GMTplus7

Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools | Reuters


I can't believed the biased negative slant to this article.

Parlabane

For all the faults of public school, and many are truly broken, the notion of vouchering kids for a school like this:
---------
At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains "what God made" on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.

"We try to stay away from all those things that might confuse our children," Carrier said.
--------
is just flat out scary. I see little difference between schools like these that knowingly replace a fact-based curriculum with fundamentalist Christian pablum and those in Saudi Arabia full of school texts that demonize Christians and Jews. All groups, including most US public school systems, carry some level of bias toward a specific curriculum, but Louisiana's decision will, mark my words, produce a generation of problems, ranging from kids being graduated thinking faith is the same thing as fact to thousands of kids being mishandled by for-profit institutions that care about shareholder return and not the education of the students, just like we're seeing now with some of the horrible for-profit "universities."

GMTplus7

The author of the article cited some extreme examples of non-secular schools to stir up indignation. I wish the author had half as much indignation for the propensity of failing local public schools to which poor families are forced to send their kids.

I've volunteered as a tutor at an inner city public school and will attest to the absolutely abyssmal state of things. These failing schools get public money regardless of their performance, and the parents have NO CHOICE but to send their kids there due to their lack of economic means.

I say "so what?" if some of the schools that receive voucher money are religious schools-- St. Pauls School makes their kids attend chapel, and I think most posters wouldn't get all upset if their kid had to be educated under conditions like that.

LET THE PARENTS DECIDE, just as we BS parents have decided where we want our kids and our educational funds to go. I send my kid to a secular BS, but I have no more heartburn over parents sending their kids to a religious school with state taxpayer funded vouchers, than I do w U.S. taxpayer money funding Veteran's scholarships and Pell Grants for college students to attend Catholic University or Brigham Young, provided the parents made that choice without gov't coercion.

As for the crack-pot religious schools cited by the author, how many parents would really CHOOSE such schools?

Louisianamomof2

As a public school teacher in Louisiana, I despise what our governor is doing to our school system.

I've been teaching 14 years. Over the past several years, money has dwindled yet our expectations are sometimes unattainable. There's no money for programs that we have to implement and when they are brought in, they are so without proper supplies.

Governor Jindal (who wants to be President Jindal) is creating a monster. If you access the website for schools that will accept vouchers, MANY well-known schools are NOT. Shreveport/Bossier is the 2nd largest city in the state. Bossier is it's own city but across the Red River from Shreveport. There are THREE schools in that area that will accept vouchers for a total of 88 slots. 80 of them are at one school - Evangel - a school known for its athletic programs and giving scholarships to underprivileged students who are excellent athletes. The other 2 schools each are accepting 4 students. The northern half of the state has very little voucher slots - most are in the southern half - where Baton Rouge and New Orleans is located. If you research the site, you find many of the schools are the small, Christian schools that are VERY limited in scope. No testing is required of these voucher students to even see if the education is better than their public home school.

And I wonder why I am letting my 6th grade daughter entertain the idea of Miss Porters, Miss Halls or Emma Willard? It's because I want more for my children than this state provides. Throwing massive amounts of money into private schools, where some don't have high standards, isn't the answer.

neatoburrito

We fled over a decade ago and never looked back, except to wax nostalgic about the food. As much as I complain about our local public, there isn't an armed policeman on duty every day and the vast majority of the kids in our high school are able to read, even if they choose not to. This is not the case at the public schools in my hometown.

Louisianamomof2

I pray we will be able to flee in the next 2 years....I would move in a heartbeat.

GMTplus7

Louisianamom,

Throwing massive amounts of money into certain failing public schools for DECADES hasn't worked either.

According to the article, only kids attending publish schools where at least 25 percent of students test below grade level will be eligible for a voucher. Does your daughter's present public school fall under this bar?

Parlabane

However bad many Louisiana public schools may be, this voucher effort is going to make everything worse for the state. Just my opinion.

