State Education bills benefit the wealthy
22nd April 2024 · 0 Comments
There’s no overwhelming evidence that most schools in the all-charter school “experiment” in New Orleans have reached the mastery level of education required by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).
The most egregious attack on the African-American community under the guise of ACT 91, which paved the way for these “experimental schools,” and the takeover of the Orleans Parish School system by the BESE has been backfiring since the Constitutional Amendment of 2003 was adopted allowing the state board to take over “failing schools.” BESE created the now-defunct Recovery School District, the nation’s first all-charter school district in predominantly Black Orleans Parish.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the architects of this money grab were white legislators. In their paternalistic minds, the Black professionals leading the public school system made up of predominantly Black students were not smart enough to provide K-12 youth with the minimum education foundation required by the state.
The idea that the state is only responsible for providing a “minimum” education foundation is ironic and ludicrous. Clearly, the learned members of the State Department of Education and the BESE haven’t been able to provide the “minimum” education in their failing experimental charter school framework.
During the 2022-2023 school year, more than 50 of the 71 charter schools in Orleans Parish scored an “F” in the state’s Orleans Parish School Performance Scores and Letter Grades spreadsheet, according to data under Section G – 2023 K-8-HS Assessment Letter Grade Equivalent.
However, on the same spreadsheet, only seven of the 71 charter schools have an “F” under Section C-2023 Letter Grades. Go figure.
Only the state’s Department of Education can explain its voodoo math, school performance scores and other metrics. However, the fact that a “C” letter grade is 66-69 percent by state standards makes one wonder about the various facets of grading on the curve the state Department of Education (DOE) uses.
The point is that charter schools continue to miss the mark, and very few schools have “A” letter grades that reflect the mastery of the subject matter required by BESE.
Why would anyone want to continue this failing experiment?
Perhaps a different takeover formula is required…one that achieves the same goals as the charter schools, which are autonomous without oversight.
That’s what Republican state legislators must have been thinking when they drafted two bills that would take over public school funds and put them into a “universal school choice” program.
The proposed Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) created in HB 745 and SB 313 will take over all public school funds and allow parents to use their individual students’ accounts for homeschooling, church schools, private schools and any institutions certified by the BESE.
State Senator Joe Bouie, a lifelong educator and former Chancellor of Southern University in New Orleans, is fighting the bills, which he predicts will pass. Such legislation will be the beginning of the end of public education. “They will devastate funding for public education,” Bouie told The Louisiana Weekly.
Bouie says the problem is not what his fellow legislators say: “It’s what they aren’t saying. They are not saying how much the education savings account will cost and where the money comes from.”
The fear is that during the proposed constitutional convention, an amendment will be used to free up the Minimum Foundation Program funding, which is money dedicated exclusively to public schools.
If a constitutional convention is held, Governor Jeff Landry and the GOP in the Louisiana Legislature will do this and more. In addition to members of both houses of the state Legislature, Landry wants to appoint 27 people to attend and vote on measures put forth at his constitutional convention.
In 2020, Louisiana spent an average of $11,843 per public school pupil. No matter the formulas listed in the ESA bill regarding poverty levels, simple math indicates that low – to moderate-income parents still won’t be able to afford private schools.
Even if school tuition is at a minimum of $1,000 monthly, that doesn’t include the costs of uniforms, computers, fees, transportation, school trips, and participation in sports, arts, and other activities. Parents must make a loan if they want their children to attend private schools.
However, wealthy parents who apply for the ESA will get a supplemental stipend or unexpected windfall.
This may have been the plan since the first non-public (charter) school bill was introduced in 1995. Before the takeover of the schools in Orleans Parish in 2003, while the BESE was concocting the home-brewed LEAP (Louisiana Education Assessment Program) test that was used to show how badly the schools were failing, one architect of the charter system, Attorney Paul Pastorek, was heard saying, ‘I’d like my kids to attend public schools too.”
Indeed, Pastorek, who became Louisiana’s superintendent of education from 2007-2011, attended private schools in New Orleans. In the days before the takeover of the Orleans Parish schools, none of the BESE members had children in public schools, but they’d have us believe they knew what was best for public school children.
Pastorek became a charter school guru in his role as education superintendent. His fellow charter school “architect” and BESE member Leslie Jacobs set about taking over the Orleans Parish public schools.
Under Pastorek, Recovery School District Chief Paul Vallas, and the state school board, charter schools expanded to serve about 60 percent of New Orleans students – the highest percentage in the nation, Elliot Kamenitz reported in The Times-Picayune in 2009.
Pastorek set out to push the same aggressive reforms statewide into virgin political territory. According to Kamenitz, that meant state takeovers for failing schools and stripping power from elected school boards to prevent them from grabbing political spoils – jobs and contracts – and hamstringing their appointed superintendents.
Jacobs, an insurance businesswoman in her family’s insurance business, served on the Orleans Parish School Board and got elected to the BESE, where she conspired to take over the Orleans Parish Public Schools.
Jacobs’ children didn’t attend public schools, either.
Jacobs founded Educate Now in 2008. She led the New Orleans-based non-profit education reform organization until 2017 when she stepped away from the mess she had made of public education.
Those architects have been replaced by current GOP state legislators, who are now eyeing millions in public school dollars and considering ways of redistributing the wealth to those who least need it.
Hopefully, State Senator Bouie and others in the Louisiana Congressional Black Caucus will fight against the continual miseducation of our children through the unabashed reverse Robin Hood tactics.
This article originally published in the April 22, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
