Last year, when Governor Bobby Jindal persuaded the Louisiana legislature to pass the nation’s most sweeping voucher program, the school that was selected to receive the largest number of voucher students was the New Living Word Church school. Although it lacked the facilities, the teachers, or the curriculum to triple its enrollment, Superintendent John White approved the school to enroll 193 voucher students. While responded to criticism by reducing the number of vouchers to 93, still nearly half the school’s enrollment.
Classes were taught by DVD to students in the church gymnasium. The school’s principal and pastor promised to build a new building to accommodate the influx of new students.
This past week, Superintendent White banned the New Living Word School from further participation in the voucher program. It seems that they charged the state more than they charged non-voucher students, and the church pocketed the difference, which was hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars annually.
According to Superintendent White, the school now owes the state nearly $400,000 in overcharges.
Blogger Lamar White (no relation to the superintendent) in Louisiana had this to say about the fiasco:
“Although it’s easy and completely understandable to feel outraged by New Living Word’s exploitation of the voucher program, I find it impossible to have any sympathy for Superintendent White. Time after time, for over a year, he was warned repeatedly about this particular school; he was routinely criticized for the lack of oversight and accountability employed by the Department of Education, for his decision to not conduct even a bare modicum of due diligence on schools that sought hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in state government funding. Remember, the voucher program, ostensibly, was sold to Louisiana citizens as a way of ensuring children have access to better educational opportunities.
“As Zack Kopplin’s research reveals, at least a third of voucher schools are teaching from anti-scientific and anti-historical textbooks, and as we learned just last month, voucher students scored almost thirty points below average on the LEAP examination.
“In his statement to the media yesterday, Superintendent White also said, “In my view it is financially irresponsible according to the law. In my view it is incompetence and we will not tolerate it.”
“I’d submit that before Superintendent White lectures anyone else on financial irresponsibility or incompetence, he should first read up on negligence and dereliction of duty.
“I, for one, do not believe that New Living Word is the only school in the program that charges voucher students more than non-voucher students. Stay tuned.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I guess I’m dancing with blaming the victim here, but what kind of parents would enroll their child in that kind of a school? Who on earth thinks that watching videos in the gymnasium is better than public school? Just how bad do you have to believe your public school is before you would settle for this as a “better” alternative?
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My kids watched a movie per day for at at least the last week of school, and I suspect for some time before that. On one of those days my daughter’s class also cleaned the classrooms on one floor of the school. We pulled them out of school each day at around 10:30 am so they could do more interesting stuff. Couldn’t keep them home entirely because the absences would kill my daughter’s middle school applications. For all the complaining about how they have to “teach to the test,” it appears my kids’ teachers were at a loss for what to do once the tests were over.
What kind of parent am I to send my kids to this school?
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First, a movie a day for a week is a lot different than movies all day all year long.
Second, did you pull your daughter out of a public school to put her in this school? The thing with these voucher supporters is that most of them are religious fanatics who are so horrified by “government schools” that they’re desperate for any other alternative – better for my kid to learn next to nothing than to learn abominable things like evolution or that gay people are normal or something. I have very little sympathy for people wallowing in their ignorance to that depth. I suspect, however, that you are not one of those people.
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I moved to a neighborhood with insane rent to get her in this school. Didn’t pull her out of one where she was already enrolled. They’re probably watching movies at the zoned school I fled, too.
I probably wallow in my own kind of ignorance (who knows what kind, as I’m ignorant of it). But correct, not that kind.
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A few years ago, in preparation for this kind of fiasco and before charters became so common, conservative religionist parents were warned by the heads of the hate groups they support—Focus on the Family and American Family Forum that they needed to take their kids out of public school and either home school them or put them in “christian academies”. Mothers were told to give up their incomes and lives to teach their children at home. The reasons were because public school teachers were not Christians because did not pray or read the Bible at school. (Never mind that a school in Atlanta where I taught had, on a staff of only 19, at least 3 ordained ministers, an evangelist, and 7 preacher’s wives. And the second principal was a deacon and the Vision Resource teacher a Worship Leader at a major United Methodist Church.)
So naturally the sheep followed. I think the hate groups knew that this charter movement was going to get going soon and they wanted kids for it. On top of that, you consider that Louisiana already, even before charters were common, had about 20% of its children in parochial schools and parents were accustomed to paying tuition, which sometimes amounted to only $3000 a year. Even low paid parents, like my paraprofessional in New Orleans, paid for their children to attend parochial schools.
It is a tradition among the Cajun people and even Protestant parents sent their children to Catholic school in New Orleans, (and undid the theology at supper) , because they thought they would get a better education.
So the idea of charters is nothing foreign in Louisiana and parents tend to trust religious schools. In addition, the children were already indoctrinated to some of the ways of the Catholic schools because uniforms were forced on them even in publics and religious assemblies are quite common in the public schools. A co-worker from Massachusetts went into shock when high school students and teachers spontaneously gathered in the school hallways for prayer on testing days.
Think Bible Belt, y’all.
