The Jindal education reforms include a huge voucher program that had rightwing choice advocates jumping for joy and supporters of public schools trembling. More than half the students in the state are eligible for vouchers, about 380,000 children.
But not so fast. It turns out that there are only a few thousand seats available in the state’s private and religious schools. Maybe new ones will open, but at present the voucher program looks like a mouse rather than an elephant.
Schools have the authority to decide if they want voucher students, and some politely say no. Others are full. Some don’t want students with disabilities (of 1,800 students in New Orleans who now use vouchers to go to private schools, only TWO are special-education students). (http://www.theind.com/news/10546-voucher-participation-list-pending).
Some of Jindal’s local critics predicted months ago that the real threat to public education was charters, not vouchers. Charter AU theorizers will be set up in every parish and will collect a commission for every student who leaves public school to enter a privately-managed charter.
Every dollar that goes to either vouchers or charters will come right out of the public school’s budget. This is a zero-sum game.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When school systems had the opportunity to begin a real investigation of what vouchers would do to their systems, with some questions still unable to be answered, it soon became apparent the acceptance of vouchers was not going to be welcomed with open arms. The systems or schools in urban areas have been among the first to decline. It doesn’t seem that this component of Louisiana Believe is a very popular one among them. Thus, it is leaving very little opportunity for students to escape their “failing” schools. Charters, on the other hand, could be a different story. The laws have opened wide the doors for them to become more visible in the landscape. Charters and vouchers are so wrong! Especially, when money is taken from the funding source for public schools, the Minimum Foundation Formula (MFP)
Dear Diane, I have read The Life and Death of the Great American School System by you just this year. I felt validated by many of your conclusions in the book. I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I don’t agree with what our Governor is doing to the state and my parish in particular. The education system in south Louisiana has a very complicated and divisive history. Some members of my parish and my state legislature are trying to break East Baton Rouge up into smaller, and smaller ISD’s – to the detriment of the parish in my opinion. South Louisiana has a strong history of private/parochial schools. Our parish is currently 86% African American in the public schools due to the middle class and above using private school options. There are many middle class white kids in a small handful of outstanding magnet schools in the parish and in the southeastern corner of East Baton Rouge Parish where the majority of the parish’s white families live. It is quite true that there are only going to be a handful of open private school seats for “voucher” kids.
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