Voucher demand heaviest in EBR

East Baton Rouge Parish has some of the heaviest demand for vouchers in the state, which critics of the public school system call another sign of disenchantment with traditional options.

More than 800 students — 15 percent of the total statewide — were awarded vouchers to attend 18 private and parochial schools in the parish, according to figures released last week by the state Department of Education.

That is second only to voucher totals in New Orleans, which has offered the state aid since 2008 and is authorized for nearly 2,700 new and returning slots.

East Baton Rouge and Orleans parishes account for 62 percent of the 5,637 seats statewide.

The aid is supposed to offset the costs of tuition and mandatory fees at private schools, which the state said averages $5,300 per school.

The East Baton Rouge Parish School District was rated D by the state last year.

Voucher backers contend the aid offers a way out of failing public schools.

Opponents say the assistance threatens traditional public schools, which lose an average of $8,537 in aid through the Minimum Foundation Program for each student that goes elsewhere.

Norman Browning, who led an effort earlier this year to set up a new school district in southeast Baton Rouge, said the demand for vouchers dovetails with complaints he and others have about the East Baton Rouge Parish school system: too few quality schools.

Browning said students attending magnet or gifted and talented schools are getting quality instruction.

“What is happening to the other students?” Browning asked. “That is what we tried to talk about all along.”

The bid for a new district, which required two-thirds majorities in both chambers, sailed through the Senate but failed by four votes in the House.

Opponents said that carving 10 schools out of the East Baton Rouge school system to form a new one would leave behind a school district plagued by high poverty and academic and financial problems.

State Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, sponsor of the legislation, said the demand for vouchers continues a long-standing trend of families fleeing the East Baton Rouge Parish school system.

“In the last 15 years they went from 60,00 students down to 40,000 students,” White said.

“There is still dissatisfaction with the EBR school board and system,” he added.

Chris Trahan, spokesman for the East Baton Rouge Parish district, said the district had 43,303 students for the most recent school year, which is up nearly 700 students from two years earlier.

Hosanna Christian Academy has been authorized to accept 299 voucher students, which is tops in the parish and third most in the state.

Other parish schools with notable influxes of students using the state aid are Redemptorist Elementary School, 96; St. Francis Xavier School, 95; and Louisiana New School Academy, 52.

State Rep. Patricia Smith, D-Baton Rouge and a former member of the East Baton Rouge Parish school board, said the demand for vouchers will have financial consequences for the school district.

“It is going to be a big deal,” Smith said.

East Baton Rouge Parish school leaders, like lots of school districts, are already grappling with budget problems, including health care and retirement costs.

Trahan said it will likely be another six weeks before school officials have a good idea of the effect of vouchers on the district’s budget.

East Baton Rouge Parish schools are set to get $8,736 for each student from the MFP for the upcoming school year, according to state figures.

If all 824 voucher recipients choose not to attend parish public schools, that could potentially cost the district more than $7 million per year, based on state estimates.

Smith, who led House opposition to the breakaway school district, said it is hard to explain the demand for vouchers.

“I guess it is just people wanting to see change, to do something different,” she said.

Schools offering voucher slots have shown a clear preference for younger students, which stems from the view that educators have a better chance for success if they catch the children early.

Nearly 10,000 students applied for about 6,600 voucher slots, with about 5,600 authorized so far.

Students from kindergarten through second grade account for 52 percent of the total, state figures show.

Voucher students in grades nine through 12 make up only 5 percent of the program.

Comments

1) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 14/08/2012

I want to thank The Advocate, and Mark Ballard in particular for removing the false information I referenced earlier about the state claims of support. Hopefully we can work to correct the mis- information being put out by the Department of Education.

2) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 30/07/2012

I need to clarify one thing in the last post... the academic growth of the students in the schools that the state was going to be taking over from EBR, was significantly higher than the growth the state had been achieving in the schools they had already taken over. Fact. And just as important, these are apples to apples comparisons at schools scoring at roughly similar levels. The growth in the New Orleans schools, as opposed to their Letter Grades or School Performance Scores, was suddenly important for the state and the Erwins and McCollisters to highlight, SINCE THE RSD HAD THE LOWEST PERFORMING SCHOOLS IN THE STATE, IN SPITE OF HAVING THEM FOR MANY YEARS! Pastorek, Erwin, McCollister and the other so- called "reformers" had studiously ignored my comments about "growth" in our students, right up until their own schools were "failing" their own standards, then suddenly, they found growth!

3) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 30/07/2012

Ah Scrooge... let me share one example! You may remember at one time that we proposed rerouting test scores from students at selective magnets and at "alternative schools" and discipline centers back to their "home" schools. We were attacked by The Advocate, the Chamber, the "Reformers" and in particular by Barry Erwin, who is as clueless as anyone I have ever met about education issues. Let's look first at the absurdities of the proposal... and then at the rational part of it. It was already written into policies in effect that schools could route scores for alternative schools back to their home schools. Think about it... this makes LOTS of sense, at a number of levels. I'm not sure that there is even ONE alternative school currently meeting state standards, and in many ways, we can't expect them to! Why? Think about it for a moment... most of the students are in these schools because they are already unsuccessful! (I should clarify here that there are several schools around the state that are actually schools of choice teaching an alternative curriculum, but these are NOT the schools I am writing of here. I am writing about the Valley Parks, and the schools for students who have been expelled from other schools.) So, state law and Department of Education (DOE) policies already stated that scores could be rerouted back to home schools. A few excellent reasons... none of these schools would exist for long under the then-current accountability plan without being taken over by the state. There would NOT be an incentive for schools to expel students who were not performing well, because the scores would still come back to the home school! So, good reasons to reroute scores. But wait... those students sent to prison by the courts, were also having their scores sent back to home schools! What? The school was not teaching them... the district had nothing to do with the student, and certainly the district didn't send them to prison. So how did that make sense? Now... what about the EBR proposal. IF, as I think I have proven on numerous occasions, the accountability system is inherently flawed (and it is!) and the schools and districts were NOT given any credit for raising student scores unless and until the students reached certain thresholds, and if there was clear guidance from the DOE that SPECIFICALLY allowed for the re-routing of scores from magnet schools back to "home" schools, then what would be the benefits? First, NOT ONE SCHOOL IN EBR would currently be failing to meet the standards. Second, EBR would not be losing an incredibly high amount of money "stolen" by the state for groups such as Advance Baton Rouge and 100 Black Men for schools that got worse, not better! I use the term "stolen" because that is, in fact, what was happening. The state, using an inherently flawed accountability system, caused schools to be taken over, then gave them to untried, and unsuccessful groups with no experience in education, and gave them more money per pupil that we were spending. Left schools half-empty since parents were NOT choosing RSD schools, and caused overcrowding and budget cuts in EBR. The schools taken over actually had, and I pointed this out in a meeting with the state, higher growth in student scores that the state was achieving in its schools. Now... a couple of other factors that made re-routing the scores back to home schools a RATIONAL decision in an irrational situation. Every researcher who has looked at factors impacting student achievement agrees that the impact of outside of school factors is much greater than the impact of in-school factors. Since the schools are not being graded on the academic GROWTH of students but instead on the very narrow absolute achievement on tests at a particular point in time, this means that the accountability system CANNOT in any meaningful way measure the QUALITY of a school. None. I did research on a Catholic School System in a large city in the MidWest. The Diocese was claiming that there schools were achieving very high rates of success, with student scores averaging around the 70th percentile. SO, on average, their students were achieving at a higher level that 70% of the students in the US (they were using nationally normed tests). Unfortunately, what the data showed, when we looked at cohorts of students over the time they were in the system, they actually moved DOWN in the national "rankings" since the earlier grades had these same students (in the second grade) scoring at the 74th percentile! In other words, the longer you stayed in that system, the lower your ranking....... Now, back to our schools. If we wanted to open some new magnet schools (and our magnets are outstanding, by and large, each one we opened would draw some of the best students from each local attendance zone... thereby increasing the likelihood that the local school scores would go down, and perhaps be taken over by the state. I don't know if anyone ever actually looks at the data, since The Advocate refuses to print this data, but schools with 90% of the students qualifying for free meals have an average score of "F" in the state's accountability system. So, moving high- performing students out of local schools and concentrating them into higher achieveing schools HURTS the local schools, in many ways. If we opened more magnets, and the scores were re-routed, we would avoid the economic losses of takeovers, which have not improved educational outcomes at all, and would leave more resources in the district to assist in those higher poverty schools! Our schools would score higher (and the accountability system flaws would not matter so much, and ALL students could do better! Alas.... they changed the rules... TO FORCE US TO GIVE MORE SCHOOLS TO THE STATE, TO BREAK THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE TO RESIST THE FALSE PROMISES OF "REFORMERS" WHO HAVE FAILED NEARLY EVERYWHERE THE DATA HAS BEEN TRANSPARENT!

4) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 30/07/2012

Scrooge, thank you for your comments! As for the true meaning and "intent" of the reforms, of course I am right there with you in your understanding of what is really going on. Add to your comments the money to be made for "non-profits" and their "profiteering" friends, along with a variety of agendas that you merely alluded to, and you have a much more realistic view of the terrain of the "reformers." I am curious a bit about your latter comments, since I have never been timid about criticizing EBR policies and procedures where I felt they were wrong. What I have held forth is the FACT that EBR is doing much better than its detractors claim, evidenced by all kinds of supporting data in that regard, that many have tired of hearing about, but cannot refute, though they try often. My key points have been, and continue to be, that the accountability system this state is using is atrocious. Letter grades bear NO relationship to the quality of teaching or the administration and policies of a school. What I have often written about, and spoken about, is how EBR, and many, many other districts, have been forced to make rational decisions based on irrational circumstances forced upon us by the state. We have, in fact, been pawns in the machinations of multiple non-elected "movers and shakers" in this community and in the state, who want to benefit the few at the expense of the many. The accountability system forces districts to make illogical decisions which, in the complexity of absurdity, are actually rational! If you want, I can give you example after example of rational decisions based on these irrational situations! I am often reminded of the words of President Lincoln in his inaugural address..."I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional; and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. " I would argue that it is quite likely that some of the decisions you claim are incomprehensible are so because you may not command a view of the whole ground, so to speak. I can assure you that there were times that I was upset and, in private conversations with the Superintendents, challenged some of our policies. Often, I would find that I did not commend a view of the "whole ground." When that happened, I apologized. Thanks again for caring enough to write in on here!

5) Comment by Scrooge - 30/07/2012

Mr Hammatt, with all due respect, this is ultimately about gaining private school tax advantages and/or profit for the privileged, the education of the "poor" and disadvantaged is only a diversion to demonstrate the magnanimous humanity of the benefactors. That upper class whites want poor blacks in their expensive classroom is a stretch, c' mon, in Louisiana?...That being said, EBRPSS has dug itself into a hole with its incomprehensible policies and inept administrators who perpetuate the confusion. There really should be reform but these new ideological fantasies are just as incomprehensible.

6) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 30/07/2012

ANd of course... when the child comes back into our system after the money has already left... we still have to educate the child! This happens a lot! And the largest studies of private/parochial vs. public schools shows almost no differences in the achievement of students when comparing similar students!!! This is part of the huge fallacy about school "performance." We don't measure a school's performance... or teachers' performance... what we mostly measure... if we are intellectually honest and truly explore the data honestly (when it isn't being hidden by the state of Louisiana, which is happening more and more) is the poverty in schools. Yep, the single biggest predictor of a schools performance score (Letter Grade) is the % of students qualifying for free meals. Totally true...and totally ignored by ideologically driven "reformers" who are helping their friends profit from their lies!

7) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 30/07/2012

Dawson, a legitimate question! And one I have written on extensively, the facts apparently will NEVER be found in The Advocate. http://educatorsforall.org/blog/2012/3/20/why- charter-schools-do-not-save-communities-money.html Read the article... substitute "vouchers" for students electing to go to charters... and you have a very similar scenario. Suffice it to say that the STATE of Louisiana might actually save money with some voucher students, mit is absolutely true that NO local districts, the ones actually voting in taxes, will NOT receive any savings, but will, in fact, pay twice! Read the article, then I'd love to talk with you. A very simplified, but fairly accurate scenario is as follows. A parent decides to pull their child from Highland School, a "D" rated school that just happens to offer students more academic growth that most schools in the state! (True fact) When the District loses the student to a "voucher school" with absolutely no proven record whatsoever (in some cases the children are going there because their pastor said they needed to support the church, and by going to the church school, they would be doing that, and "being saved" at the same time) there is now an empty seat at Highland Elementary in the (pick a grade). EBR and Highland school are not "saving" any money.... the teachers are still there.... and we can't get rid of a teacher because we lost a students, so in effect, we are still "paying" for this seat in the classroom. We don't actually teach students one-on-one any more than private schools do, so all of the cost is still there.... BUT!!!!! We now have to send local dollars to the receiving school, AND we lose the state dollars as well. Many of these dollars go to pay the unfunded costs associated with the pullout of Baker, Zachary and Central, which we will be paying for many, many, many years. Some of the money goes to p[ay for services in the private and parochial schools... like transportation for catholic schools, for example. All of these "overhead" costs are still there... along with the total lack of savings in the school... and yet we have to send money OUT! Do you get it? If, a big if, if a school were totally depopulated... and we could then bring in students from across the parish to fill one fewer school... then and only then would you have some savings. But the kids are not leaving in nice packages... they are random.... therefore, almost no savings... in fact, we spend MORE TAX DOLLARS!

