Justice Department vouchers suit could threaten state’s school choice report card rank
by Danielle Dreilinger
NOLA.com
September 3, 2013
A national report continues to praise Louisiana’s school choice programs but warns the state’s fourth-in-the-nation ranking and parents’ power in their children’s education could be in jeopardy because of a federal lawsuit that could halt vouchers in districts under desegregation orders.
The Center for Education Reform issued its annual ranking of parent power in education Tuesday, measuring such factors as vouchers, charter school participation, parent access to information and the availability of online courses. Louisiana’s score didn’t change from an interim April ranking: 2.55 on a 4-point scale, or roughly 81 percent. However, the state fell from third to fourth in the nation because of advances Ohio made in school technology.
The Center for Education Reform says vouchers give parents more power in their children’s education. The Louisiana Scholarship Program allows low-income students in C, D or F schools to attend private schools at taxpayer expense.
However, the U.S. Department of Justice charges that the transferring of students out of public schools via vouchers has halted and even reversed desegregation in some areas.
Center founder Jeanne Allen condemned the lawsuit on Aug. 25, saying, “School choice programs ignore the artificial boundaries set by politicians and work for the good of all children. The resulting school options have been embraced by parents, not just because they work, but because they are the right thing to do.”
The effect of the Justice Department’s petition on Louisiana’s Parent Power Index score cannot be known yet, said Kara Kerwin, the center’s vice president of external affairs and incoming president: The score “is not affected by the lawsuit per se but if the eligibility of students is taken away, of course it would affect parent power,” she said.
A major state lawsuit didn’t hurt the parent power score because Gov. Bobby Jindal found new funding after the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in May it was unconstitutional to divert money to private schools from the state’s per-pupil public school allotment. Kerwin said the center would have a problem if the new funding disappeared.
Beyond vouchers, Louisiana earned points for its new Compass teacher evaluation system, whose initial results were also released Tuesday. The metric draws 50 percent of its result from student growth on standardized tests and makes it much harder for teachers to earn and keep tenure.
The report card also praises New Orleans charter school participation but calls for efforts to encourage more charters outside the metro area, and commends the state education department’s website for offering “very parent-friendly data.”
