The state Education Department continues to trip over its own tongue in explaining why it is stonewalling the public about details of its voucher program.
Last spring, The Associated Press,
through a public records request, sought information on how schools were
chosen for the
voucher program, which involves state payments to private schools
for almost 5,000 students this year. The department dragged
its feet for almost two months before rejecting the AP’s request.
Later, the department said it would honor the request in September. In October, after sleeping on it, the department reversed itself
yet again and said the request was overly broad.
The public might suspect something else: that the Education Department itself broadened the voucher program without fully
thinking out the consequences of its actions.
Stories published by the American Press
detailed numerous problems with voucher program applications from
private schools in DeRidder and in Westlake that were woefully
unprepared to accommodate voucher students
Similar news stories published elsewhere in Louisiana revealed situations in which other private schools were ill-prepared
to educate the swarms of students they were expecting to enroll through voucher payments.
The state’s voucher program has been criticized, left and right, in national reports. The left-leaning multi-faith organization
Interfaith Alliance criticized the program as “bad for religious freedom and bad for public education.”
The Rev. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who heads the alliance, wrote Jindal that under the state voucher program, tax dollars
would be paid to religious schools that would teach creationism in lieu of science.
While he defended the religious schools’ freedom to teach creationism, he said the state should not send tax dollars to them
to help them do it.
Conversely, The Objective Standard,
which touts Ayn Rand’s philosophy of rugged individualism, published a
piece that argued
that the Louisiana voucher plan would make private schools less
private by making them meet state standards. “When the government
cuts the check,” Michael A. LaFerrara wrote, “the government sets
the terms.”
Any program that controversial needs more explanation, not less. But at the Education Department, mum’s the word.
Louisianians should give voucher
schools careful consideration for the good they can do. Impoverished
students should not
be condemned to inferior schools, as the administration rightly
contends; vouchers can enable parents to improve their children’s
chances for a good education.
But because taxpayers are footing the bill for this program — the state is paying up to almost $9,000 per student — the public
has a right to know the details of how this program has evolved and is evolving.
The people themselves can judge how the Education Department has handled vouchers, but it needs all the facts the department
is hiding to make that judgment.
This editorial was written by a member of the American Press Editorial Board. Its content reflects the collaborative opinion of the Board, whose members include Bobby Dower, Ken Stickney,
Jim Beam, Crystal Stevenson and Donna Price.