8) Comment by Dawson - 30/07/2012

@Noel...If the Department of Education can eliminate the financial liability of educating a student at a cost of $8,000 or more depending on your numbers for a cost of a $5,300 voucher, why wouldn't the Department of Education and the taxpayer want to do that? Does it save the taxpayer money to allow the families the choice to take a smaller allotment through a voucher and take control of their student's education?

9) Comment by Miss Vee - 30/07/2012

Actually for those who believe that these private schools on the list are so great, I have some news for you......Most are not. Some of them are just like going to a public school. For example Redemptorist has been losing students for at least the last 5 to 10 years, and as far as them receiving the vouchers, you should know that they have been accepting low income kids for many years. Also Hosanna was once known as the school you go to when your child could not pass the leap test, so thats how they became so popular. Before 2003 that I know of Hosanna was unknown. St. Francis however, is a pretty good school from kids that I knew that went there from kindergarten to eighth grade they were well prepared. Louisiana New School is a joke! I could go on and on with that list. The top private schools that show performance is not on the list. Examples of these schools would be St. Joseph, Parkview Baptist, Episcopal, University High, Catholic High, and many others that you dont see on the list. Another thing just like all the parents that work hard to send their kids to private school, even if it means getting a second job, I have nothing but respect for them. If all the parents who crying about they want the voucher want their child to go to private school so bad then get a second job or do what you have to do to get your child there. Dont depend on the public tax dollars to pay for that because thats a want for your to child to go to private school. It's not fair to those who work hard and pay for it themselves.

10) Comment by timesright - 30/07/2012

@vicwill, I thought the same as you in the way Sentell wrote the article. The whole article was very misleading in so many ways.

11) Comment by NewsReader - 30/07/2012

ablank2012, the overall cost is higher than just the $5300 in direct voucher cost. One really needs to add the lost funding as mentioned in the article to the local school as well. And I'd love to have an educated representative explain to the population how removing funding from a failing school is going to assist in raising the standard of that failing school. On top of that, the lack of accountability at the voucher schools seems to me to make a mockery out of the whole thing. Unless I am missing something there's no requirement for those schools to maintain the same student/teacher ratios they have. There's no way to see if the alleged standard at those voucher schools remains unchanged. There's no testing to be done that shows whether this will work or not.

12) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 29/07/2012

It just occurred to me that is a darn shame when the readers have to do the fact-checking for the newspaper! Don't they PAY people to be accurate! And I need to add an apology, I have erred in painting with too broad a brush, for The Advocate has some absolutely outstanding journalists. I need to remember that as I read Will Sentell and think about boycotting The Advocate once again!

13) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 29/07/2012

Jeffsadow should be a writer for The Advocate. He is about as loose with the facts as Will Sentell seems to be. Put aside the fact that EBR increased in student achievement every year that I was on the board, in spite of some of the most challenging obstacles of any district in the state, with pullouts, the constant attacks by Will Sentell, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) and others who were determined to follow their ideological privatization path at any price, including lying constantly to the public. Ignore the fact that almost every tax passed (with the singular exception of what came to be known as the "Monster Tax") with ever-increasing margins in spite of the haters. Ignore the fact that EBR had to deal with the largest influx of students after Katrina/Rita, and was recognized for doing an incredible job of doing so. Ignore these facts, and pretend that being outspent in the election by the same haters more than $10 to $1 just might have had an impact on my defeat, and perhaps jeffsadow is correct. But, it is hard to ignore the facts if one wishes to be intellectually honest. Let's look at just a few "facts" that jeffsadow also got wrong… horribly wrong. In fact, I'm not sure that most of COULD be as wrong about the facts as jeffsadow is, unless truth is totally undermined by ideology. jeffsadow writes "By the way, the FY 2011 figures show EBR received in revenues of nearly $13,000 per student, about 40% from the federal government, about 40% from the state, the rest from its own resources." Before I point out the inaccuracies, let me point out that jeffsadow is NOT a mathematician. Perhaps he is a mathemagician, seeking with sleight of facts to condemn with lies what the truth would reveal. I pointed out in an earlier post that Will Sentell (in a sidebar titled "MORE INFORMATION" that was online) wrote that "Average state aid for EBR public school students: $8,736" and listed the "Source" as Louisiana Department of Education. Why are jeffsadow and Will Sentell both guilty of either ignorance or deceit? Here are the numbers directly from the Louisiana Department of Education website covering district finances for 2010-2011 at http://www.doe.state.la.us/divisions/edfn/1011_fiscal_data.html Total revenue per pupil $12,763 which ranked us 16th in the state State revenue per pupil in EBR was $3,890 which ranked is 63rd in the state. That's right, one of the lowest in the entire state! Federal revenues per pupil were $2,305 ranking us 19th in the state in this category. Sentell says EBR receives an average of $8,736 in state aid per pupil. Actual aid is $3,890 per pupil, for a net LIE of $4,846 per pupil. Let's see how jeffsadow does on his numbers… he says that EBR spends nearly $13,000 per pupil, so he is close here… (reformer ideologues always round in the direction that best makes their arguments) but he also says that 40% comes from the state. So, 40% of $12,763 = $5,102.20 per pupil, or a lie in the amount of $1,215.20 per pupil. But wait, jeffsadow also claims that 40% of EBR revenues come from the Federal government. So he claims that EBR receives $5,102.20 per pupil from the Federal government, when the actual amount is $2,305. The lie for this one by jeffsadow is $2,797.20 for a total lie by jeffsadow in the amount of $4,012.40 per pupil! Folks, you just can't make this kind of mistake and expect to be taken seriously. The truth is, EBR's citizens pay a larger share of the total revenues for their school system that nearly every other district in the state, and its 16th place ranking on revenues is not inconsistent with the reality of its challenges, especially when you consider that EBR has a much higher percentage of low-income students than the state as a whole! Will Sentell and jeffsadow seem to revel in their ideology and their lies, and both ignore truth.

14) Comment by Gusebr - 29/07/2012

This issue is so much more complex than opponents of public schools realize. Believe it or not, EBR has its act together much better than the average charter schools. Most charter schools are pretty much making it up as they go along, while EBR schools have very good resources and knowledgeable professionals helping out with curriculum and things like that. I say that as someone, who has taught in EBR public schools and at several charter schools in the state. As with many school districts, EBR's main problem is that its students enter school significantly below most other children in the US. Teachers work very hard to get their kids up to grade level, but you usually can't catch kids up in one year when they start the year three or four years behind where they should be. In addition, many of the children enter school having had no rules or discipline in their lives, and they genuinely have no idea how to behave in a classroom setting and get along with other children. Teachers can't accomplish much until they train the children how to act and behave in public. That is easier said than done. You want to use vouchers to increase scores and improve schools? Let teachers in failing schools pick the students who will be sent to the private schools. Eliminating a few unruly students would improve the academic setting, and I suspect that the other students would fall in line if they thought they could get sent to another school if they continued to misbehave. As for the Christian, private schools - oh, brother. I'm sure there are some good ones out there, but the students I inherited from those schools usually entered my class with straight As, but were invariably much lower than the "regular" EBR students. Ask yourself this (and I'm stealing this from an Advocate letter to the editor), if the students from Episcopal were sent to an EBR public school, and students from a failing EBR public school were sent to Episcopal, which school would have better scores at the end of the year? If the Episcopal staff moved to an EBR public school, and an EBR public school staff moved to Episcopal, how parents would immediately transfer their kids from Episcopal to the public school? Charter schools are going to fail. I have no doubt about that. The good thing that may result from this experiment is that supporters of the charter school movement may come to realize that schools aren't failing because teachers are lazy and incompetent or because schools have low expectations for children of low income families. As I said, it's much more complex than that. Failing schools are a reflection and result of societal problems that have been plaguing the US for decades. Fix the underlying problems, and schools will improve. In the meantime, don't blame teachers for poor results that have very little to do with teacher competence.

