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Saturday, June 2, 2012

I say to Louisiana about privatizing education…go for it.

As a parent of a 10 and 13 year old, all I can say is what you're about to read is an educational nightmare.

And it couldn’t happen to a better bunch of southerners, proving the old stereotype that...well, you know. I do have massive sympathy for those dedicated public teachers trying to save their kids from the profiteers, but somebody had to turn education into a totally cost driven tool for business.
Reuters: Louisiana is embarking on the nation's boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children … Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids, with (family) incomes nearing $60,000 a year, will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools.

The following year, students of any income will be eligible for mini-vouchers that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships not offered in traditional public schools. The money can go to industry trade groups, businesses, online schools and tutors, among others. Every time a student receives a voucher of either type, his local public school will lose a chunk of state funding.
Wow, that’s not ripe for fraud. Of course parents who have been away from K-12 for a decade or two or three, know all there is to know about what's best for their kids, right?
"We are changing the way we deliver education," said Governor Bobby Jindal. "We are letting parents decide what's best for their children, not government."
How did they know? I didn’t, and I’m still trying to catch up to my kids. But clichĂ©s are so easy to understand. As I’ve mentioned so many times before, the best voucher schools will have waiting lists, and the lousy schools will take in the rest…check out the future of education envisioned by the Republican Party below. You won't believe it:
The top schools, however, have just a handful of slots open. Far more openings are available at smaller, less prestigious religious schools, including some that are just a few years old and others that have struggled to attract tuition-paying students.

The school willing to accept the most voucher students, 314, has a top-ranked basketball team but no library … Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

The Upperroom Bible Church Academy in New Orleans, a bunker-like building with no windows or playground, also has plenty of slots open. It seeks to bring in 214 voucher students, worth up to $1.8 million in state funding.

At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, 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."

Other schools approved for state-funded vouchers use social studies texts warning that liberals threaten global prosperity; Bible-based math books that don't cover modern concepts such as set theory; and biology texts built around refuting evolution.

Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White said he will leave it to principals to be sure their curriculum covers all subjects kids need and leave it to parents to judge the quality of each private school on the list. 

1 comment:

  1. I feel sorry for the children of Louisiana but I can't think of a better laboratory to demonstrate what a cluserfuck privatized education will become. It's just a bonus that Louisiana has a long and proud history of corruption.

    At some point an ambitious public prosecutor will have a field day with this.

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