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Justice

Louisiana Top Court Affirms School Voucher Program Is Unconstitutional

By Nicole Flatow on May 8, 2013 at 9:00 am

The Louisiana Supreme Court has affirmed a lower court judgment that the state’s school voucher program is unconstitutional because of program funding that diverts money for public schools into the private voucher system. The Times-Picayune reports:

Act 2, part of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2012 package of education reforms, diverts money from each student’s per-pupil allocation to cover the cost of private or parochial school tuition. The act authorizes both the Louisiana Scholarship Program and the new Course Choice program.

The vote was 6-1, with Justice Greg Guidry dissenting. The plaintiffs in the case include the Louisiana Association of Educators, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the Louisiana School Boards Association.

The ruling states that the per-pupil allocation, called the minimum foundation program or MFP, must go to public schools. Justice John Weimer writes, “The state funds approved through the unique MFP process cannot be diverted to nonpublic schools or other nonpublic course providers according to the clear, specific and unambiguous language of the constitution.”

Furthermore, the court found that the instrument Jindal used to pass the MFP for the 2012-13 school year violated proper procedure and was therefore void from the start.

Instead of passing a law, the Legislature appropriated the MFP funds by passing a resolution, SCR 99. However, that resolution “was intended to have the effect of law,” according to the court, and it was filed after the deadline for introducing new bills, rendering it invalid. This part of the Supreme Court decision overturns the judgment made in Baton Rouge district court in November.

Within hours of the decision, Jindal responded with a statement saying he would find another way to fund a voucher program “through the budget,” although it is not clear how he will do so without violating the holding, unless he passes a voucher law.

While this ruling made clear that it is not weighing in on the merits of the program, a federal district court recently suspended the voucher program in one district over concerns that it was interfering with desegregation. Several recent studies have found that voucher programs are an ineffective way to improve student performance, draining funds and diversity from public programs, without improving the performance of even those attending the voucher schools.

Justice

Textbook For Louisiana’s Voucher Schools Teaches Hippies Are Dirty, Rock Musicians Worship Satan

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Mar 11, 2013 at 10:30 am

Since the Louisiana school system began, last year, a voucher program that allows students to go to private schools on the public’s dime, reports have trickled out over questionable schools that qualified for the system.

With a lack of oversight, it seemed, children were being taught creationism and other debunked or wholly wrong ideas. Mother Jones uncovered that children were learning that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together, that the KKK did helpful community organizing, and that dragons were real.

But the latest example takes on perhaps the most overtly political stance. In a textbook obtained by Americablog, children are taught about hippies:

They went to Canada or European countries to escape being drafted into military service.

Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles’ these youths became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship.

The book also includes this helpful picture of “the hippies”:

In December of 2012, a Louisiana state court declared the voucher program unconstitutional because it used public money to fund private enterprises. That decision is in the process of appeal by the state.

Economy

Scott Walker Proposes Budget That Cuts Taxes While Reducing Funding For Public Schools

By Zack Beauchamp on Feb 21, 2013 at 5:00 pm

Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) is proposing a budget that would fund a variety of right-wing priorities by slashing support for public services and local communities, according to an outline of the plan given in Walker’s “State of the State” address Wednesday night. Walker, who had already cut taxes significantly in his first term, proposed an additional $630 million in cuts (about half of which come from income taxes):

With this in mind, I am pleased to announce an income tax cut of $343 million. You, the hardworking taxpayers of this state helped to create the budget surplus, so it is only right that we put more money back into your hands. Over the next decade, this will lower income taxes $1.7 billion…Overall, our budget includes more than $630 million in tax cuts.

Walker touted the tax cuts as a way to boost Wisconsin’s economy, but they give relatively little money back to middle-class families, limiting their stimulative effect. A four-person family with a total yearly income of $80,000 would only see an extra $8 per month under Walker’s plans. But even tax cuts with limited effects cost the government money — $1.7 billion over the next decade, according to Walker. And while he says it will be paid for a projected surplus, that’s the same thing former President George W. Bush said about his budget busting tax cuts.

Moreover, Walker’s budget proposes several dangerous changes and cuts to critical public services that could hurt the economy. Despite the fact that “a decade of research has shown no academic benefit from sending students to voucher schools,” Walker proposes a significant expansion of voucher funding, which will come at the expense of public schools. He also plans to freeze state financial support for municipal and city level programs. A similar move in Ohio caused problems for localities when it came to funding fire and police departments.

Walker also doubled down on his refusal to accept Obamacare Medicaid support, a move too irresponsible even for Florida’s hard-right Governor Rick Scott. Walker’s proposed budget also contains provisions requiring “non-elderly, able-bodied adults” on food stamps to attend job training programs in order to get food support.