15) Comment by vicwill - 29/07/2012

Also something that I have yet to understand is why were "C" schools put into this plan? That certainly isn't low-performing(as one of the sponsors of the bill in Louisiana legislature said when asked about including special ed students). Speaking of special-ed, how many of these vouchers were awarded to them? Or are we going to leave them in the "horrible" public schools?

16) Comment by vicwill - 29/07/2012

Timesright he was definitely including the entire parish(including charter schools) in the numbers, but the way he organized his article made it seem more like an attack piece on the EBR school system. I am certain Baker and the charter schools help add to that number. We have some private schools in this area that were losing students(Redemptorist and St.Francis Xavier) and this voucher system has saved them. Miss Cotillion, how do you know Redemptorist and Hosanna are good schools? I don't recall seeing any type of data on the academic performance of these schools, just a lot of theorizing that private must be better than public. I will continue to say this, while the voucher might move a few students from a supposed low-performing school, what is being done(besides blaming teachers) to improve that low-performing public school?

17) Comment by timesright - 29/07/2012

When Will Sentell speaks of EBR Parish, is he talking the schools that make up the East Baton Rouge Parish School System only or is he including those systems within the parish as well, Central, Baker, Zachary.? Noel Hammatt brought out some very significant points in his comments. Thank you, Noel! Urban areas throughout the country have the most challenges in educating the children. Baton Rouge may not be the largest urban in the country, but indeed we can not take the description away from us. Not only is educating the student population a challenge but also are the poverty challenges that are associated with urban areas. Education and poverty can not be separated.

18) Comment by jeffsadow - 29/07/2012

"Smith, who led House opposition to the breakaway school district, said it is hard to explain the demand for vouchers." Yup, still clueless after she, with apparently one of the other commenters here, helped preside over the continued decline of EBR schools while on the school board (at least she managed to continue her political career; our commenter got crushed in an attempt for reelection). This commenter just does not get it, as I explained in a comment posted elsewhere. Poverty does not cause poor educational performance. It is certain attitudes inimical for success ingrained into certain families that are the same cause of, separately, poverty in a family and poor education performance. Education policy can change the second by altering those inferior attitudes towards success through procedural, personnel, and philosophical changes in the delivery of education. This includes introducing competition to the government subsidized monopoly model of education, as the voucher plan does and charters to a lesser degree (and ultimately will save both the state and individual districts money). But Smith, Hammatt, and many others in the establishment who have failed children deny this truth to cover the tracks of their incompetence, preferring to blame their failures on what they claim are uncontrollable forces (controllable only if they are given a lot more money). By the way, the FY 2011 figures show EBR received in revenues of nearly $13,000 per student, about 40% from the federal government, about 40% from the state, the rest from its own resources. It spent about that much per student, which among public school districts was about 10th highest in the state (and if you remove the Haynesville Shale- and hurricane-affected districts and state schools, it would rank third highest, and higher than the average charter school expenditures that share the same demographics). Yet its students perform at a dismal level (worse than the typical charter school students, by the way) because of the ignorant, stubborn insistence of (increasingly past) policy-makers that the government monopoly model with more resources pumped in is the only thing that works. It's the policy, stupids.

19) Comment by bourbon-soda - 29/07/2012

If the voucher schools are that bad, then those seeking them must have arrived at the conclusion that they could not be any worse than the so- called traditional schools. It is at best ironic that the teacher unions and public school functionaries are seeking to thwart the decisions of those whose interest they purport to have at heart.

20) Comment by 8point6 - 29/07/2012

Thank you, MissCotillion for your common sense comment. I've been paying five different property taxes toward public education for many years. I don't mind having some of my tax money go to vouchers.

21) Comment by MissCotillion - 29/07/2012

Another regular commented recently observed that a child's family is their first educator, not the schools. I see tremendous hope here for the poverty-stricken schoolchild where a mother was motivated enough to seek a voucher and put her child in a private school where that child will undoubtably get a good education in a warm, nurturing, and Christian classroom. Redemptorist, St. Francis, Hosanna. These are good schools.

22) Comment by ablank2012 - 29/07/2012

OK, so if there are approximately 640 vouchers distributed in EBR alone, and the average cost of private school is $5300, how does spending almost $3.4 million (on average) to send children away from our public school system help our public school system. Why don't we invest money back into the schools. This is unbelievable...I am embarrassed for Louisiana and yes, I am from here :(

23) Comment by bourbon-soda - 29/07/2012

When do they all turn into pools of melted butter?

