Gov. Bobby Jindal wants to give some 380,000 low-income students in Louisiana a chance to attend private schools on the public dole through an expansion of New Orleans’ “scholarship” program, but asked Monday whether those scholarship — read voucher — schools should be given performance scores, Jindal’s oblique response indicates the answer is no.
Speaking at the statewide education summit “Leadership for Change” in Baton Rouge, Indiana Superintendent Tony Bennett, according to Gannett’s Mike Hasten, touted his own state’s “school choice” programs that include vouchers for private schools:
Bennett said he doesn’t dance around the issue and substitute the word “scholarship” for the grants offered to students to attend private schools. He said he doesn’t avoid the “V word” and calls a voucher what it is.
Bennett told the group of educators, businessmen and elected officials that Indiana has a provision that any “voucher school” that receives state money for even one student must submit to the state accountability program and test every student.
Like Louisiana, his state issues letter grades for schools. But if an Indiana private school scores “D” or “F” two years in a row, it can no longer participate in the voucher program.
Asked about accountability for private schools receiving vouchers, Jindal, also one of the summit’s featured speakers, did not offer a yes or no answer, instead saying that “parents are the best accountability program.”
Already facing an uphill battle to get his bold education agenda passed in the Legislature, Jindal’s anti-accountability stance on private schools could make it even more difficult for the second-term governor to find widespread support on his proposed voucher expansion.
The students who participate in the New Orleans “scholarship” program are required to take the state’s standardized tests, but the scores for students in the program show that scholarship students have demonstrated little to no improvement over their public school counterparts. View the dismal numbers here.
And as U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu pointed out during the summit, if all of the state’s private schools upped their enrollment by 10 percent, a maximum of 11,200 kids would find an available slot in private schools across the state, The Times-Picayune reports.
Read more on Jindal’s speech at Monday’s Leadership for Change summit here.
MAY 23 Here's a story in the Picayune about some statistics that must come as a blow to folks who believe that any private school can do a better job of educating kids than any public school: Danielle Dreilinger reports that only 30 percent of the voucher kids are passing. That's less than half of the state wide average, she says. It's an interesting statistic because most of the schools (if not all) taking voucher kids have never had their students' standardized test scores released to the public before.
MAY 23 Stephen Sabludowsky blogs on Bayou Buzz about auditor requests here. Recently the state GOP started crowing about a request from the Legislative Auditor, claiming they were being targeted because of their anti-tax stance. (Uh, your what?) Denial and hyperbole aside, the state Democratic party blew holes in that theory with an email announcing they'd received the same request, Sabludowsky writes here.
MAY 23 Jim Brown blogs about the senate race in this post. He says that, given Bobby Jindal's "lack of traction" on the national stage, it might make more sense for the governor to consider running against Mary Landrieu for the senate seat. Since Tim Teeple left the Cassidy team, it makes sense he might land on a Jindal for Senate team, Brown opines.
MAY 23 In this Louisiana Voice post, blogger Tom Aswell writes of rumors that his nemesis, state Superintendent of Education John White, may be soon departing Louisiana for a federal post. It's hard to believe, given his performance, Aswell says, but stranger things have happened. An anti-White BESE member says that, if true, White is quitting before he can be fired.
MAY 23 In this post on American Zombie, blogger Jason Berry writes about the Mother's Day shooting. Mayor Landrieu said that "this is not who we are," but the fact is, this is New Orleans, Berry writes. The violence infused in the city is the result of a culture created by "sins of omission or sins of commission," Berry writes. It's not a problem that can be solved by legislating, policing, praying or publicizing, he says: Someone's got to understand what's happening first.
MAY 23 This post in the Westside Journal tells us what Port Allen Mayor Deedy has been up to lately: vetoing ordinances, apparently. This story is most interesting, however, when it delves into a petition that has been circulating around the city lately. It accuses the former mayor of a lot of nasty things; the former mayor says it is full of lies and "broken syntax" which may be a larger offense in his eyes.
MAY 23 This editorial posted in The Advocate is a bit confusing. The writing is poor - definitely not up to the usual editorial writing standard there - and the point is hard to grasp. Apparently, the writer is saying that privatization of state efforts is OK, as long as there is oversight and transparency, but Jindal's not good at that, and the legislature shouldn't over-react. Okey Dokey. Can't they get one of them Pulitzer-winning people to write an editorial?
MAY 23 This post on The Lens gives you links to a new Google Earth tool that allows you to see any spot on earth transform over the past 30 years. Bob Marshall, who covers the coast for the paper, says that in the case of Louisiana's coastline, it's possibly something you don't want to see, because it's not a pretty picture. There are several clips here, showing critical areas erode away. For Marshall, it was vindication for all those times he was met with eye-rolling when he talked about erosion.
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His answer is to take monies from an already financially strapped system and transfer, though he calls this "voucher's" such monies to private schools without any symblance of accountablilty or evaluation--another characteristic of Jindal's all to frequent programs.
Bobby Jindal is going to go down in history as if not the worst, defintly, one of the worst governors Louisiana has ever had the misfortune of electing--twice....
Regards/Greg