Education

How Your School Vouchers Fund Schools That Teach Creationism

By Zack Beauchamp on Jan 16, 2013 at 5:45 pm

Voucher programs are funneling millions of dollars to schools around the nation that teach creationism as science, according to new research by activist Zack Kopplin and MSNBC. Kopplin cross-referenced private schools that received public funding in the form of “school vouchers” with schools that publicly admitted that they used known creationist textbooks or curriculum. He found 310 schools receiving “tens of millions” of dollars from voucher programs around the country. Here are three of the sample curricula as described by Kopplin:

1. The Beverly Institute in Jacksonville, Florida, teaches “Evidence of a Flood,” and “Evidence against Evolution,” and ”The Evolution of Man: A Mistaken Belief.”

2. Creekside Christian Academy in McDonough, Georgia says, “The universe, a direct creation of God, refutes the man-made idea of evolution. Students will be called upon to see the divine order of creation and its implications on other subject areas.”

3. Life Christian Academy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma says their life science class will “lead the student to recognize that God created all living things and that these living things are fearfully and wonderfully made.” Evolution is taught only in history class, where students “evaluate the theory of evolution and its flaws.” The school uses the creationist Bob Jones and CSI curriculums.

In addition to funding strictly religious schools (unless they happen to be Muslim), school vouchers suck money from public schools without delivering appreciable benefits to students, potentially even worsening educational outcomes.

Creationism hasn’t only snuck into schools through vouchers. Louisiana state law allows creationism to be taught in public schools, which prompted New Orleans teachers to set up their own rules barring creationism from science classes in protest.

Justice

Louisiana’s School Voucher Program Declared Unconstitutional

By Ian Millhiser on Dec 3, 2012 at 2:00 pm

On Friday, a state court in Louisiana declared Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) school voucher program unconstitutional, citing the fact that it takes away from public school students in order to pay for the vouchers:

A state judge on Friday shot down Louisiana’s sweeping school voucher program, ruling that the state could not use funds set aside for public education to pay private-school tuition for thousands of low- and middle-income children. . . . The state had argued that as long as it was funding public schools adequately and equitably, it could give a portion of state education funds to private and parochial schools as well, in the interest of giving families more educational options.

But Judge Kelley ruled that Louisiana’s annual education appropriation, calculated under a complex formula known as the Minimum Foundation Program, was intended exclusively for public schools. To divert it, he said, violated the state constitution.

Friday’s decision marks the second time a court cast a skeptical eye on this voucher program. Earlier in the same week, a federal court temporarily suspended vouchers in Tangipahoa Parish, citing concern that the vouchers impeded implementation of a court-ordered desegregation plan.

Although vouchers are a perennial goal of conservative policymakers, research indicates they are, at best, an ineffective way to improve student performance. A 2001 survey of education research on the subject determined that “a decade of research has shown no academic benefit from sending students to voucher schools,” and that “voucher programs may in fact increase funding inequities between low-income and high-income school districts, stratify students by income, race and social background, and drain needed funds from the nation’s public school systems.”

More recently, a 2009 study of voucher students in Milwaukee, Wisconsin found that “there is no overall statistically significant difference between [voucher and public school] student achievement growth in either math or reading one year after they were carefully matched to each other.” A second study of Milwaukee’s voucher system determined that “the percentages of fourth-graders in voucher schools who met the state’s definition of proficiency in reading and math were lower than percentages for low-income [public school] fourth-graders.”

NEWS FLASH

Judge Refuses To Block Louisiana’s Controversial School Vouchers Program | District Judge Tim Kelley ruled on Tuesday that he cannot block Louisiana’s controversial voucher program from going into effect next month because of a state law that prohibits injunctions when state officials claim they will cause a deficit. Superintendent John White and Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater claimed that an injunction would cause a $3.4 billion–the amount spent by the state to educate students–deficit in the education budget. Opponents countered that an injunction would merely prevent money from being distributed, saying “That’s just kind of crazy. … There’s no way that not spending money can cause a deficit.” Even though no injunction was granted, the case challenging the program’s constitutionality is ongoing.

–Alex Brown

By Guest Blogger on Jul 12, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Education

Louisiana Republican Supports State Funds For Religious Schools, As Long As They’re Not Islamic

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Jul 6, 2012 at 9:30 am

Louisiana Rep. Valerie Hodges

Louisiana Republicans supported Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s education system, which includes a voucher program that allows state funds to be used to send students to religiously-affiliated schools — until they began to realize that Islamic schools could also be among the institutions supported by taxpayer funds.

Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Watson) voted for Jindal’s bill in the Louisiana House, but has since withdrawn her support for the measure because she now realizes that it “unfortunately” applies more broadly:

HODGES: I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools…Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders’ religion. We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.

Hodges said that she is concerned about bringing “damaging schools” to her district because “we can not risk putting [the students] in jeopardy.”

