Louisiana School Vouchers -Emails exposed and discussion

[Expatriate]

Email exchange reveal voucher scheme | The News Star | thenewsstar.com

Emails between Louisiana Education Superintendent John White, Gov. Bobby Jindal's spokesman Kyle Plotkin and Jindal's policy adviser Stafford Palmieri show White devising a scheme to "muddy up a narrative" and to "take some air out of the room" after a news report about the new voucher program that was published before his Senate confirmation hearing in May.In the email exchange, White proposes creating a news story about the "due diligence" process for school voucher approvals to counter the impact of a News-Star article that revealed the state Department of Education had not performed site visits or extensive review of voucher applications.

Interesting read.

[Three Monkeys]

"In the email, White discusses how he will create the news story by releasing a communication to schools regarding a timeline for student assignment.

'"This will allow us to kill multiple birds with one stone," White writes. "It would allow us to talk through the process with the media, muddying up a narrative they're trying to keep black and white."'

God forbid a story be in black and white. By all means, lets confuse the issue for the public.

[guidomerkinsrules]

just so long as we get to teach that an invisible magician in the sky is science i don't care how we get there

[Oye]

Like it or not, the religiosity flames of this debate (e.g. teaching the Loch Ness monster as true dinosaur at a Louisiana Christian school) are only going to be fanned further when fundamentalists make comments like these:

Louisiana lawmakers concerned with vouchers funding Muslim schools:

Lawmakers concerned about vouchers funding Muslim school | WBRZ News 2 Louisiana : Baton Rouge, LA |

The Louisiana Legislature passed a funding plan for public schools on the last day of session, but not before debate which included a discussion about what types of schools could benefit from Governor Bobby Jindal's voucher plan.

Representative John Bel Edwards says the Islamic School of Greater New Orleans applied for inclusion in the voucher program. He says if the school is included, taxpayer money would be used to support Muslim teachings.

Hodges now leery of Jindal reform - The Livingston Parish News: News

Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Republican who represents East Baton Rouge and Livingston, now says she wishes she hadn’t voted for the Jindal voucher bill.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” Hodges told the Livingston Parish News.

“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges added.

The newspaper reported that she “mistakenly assumed that ‘religious’ meant ‘Christian.’”

Louisiana Lawmakers Object To Funding Islamic School Under New Voucher Program

Stakes escalated last week when, to the frustration of some lawmakers, the Islamic School of Greater New Orleans applied for federal funds under the voucher program. Republican state Rep. Kenneth Havard objected to the Islamic School's request for 38 government-paid student vouchers, saying he opposed any bill that "will fund Islamic teaching," the Associated Press reports.

"I won't go back home and explain to my people that I supported this," he said.

"It'll be the Church of Scientology next year," Democratic state Rep. Sam Jones told AP.

Perhaps the biggest shame in all of this is that this move for political gain (and not educational improvement) might backfire for Jindal and end up making LA's educational system even worse than it was before.

I'm not a guy who wants a lot of federal control over education - or thinks it's needed. Minimum standards and assurances, sure. I see a lot of success with provincial control (instead of federal) over education here in Canada, for example.

But if there's anyone, doing anything, at the state level that makes me second guess that sense in state-level educational policy-making, it's Jindal and a lot of our state officials.

[Morbo]

Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Republican who represents East Baton Rouge and Livingston, now says she wishes she hadn’t voted for the Jindal voucher bill.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” Hodges told the Livingston Parish News.

“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges added.

The newspaper reported that she “mistakenly assumed that ‘religious’ meant ‘Christian.’”

How ironic that she references the founding fathers in a discussion about discrimination based on religion. 1st Amendment much?

Oye I've lurked for a while and always found you to have an excellent take on educational issues. While the Jindal program obviously has flaws do you think there is a form of voucher system that could have a positive effect on the education of kids?

[Expatriate]

Originally Posted by Morbo

How ironic that she references the founding fathers in a discussion about discrimination based on religion. 1st Amendment much?

Oye I've lurked for a while and always found you to have an excellent take on educational issues. While the Jindal program obviously has flaws do you think there is a form of voucher system that could have a positive effect on the education of kids?