Louisianamomof2

1. That article isn't entirely correct. Schools that are ranked with a letter grade of C and below can have students request a voucher, if they meet the income standards. The link below gives you idea of the number of schools that are ranked. As you can see, 2/3 of the schools are ranked C and below.

404 - Page Not Found - Louisiana Department of Education


2. A school's ranking isn't entirely on test scores. It is based on a school performance score - which includes school attendance, dropout rate and test scores.

3. 4th and 8th grade tests (in a K-8 school) count much more than 3rd, 5th, 6th, and
7th grade scores.

4. I teach at a K-8 school. If a student leaves our school due to his age and attends the alternative school and drops out, we get credit for his dropout. The SPS (School performance Score) isn't based entirely on testing and students below grade level.

5. My daugher attends a wonderful 1-8 Magnet School. Our local high school is ranked a D-. We do not meet the income requirements - however, even if we did, we have NO school within an hour for the students to attend. The local Catholic high school has chosen NOT to accept voucher students.

I agree, Parlabane - it's only going to make things worse. The students that apply for spots will be put into a lottery system and only a VERY small % of these students will be accepted.

Most of the teachers I know and work with are great teachers. We are up against uneducated parents who are interested in us babysitting. We get very little help from home and just resistance. Plus, our governor has Presidential aspirations and wouldn't even take the time to listen before he put this through the 1st few days of the legislative session.

Louisianamomof2

Policy

In December 2010, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) set standards for schools to earn letter grades based on their annual School Performance Scores (SPS). Under the new system, a top-performing school with an SPS of 120 or above will earn an "A." Schools that have an SPS below 65 for the 2010-2011 school year will receive an "F". The letter grades will be assigned as follows:




Try this....

Letter Grades for Schools - Louisiana Department of Education

neatoburrito

Wow, so a school can get an A with only 60% of available points. (120/200)
Do the students get such a generous curve?

Louisianamomof2

Well, the highest school in the state is Ben Franklin High in Baton Rouge - its SPS is 186. It's one of best public high schools in the country. The top elem is South Highlands Magnet with a score of 161. 120 is actually pretty good. My kids attend a magnet school with a score of 138 and I am very pleased. However, the high school they will attend has a score of 74 or so.

bostdad2

From what they explain in the article and discussion here, this is a very exciting change in Louisiana!

The article states all the schools need to be state approved to receive any vouchers. So no matter how much the Reuters reporter dislikes those schools, they are "approved". Given the school is acceptable to the state and qualifies for state moneys, then GMT said it right: LET THE PARENT CHOOSE. The parent knows the child and situation best and can best assess the various options.

Another point is that the vouchers at $8000 are not a full ride. The average spend on a public pupil may look like $8K but that excludes most of the cost of the public facility. But private schools still need land. So any private school that charges $8K tuition is going to have to be highly innovative to break even. Not impossible, but challenging.

Finally, one should not simply be satisfied with existing offerings. New companies will enter. Doubtless web sites will spring up to rate and assess the various new school choices. And people can build their own school if they want: a group of like-minded parents could band together and start something new, using the $8K per student funding. A group of parents did this in Massachsuetts recently without public money, so with public money it ought to be even easier. (See Acera: Elementary and Middle School for Gifted and Talented Students, Boston MA Area)

Bottom line: innovation is broken in public K12 because all the money goes to districts and districts are slow and hobbled by rules and unions. Only by creating a market of individual choice and putting parents in charge can we finally have the breakthrough reform that the USA badly needs.

Congratulations to Louisiana for trying this and good luck!

Parlabane

^ That might be the scariest (and most enthusiastic) willing suspension of disbelief I've ever read.

bostdad2

Sure! Suspension of disbelief is necessary for innovation.

At least Louisiana is trying something new in its worst schools. They will make mistakes but they will also make progress, and the entire country will benefit from what they learn.