Hodges isn’t the first Louisiana Republican to backtrack on support for the voucher program after discovering that Islamic schools would be included. Rep. Kenneth Havard (R-Jackson) has also maintained he won’t support any education spending plan that “will fund Islamic teaching.”

Education

Louisiana Lawmakers Object To Funding Islamic School Under New Voucher Program

By Adam Peck on Jun 12, 2012 at 1:10 pm

The Louisiana legislature narrowly passed a new education spending bill last week that allows students in low-performing districts to pay for private school tuition using state-funded vouchers.

The new provisions for funding private and parochial schools has quickly devolved into a war of words over religion. Even though millions of dollars are being made available to dozens of schools with overt religious agendas, some Republicans balked at the last minute when it was revealed that a private Islamic school had also applied for 38 vouchers under the new program:

Rep. Kenneth Havard, R-Jackson, objected to including the Islamic School of Greater New Orleans in a list of schools approved by the education department to accept as many as 38 voucher students. Havard said he wouldn’t support any spending plan that “will fund Islamic teaching.”

“I won’t go back home and explain to my people that I supported this,” he said.

The Islamic School of Greater New Orleans has since withdrawn its request for vouchers. But Havard’s concern for religious teaching being funded by taxpayer dollars seems to extend only so far. Reuters reported earlier this month that some of the parochial schools that stand to benefit the most intersperse biblical teachings directly into math, science and reading curricula, often at the expense of an actual education.

New Living World, which says it can accept more than 300 vouchers, is one such school. The campus has no library, and classrooms are often adorned with little more than a TV on which biblically-themed DVDs recite the day’s lesson. Another, The Upperroom Bible Church Academy, is housed in a windowless building with no playground. They can accept more than 200 students, and would stand to receive as much as $1.8 million. Eternity Christian Academy (135 vouchers) doesn’t permit the teaching of evolution.

The $3.4 billion bill helps fund the state’s entire education system, which affects more than 700,000 Louisiana students. Two of the state’s largest teachers’ unions say they are already exploring legal options to challenge the constitutionality of the new law.

NEWS FLASH

Louisiana Considers Protecting Charter Schools’ Anti-Gay Discrimination | A Louisiana Senate committee advanced a bill last week (SB 217) seeking to prevent executive branch departments from implementing non-discrimination protections beyond what is mandated by law. The effect of the bill would be that charter schools could discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, ability to speak English, or a host of other factors. Ironically — and perhaps unsurprisingly — conservatives in the state are also pushing legislation to implement school vouchers, which could take money away from local public schools to support private schools not open to all students.

Education

After Gutting Public School Budget, Ohio Republicans Try To Give Private Schools More Than $100 Million

By Zaid Jilani on Sep 24, 2011 at 12:30 pm

As ThinkProgress previously reported, conservative state legislators across the country are cutting budgets for public education while increasing taxpayer money for private schools in the form of school vouchers, essentially shifting taxpayer funds from public schools to private schools.

Thanks to changes in the business tax and Kasich’s redirecting of funds over the past year, Ohio school districts will have a billion dollars less in state funding ($1.8 billion if the loss of stimulus dollars is included in the calculation). The Ohio Education Association estimates that there will be $2.9 billion less in school funding over the next two fiscal years. But on Thursday, the Ohio House Education Committee passed House Bill 136 (HB136), which would consolidate and expand many of the state’s voucher scholarships for private schools in a program called Parental Choice and Taxpayer Savings (PACT). The new vouchers would be available to “any student in any district whose family makes less than $95,000.”

Policy Matters Ohio’s Piet van Lier estimates that HB 136 would open up as much as $134 million in taxpayer funds for private schools, if current growth trends in the school voucher programs continue:

According to state foundation settlement reports, just over $71.6 million was deducted from district payments for vouchers in Fiscal Year 2010, and an estimated $79.6 million will be deducted in FY11. Ohio Department of Education figures show that EdChoice, now in its 5th year, has continued to grow – by 13 percent this school year. Policy Matters conducted an analysis assuming 10 percent growth over FY11 levels during the first year with PACT and 20 percent growth the second year – conservative estimates, given recent growth and the expanded eligibility proposed in HB 136. Under this scenario, districts would see voucher deductions of an additional $7.5 million in FY12 and $30 million in FY13, compared to FY11 participation. If PACT were to reach the 60,000 voucher cap proposed in the Kasich administration’s budget, the 220 percent increase over FY11 levels would mean a price tag on the order of $143 million in additional spending on regular education vouchers within a relatively short time frame.

Van Lier emphasized to ThinkProgress that predicting the final cost of the program would be difficult because it largely depends on the rate of growth in participation in the program. Because HB 136 would remove most barriers that existed to access to school vouchers that existed prior to its passage, the amount of money expended could actually be much higher. The bill’s backers have not announced when they plan to bring the bill to the full floor of the state House for a vote.

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