Research Finland's education system and then ask yourself: if we are looking to do something radical and shake up the education system, are vouchers really a good idea at all?

[V Chip]

Originally Posted by Oye

Like it or not, the religiosity flames of this debate (e.g. teaching the Loch Ness monster as true dinosaur at a Louisiana Christian school) are only going to be fanned further when fundamentalists make comments like these:

Which is further proof this had absolutely NOTHING to do with education of Louisiana children and everything to do with funding religion/advancing conservatism.

[whodat??]

Louisiana Republican: When I Voted for State Funds to go to Religious Schools, I Didn

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.
…
“Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders’ religion,” Hodges said. “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.”

[Oye]

Louisiana School Vouchers -Emails exposed and discussion

[guidomerkinsrules]

freedom's hard

[Hawkeye Saint]

Yar, hoisted on his own petard.

[brandon8283]

And this is why we can't have prayer in school. So many people in this area are like "THIS COUNTRY STARTED FAILING WHEN WE TOOK PRAYER OUT OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!111111," but if you allow it, you may get more than you bargained for. Like a teacher leading your kids in an Islamic blessing over their pizza and chocolate milk (and maybe not letting them eat it because pizza isn't halal).

[Oye]

Originally Posted by Morbo

do you think there is a form of voucher system that could have a positive effect on the education of kids?

Well, sure. The question, though, is how many kids we're talking about. Voucher systems, by design/definition, are not going to fix the problem on a broad enough scale. And that's my biggest concern.

Vouchers won't do that. They can't. And I think there's a very good chance, you compound problems that are already within the system. It's not as bad as, say, profitizing it as an industry. But I don't think it's an effective means to improve public education if the context your talking about is an entire state or parish. And not for most municipalities.

Another issue I have with this is that it seemed to me to be a preselected, predetermined goal for Jindal. And, further, I doubt it was for educational reasons. I'm certain it was in large part for political issues. Considering the graft woven into the political fabric of the state, I wouldn't be surprised if there's private gain, too.

But it was already decided on. It wasn't "How do we fix or improve education in Louisiana?" Instead, it was "How can we get vouchers into the system?" or "Let's implement teacher merit as part of it too." Both are very popular sentiments. But the research that this has been based on is pretty thin. What little I've seen from the State or from the Superintendent is awful. It's woefully superficial, conspicuously selective, and definitely cherry-picked. There's so much out there - research and practice-wise - that's being ignored because it addresses the flaws in their approach.

For me, that's just not how you go about identifying and fixing the problem.

If the problem is "the quality and access of education in Louisiana" why would this be your first play? It makes no sense, educationally.

The appeal is also circumscribed by this free-market delusion of "choice" in schools. Again, superficial and populist. The advocacy of market principles transposition on education is delusional and misguided. But it puts educational "quality" into a metaphor that people believe they understand - though I'd argue they don't really understand the market and understand education even less.

I will say, though, that there are nations that have a publicly-funded "choice" system. My field isn't global comparative ed, so I don't have much to offer here. One example, I believe, is Sweden - and I've mentioned it on here before. But you could google and learn more in a few minutes than what I know about that.

For me, the bottom line to answer the question to fix education and access is to find the way to impact the way most kids experience education. That's through fixing the problems in public education, imo. If impoverished areas of China can do it, why not Louisiana? Tackling curriculum. Revisiting the wisdom behind standardized tests. Improve teacher quality through preservice education and certification requirements. Looking at resource allocation. Etc.

tl;dr - I'm skeptical.

[SharonT]

Unfortunately, if you have comments that may appear to challenge or contradict the Jindal administration on this issue, you may find yourself in the hotseat. From Committee appointees losing positions, to lists of home addresses of school teachers being demanded by his office. Republican, Democrat, doesn't matter. If you're from out of state, you're probably okay.

[Sun Wukong]

It's times like this when I realize I have zero reason to be optimistic about the future of this state.

That pains me. It really does. I love this state. It is my home. I love its food and culture and music and tradition.

But it is its own worst enemy.