Currently, less than 2,000 children in Orleans Parish can qualify for school vouchers. This plan would expand the opportunity to more than 100,000 students in parishes across the state under RSD review.

According to sources close to the Jindal Administration, the proposal would, not only constitute the most ambitious voucher proposal ever enacted by a state, but would be first step to allowing parents to opt out of the conventional public system and use their tax dollars to pay for private education for their children.

Teacher’s unions are already digging in for a fight. Joyce Haynes, president of the Loui­siana Association of Educators, explained after a recent meeting with the governor, explained that Jindal seemed focused on moving in a direction of expanded vouchers.

While the governor was willing to listen to other viewpoints, he firmly believes that his aides are going in the right direction.

Her organization, the Lou­isiana Federation of Teachers, and other union groups have vowed to fight Jindal in the legislature in the spring. Most of the governor’s opponents contend that they have already lost the battle on BESE. Orange Jones told The Louisiana Weekly of her support for letting the money follow the child. “What’s important is whether the child gets a good education, not who is operating the school.”

Emphasizing that charter schools are public schools (an assertion not without controversy), Orange Jones was quick to say, “I don’t have a problem if its a private or parochial school, as long as it does the job…We have seen that there are some private schools that don’t educate well. They should be denied funding. But, those that do teach, ought to have the right to educate our children.” Even if the money comes from the state.

Thus, the philosophical breakdown that created the aforementioned screaming match. Advocates of traditional public school models argue that a state-run system provides an equality of education—a common meeting place for students regardless of class or racial background. Taught together, their joint experiential learning forms the tendons that bind a multi-ethnic, economically diverse democratic republic. It is not that failing schools should be exempt from restructuring, public advocates maintain, or even closed if they continue to under-perform. Just that abandoning a common, central public system, has consequences to society in general that the voucher supporters ignore.

Nonsense replies Jindal. As the governor explained in past interviews with this newspaper, “Failing schools serve no one, and children trapped in them are not being helped.” Moreover, Jindal, who quickly noted that he is the product of a public school education at Baton Rouge High, that it is not realistic to view the public system as a commons of educational experience anymore.

“What we have seen is the wealthy and those with choices move their kids to schools that perform better…All that has happened is that poor kids have been left behind.” The system is already balkanized by those who can escape and those who cannot, explained Jindal. Employing private school scholarships for poorer students actually makes the educational experience less class-driven.

Public School defenders respond, however, only if the child is not in “Special Education” or possessed of emotional or physical disability. Few charter schools provide resources for Special Ed students despite statutory mandates that they must, and almost no private schools have the ability to house those students. Ending central parish funding of schools, as many in the Jindal Administration advocate, would mean that the excess funding needed for Special Ed programs could never be financed. Per student funding rarely meets the financial costs for Special Education programs.

The governor’s allies respond, “So we condemn the majority of kids for the minority?” It is not, they often argue, that Special Ed should not have a focus that is currently lacking in the Charter School System. They admit that there is a problem. It is just that, in their view, a choice-based system outperforms for the majority of students that of a centrally controlled one.

These arguments, to which the public will be treated as the Governor is inaugurated this week, and the legislature comes back into session in early Spring, will also delve into whether a transition will take more money out of the public system, paying for students already in private schools, and whether the state has the parochial infrastructure to handle a choice-based system. (The Catholic Church says, “Yes”; Public Advocates disagree.)

In the end, the Jindal Admin­istration faces as much a philosophic divide on the issue of choice as a results-based argument. His great asset is that while most of his opponents, particularly in the Legislative Black Caucus, are strongly opposed to pro-voucher legislation, support in the African-American community for private scholarships has held above 63 percent in poll after poll.

Complicating the debate at the start of the next school year, a new state law, Act 54, will mandate value-added teacher evaluations. Fifty percent of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on how quickly they improve student test scores. BESE has yet to lay down standards for teacher evaluation in areas such as foreign languages or physical education where students remain untested. Nevertheless, teachers with consistently poor evaluations will risk losing their jobs. And, school districts that face failure in the evaluations will also face RSD takeovers.

More school districts under state control, more opportunity for vouchers to be used in failing districts, according to some, regardless of how the legislature rules this year. Some voucher advocates argue that the original Recovery School District legislation already empowers BESE to allow per student funding to follow the child to any school that complies with state testing regulations. Opponents say that such a move would directly contradict the intent of the school takeover legislation.

Still, while it looks as if Jindal will pursue a legislative authorization, with a BESE Board now controlled absolutely by the governor’s allies, it is possible that vouchers access could expand, even if the House and Senate chooses not to act.

That is an argument sure to make it into the judicial system, however.

This article was originally published in the January 9, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper