Mercedes Schneider here recounts the sad story of Louisiana’s voucher program.
Vouchers were piloted in Néw Orleans, then made available to students across the state in 2012-13. Governor Bobby Jindal and State Commissioner of Education John White foresaw a revolutionary change with tens of thousands of public school students fleeing their “failing” schools to enroll in private and religious schools, where they would enjoy a first-rate education.
But it didn’t happen. The original plan was to divert funding from the state’s minimum foundation funding for public schools, but the courts said the plan was unconstitutional. Then it turned out that the school offering the largest number of vouchers was a small church school without a curriculum or certified teachers. Within a year, it was disqualified for mishandling public money.
The biggest problems, however, were the lack of demand for vouchers by students and the many private schools that did not want voucher students. Less than 10% of students in schools rated D or F asked for a voucher: Not exactly a stampede for the exits.
Added to that was the lackluster performance of students in voucher schools, which was below the state average.
Now John White is offering additional incentives (money) to induce more private schools to accept vouchers.
Sad. No transformation. No flight from public schools. A bust.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Save for the destruction they’ve imposed on the public schools, the so-called reformers are failures even when judged by their own debased standards and metrics.
When will there be accountability for these frauds, or are we stuck with their lies and impunity forever?
Never. It is like to old play ground rule: The one with the ball makes the rules. Here the ones with the money make the rules.
the not to old play ground rule
Gallup annually reports that the vast (with an emphasis on vast) number of parents trust the local public schools that their children attend and they think that if there is a problem in the public schools it is in those schools their children don’t attend.
Why do they think this way? Because Gates, Walton, Broad have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually for media propaganda that repeatedly says the public schools are failing, the teachers are incompetence and lazy and their unions are only interested in the money.
But most parents across the country, who are invoked in their child’s education at the local level across the country in every district and public school, do not find this to be true and the Gallup surveys reveal this thinking.
What these parents think about public schools their children have never attended is not relevant because that thinking is influenced by the money that Gates, Walton and Broad are spending to fund the lies and myths that public education is failing when it is not failing.
What difference if the children suffer. SOME people make money and of course money is the bottom line, not our children, not the future of democracy in this country. Since money is more important than people, money accumulates for the few and the rest of us become peons, servants of those with money and power.
Maybe the politicians should notice that public education seems to be winning in the court of public opinion. With vouchers there is no mass exodus in Louisiana!
To those readers in ILL-Annoy: coming soon, to a town near you!