By Kimberly Hopson
L’Observateur
LAPLACE – The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to “permanently” block the state from awarding school vouchers, saying the state’s scholarship program violates degregation orders.
The lawsuit seeks to stop the state from issuing vouchers to students attending school in districts operating under federal desegreations orders “unless or until” the state receives “authorization from federal courts overseeing the applicable desegregation case.” Thirty-four school districts would potentially be affected by the injunction, including those of St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes.
The lawsuit reads: “In the 2012-2013 school year, the state awarded scholarships to at least 570 students from
22, or nearly two-
thirds, of the school disricts operating under federal desegregation orders. In 13 of those school districts, state action in issuing vouchers caused the schoolwide racial demographics to stray further from district-wide demographic percentages and resulted in an increase in racially disproportionate representation”
The lawsuit requests that the state “analyze the vouchers awards for the 2013-2014 school year with respect to their impact on school degregation in each school disrict.”
The scholarship program was initially introduced in 2008 to provide options for families in the New Orleans Recovery School District and allowed parents to send their children to approved nonpublic schools and high performing public schools if the schools in their areas were considered low performing or failing. The River Parishes region was added to the program last year.
Given the funding source at the time, the scholarship program proved somewhat detrimental to the public schools of the River Parishes. This was especially true for St. John the Baptist Parish, which had a high
number of schools falling into the low performing category. More than 200 students
took part in the program during the 2012-13 school year, causing
the St. John School District to lose more than $1 million of funding.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s controversial Louisiana Scholarship Program gained necessary funding in the nick of time at the tail-end of this year’s Louisiana legislative session.
According to reports, a $25.4 billion budget plan includes $69 million in new money for education. Although half of that amount will go toward a pay increase for certified teachers, the plan also includes enough money to accommodate 4,000 more students.
The program’s funding mechanism was originally struck down in a 6-1 vote by the Louisiana Supreme Court in May, on the grounds that it diverted money from each student’s per-pupil allocation to cover the
cost of private or parochial school tuition. The ruling left many confused, as the Department of Education had announced just a week before that nearly 8,000 students had already been matched for the upcoming school year.