24) Comment by TheTardis - 29/07/2012

Why do private schools who take vouchers only have to get a D average on the tests for voucher students? Shouldn't the requirement be higher than that? So, a student from a C school can end up at a D private school and it's all OK? A D score shouldn't be good enough for private schools if it's not good enough for public schools.

25) Comment by spqr - 29/07/2012

Noel, the Advocate is bought and sold by the big business placing ads in their paper and allowing it profit. This is the same big business that is the impetus for expanding a failing charter school program statewide. Either Will Sentell enjoys his attack pieces and chooses to ignore other stories (the Roemer family and their conflict of interest, why thousands of students flee RSDs each year, why charter school dismiss hundreds each year just weeks prior to standardized testing, which banks have voucher money deposited in them and which powerful legislators and friends own them, etc.). Or, the Manships who own this paper are no longer objective and are excercising their puppet agenda. Either way, the sheep making up much of the public only know of education by what they read here. And it's not balanced or fair.

26) Comment by Noel Hammatt - 29/07/2012

This is the sorriest piece of what passes as "journalism" I think I have perhaps ever seen in a newspaper I thought was trying to pass as journalism. Will Sentell has outdone even his own sorry history of "attack ads" against public education in general, and the East Baton Rouge Parish School System in particular. This classic "attack piece" is so filled with innuendo and lack of objective (or even accurate) reporting that is should be used as an example of why print journalism is threatened by "reporters" of this ilk. Let's start by pointing out some serious areas of journalistic ineptitude. First, he fails to provide any objective measure for comparing the numbers and percentages of students to provide for their context. Lumping all East Baton Rouge Parish applicants together, and then immediately suggesting that they are all from the East Baton Rouge Parish School system is itself a bit disingenuous. Baker, Central, and Zachary, along with other students who attend "failing" state schools ( I should point out that ALL state run schools are "D" or "F" schools... every one). For effect, one would have to believe, Sentell uses Bodi White, who is almost as rabid an opponent of the East Baton Rouge Parish School system as Sentell himself, as the numbers guy for perspective. "“In the last 15 years they went from 60,00 students down to 40,000 students,” White said." Well, a bit of a misleading (aside from being horribly inaccurate) statement from White, since there is quite a difference between 40,000 and 43,303, wouldn't you say? And over 10,000 students are enrolled in the three breakaway school districts formed from EBR. Two of them are doing well, and both have incredibly different demographics than EBR. Does Bodi White not think that poverty has anything to do with the breakaways? Race? Central has one of the lowest percentages of low-income Blacks in the state, while EBR has one of the highest rates. Zachary has the lowest percent of students qualifying for free meals in the state, while EBR has one of the highest. Baker, the first breakaway, looks more like EBR demographically, and scores significantly lower than EBR. Patterns. Speaking of patterns, any thought why Sentell chose to not even mention that using the 15% of voucher students while ignoring that EBR (parish-wide, not the school system) had an incredibly large percentage of available slots in private and parochial schools. Sentell doesn't want anyone to know that poverty rates plays a huge role in school performance scores (it is THE SINGLE GREATESAT PREDICTOR of a school or district's performance scores, but you have never read that on "reporting" by Sentell). By the way, in the same vein as this attack piece on EBR... don't you think it would have been just as "legitimate" for Sentell to point out that Orleans, with a smaller public school population than EBR, has over three times the voucher students ALL FLEEING THE RECOVERY SCHOOL DISTRICT WHICH WILL SENTELL HAS NEVER ACCURATELY REPORTED ON! Amazing how filled with hate Sentell is, and totally lacking in journalistic ethics or even a basic level of research accuracy. Case in point...the sidebar info on the state "aid" for public schools. "Average state aid for public school students: $8,537 Average state aid for EBR public school students: $8,736" Could someone, anyone, point out to Sentell that this IS NOT STATE AID! It is the total of state and local contributions. This lack of even basic knowledge and accuracy is what makes Sentell and Bodi White dangerous. Either they don't know, don't care, or just don't mind lying to the public in order to support their agendas. State aid to EBR is less than half of the number quoted. Yet this number has been used to show that the state saves money with vouchers. Total ***** but you will never see that on the pages of The Advocate.