The voucher program in Louisiana continues to amaze. It is a living demonstration of what happens when public officials abandon responsibility for the children and institutions in their care. Watch what happens when the state gives children a voucher for public funds and then says that whatever choice they make is okay. John White memorably said last year: “To me, it’s a moral outrage that the government would say, ‘We know what’s best for your child,’” White said. “Who are we to tell parents we know better?”

And that is why the Louisiana Department of Education sent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to the New Living Word Church school, making fools of taxpayers while abdicating any interest in the quality of education received by the children. An audit revealed that the school overcharged the state by nearly $400,000, so White has excluded the school from the voucher program and is suing to recover the money.

But the school was not excluded because of its poor education, only because of financial impropriety.

Robert Mann, a professor of communications at Louisiana State University, writes: “Would you pay $6,300 in tuition to send your child to a private school with uncertified teachers, insufficient computers and no proper classrooms, and at which the “teaching” occurred mostly by plopping students in front of televisions to watch lessons on DVDs? Of course you wouldn’t. But the Louisiana Department of Education would.”

Mann writes:

“In a moment of Orwellian inspiration, Jindal and the Legislature dubbed their voucher plan the “Student Scholarships of Education Excellence Program.”

“Despite embarrassing questions last year from legislators and the media about the school’s abysmal instruction, its lack of classroom space and the absence of qualified teachers, state Education Superintendent John White awarded the voucher slots.

“Actually, calling this Ruston fly-by-night operation a “school” is like calling beef jerky prime rib. Yet, with full knowledge that the institution was little more than a shell of a school, White and Jindal handed it more than $600,000 of your money.

“The damage to the state’s budget could have been worse. White’s department initially awarded New Living Word more voucher slots than any other school in the state. Only after the Monroe News-Star exposed the sordid mess was White forced to trim the number from 315 to 165. Last school year, the “school” enrolled only 93 voucher students.”

Why in the world would White offer more vouchers to this school than any other in the state? Maybe because the well-established religious and private schools would not accept more than a handful of students. And White needed the numbers.

And more:

“White, of course, feigned outraged – but not about the fact that he’d wasted hundreds of thousands of tax dollars subsidizing shoddy instruction. “It shows a basic lack of competence,” he said about the school, not himself. “It can’t be tolerated.”

“What White can tolerate is inferior instruction of your children via DVD. In his statement, he offered no explanation for his recklessness and incompetence.

“And of the audits (basically internal investigations conducted by two Baton Rouge accounting firms), White trumpeted them as proof that his voucher program – save for New Living Word – is an unqualified success. The headline on a Department of Education press release proudly declared, “99 Percent of Schools Show No Violation.”

“There’s just one problem with that statement: It’s patently false.”

What did the audits reveal?

“In fact, the audits revealed that the afore-mentioned standard “could not be completed for forty-nine of the fifty-one private schools reviewed.” One audit is littered with the following statement, concerning the records of dozens of voucher schools: “We were unable to perform the procedures because the school did not have a separate checking account or other procedures to account for scholarship expenditures separate from other expenditures.”

“Most of the schools were also unable to verify that their “expenditures do not constitute gross irresponsibility and are not individually enriching.” These are not insignificant findings except, apparently, to White. The state will spend about $45 million in the current fiscal year on vouchers for about 8,000 students.”

Louisiana’s problem is a lack of accountability. The state has no accountability at the top. When will John White be held accountable for the unaccountable voucher program? When will he be held accountable for the disastrous “course choice” program, that seeks to funnel millions of dollars to for-profit vendors? The highest court in the state declared unconstitutional the funding of both the voucher and course choice programs. Jindal and White will not be allowed to take money out of the public school fund to pay for their privatization plans.

What Louisiana shows for all to see is that the privatization movement is not about improving education. It is not “for the kids.” It is about money, power, and ego.

Remember last year when Governor Bobby Jindal rammed through his voucher proposal, whereby more than half the state’s children were eligible for a voucher to attend any private or religious or entrepreneurial school? Remember that critics said that Superintendent John White gave out vouchers without due diligence and that the school that got the most vouchers had no classrooms, no teachers, and no curriculum for the influx, which would triple their enrollment? And remember that White said that “parents know best” and that it was not his role as state superintendent to tell anyone how to educate their child?

It is also worth remembering that Jindal’s voucher plan (and charters and online charters and course choice for entrepreneurs) was saluted by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education hailed the plan as a formula for bold change. And Bush’s “Chiefs for Change” issued a statement endorsing the program; then-Indiana superintendent Tony Bennett called it “student-centered” and said, ” “Students will no longer have to settle for failing schools. Countless families will be able to select the best education option for their unique student’s needs. And superintendents and principals will be empowered to hone faculties of talented, dynamic, and effective educators. Armed with these bold reforms, Louisiana will soon lead our country in quality public K-12 education.”

That was then, this is now.

Well, now we know that White has barred New Living Word from accepting vouchers, not because of the quality of its education but because of financial improprieties. It seems that they were receiving more money from the state for voucher students than they charged their own students, and the church now owes the state nearly $400,000.

Today the New Orleans Times-Picayune published an editorial saying that the vouchers awarded to this school were a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.

Not only did the school overcharge the state, but test scores were abysmal there, as they were in many of the voucher schools.

The editorial says:

“LEAP scores for third- through eighth-graders released in May showed that only 40 percent of voucher students scored at or above grade level. That compares with a statewide average of 69 percent for all students.

Seven schools in Jefferson and Orleans parishes posted such poor results that they are being barred from accepting new voucher students this fall, although they can keep those they already have.

New Living Word’s iLEAP scores for third-, fifth- and sixth-graders were substantially lower than their counterparts in Lincoln Parish public schools and the state as a whole, according to the Department of Education report.

Those poor results wouldn’t have triggered the school being removed from the voucher program this year, though. A school has to post three years of poor LEAP results before getting sanctioned.”

Lot of critics warned that vouchers should not be paid for out of the state’s Minimum Foundation Budget for public schools; the Jindal administration ignored them, and the voucher funding was struck down by the state’s highest court.

Lots of critics warned that the state should set consistent standards for all schools receiving public dollars, but the state ignored them.

In a democracy, public officials would do well to listen to their critics before committing to a disastrous and radical course of action.

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.”