Louisiana Voice

The controversy over Monday’s meeting of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) School Innovation and Turnaround “Committee,” while important, could be a mere smokescreen for a far murkier and more complicated issue.

To be sure, legitimate questions about teacher certification and accountability standards for charter schools and some 124 private schools accepting voucher money were raised at the meeting formally described as a committee meeting, but attended by the full board.

But lying beneath the surface is House Bill 976 authored by Rep. Stephen Carter (R-Baton Rouge) and signed into law as Act 2, or the “Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Act,” by Gov. Piyush Jindal.

The bill, which passed in the House by a 60-43 vote and 24-15 in the Senate in the legislature’s rush to placate the governor, will allow course providers to “offer a quality, individual education to students.”

So, what exactly, is a course provider?

That’s the same thing that Reps. Sam Jones (D-Franklin) and John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) wanted to know during debate on the bill. No one else seemed interested, including the media whose job it is to explore the issues, but who seem more interested, as one observer put it, to play sycophant to Jindal.

Under terms of the act, postsecondary education institutions may serve as quality course providers for students who seek advanced level course work or technical or vocational instruction. Because “technical” and “vocational” were included in the bill’s language, could that mean that “postsecondary education institutions” would include not only traditional universities and colleges, but vocational and technical schools and proprietary schools like University of Phoenix and IT Technical College, as well?

But the bill goes on to specify that business and industry may also serve as “quality course providers that offer course work in their particular field or expertise.”

“‘Course provider’ means an entity that offers individual courses in person or online, including but not limited to online or virtual education providers,” the act says.

BESE member Chas Roemer of Baton Rouge, meanwhile thumbed his nose at state ethics laws by openly discussing certification of charter school teachers. BESE member Walter Lee, who is superintendent of the DeSoto Parish school system, asked why there is no requirement that charter school teachers be certified when public schools require certification.

Roemer, whose sister is executive director of the Louisiana Public Charter School Association, which would thereby create an apparent conflict any time he addresses issues concerning charter schools, said the policy was in line with the administration’s goal of allowing charter schools to try new approaches. “There are going to be differences and there should be differences,” he said.

State Superintendent of Education John White, who deleted without responding two emails from LouisianaVoice formally requesting public records, said accountability rules for private schools accepting voucher money would be completed by Aug. 1.

That would appear to putting the horse ahead of the cart when one considers vouchers that have already been approved for schools in Ruston, Westlake and DeRidder that are woefully understaffed and which have inadequate facilities to accommodate students they already have, much less up to 300 new voucher students.

But back to HB 976, aka Act 2, aka Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Act, projected to cost the state $44.5 million over a five-year period. The initial authorization of the course provider shall be for three years, with BESE charged with carrying out a “thorough review” after the second year.

Courses would be available to students attending a public school that receive a letter grade of “C,” “D,” or “F,” or who is attending a public school that does not offer the course in which a student desires to enroll, the act says.

BESE is directed by the bill to create a reciprocal teacher certification process for teachers who reside in other states by next January. The teachers must be employed by authorized course providers to teach virtual education courses.

Moreover, prior to the 2013-2014 school year BESE must create a course catalogue for all courses offered by each parish.

The act even contains a veiled threat to would-be recalcitrant local school systems: “No local public school system shall actively discourage, intimidate or threaten an eligible funded student or an eligible participating student during his course enrollment process or at any time for that local school system.”

Of course, no proposal by the Jindal administration would be complete without the obligatory provision for payoffs. “The course provider shall receive a course amount for each eligible funded student,” the act says. The per-course amount means an amount equal to the market rate “as determined by the course provider” and reported to the state Department of Education (DOE).

One Louisiana native, now a retired school principal in Arizona, examined the 47-page bill (something that most legislators probably did not bother to do) and offered several observations about costs, administration and unethical course providers.

“I am struck by how complicated and expensive the oversight of these programs will be and how time consuming it will be for local districts,” she said.

“Districts want to make sure that these providers are sound and ethical and really providing an education. You would be amazed at the number of unethical providers that will pop up when there’s money to be had,” she said. “This is just another burden on your local district which is not staffed well enough to take on one more onerous responsibility.

“This is the shotgun approach to education—a scattering of this and that in terms of learning—instead of a coherent, articulated approach over several years.”

She said that oversight is always expensive and questioned the manner in which it would be done. If a student receives an “A” rather than an “F” that he might deserve, “will the school be judged to be superior or will the students be re-tested to see if they learned anything?” she asked. “Grading is a complex issue and unethical operators are happy to give the A’s if they get the money.

“Unless I missed something, I don’t know who is approving these course providers for the first year. Is there a list of them—perhaps providers who’ve been operating in other states? I can’t see that the bill addresses that and that is important.

“This is just one more step in totally dismantling public education and finding ways for businesses to take money from the public coffers—just more privatization using taxpayer dollars. Capitalism is about risk that capitalists take to establish their businesses. Where is the risk in this if the funding is capitalized by taxpayers’ dollars?” she asked.