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What happened to the 1st amendment? Isn’t the law of the land still the right to free exercise of religion? One would think, twinkie1cat, that in your mind religion=hate. Now we do all know that while religion cannot guarantee morality, to summarily equate all religion with hatefulness may be perhaps an overstatement. Can a sect not be forgiven for preferring its own views on contraception, marriage, abortion, prayer, evolution, and even high stakes testing, to the views of the secular society? Would it really hurt the larger society to respect their dissent? I seem to see in the guise of criticism of Bible Belt Beliefs an even greater intolerance in the secular statist who wants to wipe out all such religious beliefs. Those who preach the most about tolerance turn out to be the least tolerant of people who disagree with them. Such a one, twinkie1cat, I claim you are. Such hypocrisy about tolerance is the sure mark of the tyrant. Were you aware that to observers such as myself, you were betraying a mind set that want to rule everyone and tell them what to think and not to think? To live by real tolerance, you must, in fact, be tolerant of views which your metaphysic and politics do not allow. I can hardly imagine that a Buddhist sand painting really is a dwelling of the Buddah, but that doesn’t mean I want to expunge such beliefs from society. Live and let live, eh?
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In the 1960’s China went through what is called the Cultural Revolution. Schools were turned into indoctrination institutions and teachers were vilified and sent off to peasant communes or worse. An entire generation of the Chinese population has had to struggle with the loss of their education over this ten year period.
What is going to be the result of this great social engineering experiment of corporate education reform for the current generation of students? What lives are they going to have because the schools are under siege and millions of students are being denied the education the public schools are capable of giving them if they received full funding and were not a battle field over privatization for corporate profit?
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I would like to see us attach the name “cultural revolution” to what the reformers are attempting here in the US of A. Perhaps the “Chinese-styl Corporate Cultural Revolution”?
It would wonderful to hear a journalist ask Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, or a spokesperson for the Broad Foundation “Why are you engaged in a Chinese-style Cultural Revolution against public education?” or “Why are you using the methods of the Chinese Cultural Revolution against public school teachers in the US of A?”
It would be nice to commit to some proactive pre-emptions of their propaganda. This afternoon while listening to NPR I caught a few seconds of a fluffy interview with John Deasy of LA at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
What a difference it would have made if the reporter had asked him about the Chinese-style Corporate Cultural Revolution instead of pretending that he had something worthwhile to say about helping disadvantaged children. I know this is a pipe dream but sometimes pipe dreams lead to real world actions.
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How about some criminal charges for fraud and theft. Then find all the others doing the same thing then charge them and prosecute. Once convicted let them have some jail time to think about it and for others to see what can happen to them. Now let’s see Louisiana start to use the failed charter school laws and kick those operators out. New Orleans I think had about 119 public schools. After the Recovery school District I think there were about 19 public schools left. My stepdaughters friend worked for the Recovery School District and it was a mess and they were often not paid. That’s a good record isn’t it?
As I have said before: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Jong and Pol Pot proved that when you control the education system you can control the outcome of the society to whatever you want. Go read the history of Russia or any of these countries and you will see. This is what they are doing here now. They want the select elite serviced by their indentured servants in a permanent state of “Permadebt.” All you have to read is “Hapsburgs to Hitler” to see what the plan is and “Crossing the Rubicon” to see how they are implementing the plan through 9-11 with the introduction of FEAR.
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There will be some good episodes of American Greed coming out of this reform movement!
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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For those outside of Louisiana, the current pastor of that school (New Living Word Ministries) had professional trouble in his former role as a coach at a local university in Lafayette, La, nearly 3 hours from the location of the church in Ruston, LA. . So to many of us who were aware of that prior no-no on the part of the coach-turned pastor/CEO, this revelation by Super White was not too surprising.
An interesting question comes to mind: how does one fail at a university as a coach then ‘succeed’ at ministry?.
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You should check your facts Mr. Alleman before you demonstrate your ignorance with such comments. As I understand it, this minister had a successful run as a high school and college coach. His high school teams were so successful at winning that it landed him assistant college coaching opportunities at Louisiana Tech and LSU, where he not only produced winning results but also led efforts to make sure student-athletes attended classed and ultimately graduated (unlike many college coaches today who want full-time ball players and part-time students). Did you even stop to think how he ever landed the head coaching job at USL in Lafayette? I suspect it was because he was highly qualified and successful in his previous coaching assignments at major universities. If I remember correctly, his firing at USL was unwarranted, and that was ultimately proven in a lawsuit ending in his favor.
Your last question is not interesting at all and shows the height of your ignorance. If you knew anything about the man, you would know that his father was a minister, and he grew up in the church. The church has always been part of his life. In addition, he probably has more advanced college degrees than you could ever dream of having.
I’m going to hold judgement and hope that this matter is a big misunderstanding and gets resolved. Because we all know that education in Louisiana can stand to improve, particularly for African American kids in small rural areas. I applaud his effort in trying to help.
You sir, are poorly informed and not helping the situation at all by posting your comments on this blog. I’m sure if we polled a large population both outside of Louisiana and within the state who actually know this man, we would find your opinion grouped with a negligible minority who feel as you do. I suggest you think before you type next time.
How do I know all of this? I actually know the man, played ball for him in college and followed his guidance and mentoring. And by the way, I graduated from college… twice if you include grad school. So in my mind, he was successful and his success contributed to my own.
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