School choice promises to be one of the few hotly contested issues in this year’s Legislative session. Lawmakers are floating several different proposals, and opponents began their opposition by staging a rally on the State Capitol steps earlier this week.
Last summer’s United States Supreme Court decision upholding the Cleveland school district’s voucher program laid to rest the principal argument against school vouchers — that they are unconstitutional.
School choice proponents see Louisiana as a perfect testing ground for the potential success of school choice programs.
Last October the American Legislative Exchange Council released a report ranking Louisiana’s public schools the third worst in the nation. In 2000, Louisiana ranked 25 of 26 states in ACT scoring.
Louisiana also is first in the country in percentage of children in private or home schools according to the most recent U.S. Census.
School choice could help in alleviating the state’s current budget crisis. National Center on Education statistics show private school spending is around $4,600 per student. Louisiana spends $6,024 per pupil enrolled in public school. If the state gave each parent $4,600 to send their kids to private school, it would save more than $1,400 per student.
Florida will save nearly $8 million dollars this year by allowing disabled children to attend private or public schools and is set to save more because participation in the program doubles each year.
According to the Legislative Fiscal Office’s report released in February, Louisiana funds elementary and secondary education at approximately the Southern average, but pays teachers substantially below the Southern average. Where is the money going?
Clearly, Louisiana public schools haven’t been spending funds efficiently and have produced little to benefit the future of Louisiana children.
The Louisiana Association of Educators, Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education have come out strongly against any voucher or school choice program, claiming they need more time to improve schools their way.
“We think it is fundamentally wrong to take public monies and give it to private institutions,” said Fred Skelton, LFT president.
Private schools are less likely to fall prey to fiscal irresponsibility than public school bureaucracies due to competitive forces. Competition also increases the pressure on private schools to produce a good product.
Results released by the American Education Reform Council from Milwaukee’s pilot voucher programs enacted in the mid-1990’s show how competition improved the public school system. Enrollment in the Milwaukee public school system increased 4.7 percent from 1990 to 2001 while the annual dropout rate fell nearly 6 percent in the same period. When compared to an overall national sample, student achievement is up while scores on state tests have steadily improved.
Some have suggested private schools should submit to the same guidelines public schools are held to if they receive state money. Private schools would not and should not agree to more government regulation. Why should we remake private schools in the image of failing public schools? Trust the parents to put their kids in schools they believe are serving their children best.
Louisianians who can afford private school tuition take their kids out of failing public schools. But poor people are stuck with sending their kids to failing schools and dooming them to repeat a vicious cycle. School choice would help improve the future of those in urban areas such as New Orleans where 21 schools are identified as “academically unacceptable.”
Public Agenda conducted a survey in 1999 and found that 68 percent of black people favor vouchers. But a survey of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that 69 percent of black federal, state and local elected officials don’t support school choice. Most of these officials could afford to put their kids in private schools and many do. Four District of Columbia council members who voted against voucher proposals placed their kids in private schools.
I urge you to encourage you state legislators to stand up to the union and bureaucratic political pressure and do what’s right for Louisiana and its citizens. It’s time we stop the soft bigotry of low expectations and give all parents the ability to choose their child’s school regardless of their monetary means.