If you think the approval of 165 vouchers for the New Living Word School in Ruston, with its lack of instructors, classroom space and textbooks, was a little over the top, you might wish to take a look at the Light City Christian Academy in New Orleans.
Light City, like New Living Word, was approved for only about half the vouchers requested (163 requested, 80 approved) but the fact it received even one should raise a few eyebrows.http://cenlamar.com/
And then there’s Delhi Charter School about 300 miles to the north in Richland Parish which feels that girls who get pregnant are not entitled to an education but looks the other way in considering discipline for the young fathers.
Schools in Westlake and DeRidder were disapproved after first having been approved for vouchers while one in Baton Rouge failed a state fire marshal’s inspection this week and will be forced to relocate.
State Education Superintendent John White and Gov. Piyush Jindal’s new approach to public education seems to be creating far more problems than it is solving.
But back to Light City Christian Academy, the school that teaches grades K-7, which will be siphoning off taxpayer dollars intended for legitimate public education.
“Light City Christian Academy…has been awarded 49 new scholarships and 31 to students who are continuing from the Orleans Parish program during the 2011-2012 school year,” according to information provided by the Louisiana Department of Education. The average tuition for the 80 students is $4,555 each, or a total of $364.400 per year.
It is not, however, The Light City School of Prophets that received the vouchers as erroneously reported in another blog, but its affiliated school, Light City Christian Academy. The confusion is understandable, however, since Leonard Lucas Jr. founded both organizations, as well as some three dozen other corporate entities in New Orleans.
Light City Christian Academy is operated by the same organization that runs the Light City School of the Prophets, an adult training program run by Lucas, a former one-term state representative who in 2002 received 5 percent of the vote in the New Orleans mayor’s race.
In 2009, Lucas, in an announcement containing numerous grammatical errors, announced his candidacy for New Orleans city council, a race he also lost.
He also founded the Light City Church and referred to himself as “Apostle.” His church became the focus of considerable negative publicity when, following Hurricane Katrina, he claimed credit for organizing the rescue of more than 1,000 residents, for gutting more than 1,000 homes, businesses and churches, and for bringing back more than 2,000 residents to work in jobs that paid $1,500 to $2,000 per week, none of which held up to scrutiny.
His Light City School of the Prophets web page reads thusly:
“The Light City Church School of the Prophets is a training institute for those who sense the flow and pull of the prophetic upon their lives. The mandate of the school of the Prophets just as it was in the Old Testament days is to train men and women effectively in the prophetic. It is a time of proper training, mentoring, and developing of the spirit in the prophetic realm. It is a time that you are taught how to hear from God, how to speak the mind of God, and how to nurture the gift of prophecy.
“Those individuals that accept the challenge to attend must have an understanding that they are yielding themselves to the tutelage of Apostle Leonard Lucas Jr., who walks in the fullness of his calling and wears the mantle of an Apostle and Prophet. If you believe this is the calling upon your life, we invite you to join us for dynamic teaching and thought provoking sessions. Classes are held every Friday at 7:00pm at Light City Church, located at 6117 St. Claude Ave. Please call 504-301-4593 for more information.”
The same web page announces a mentorship training class on Aug. 17. “Join Apostle Lucas for this life changing mentorship course designed to accelerate your anointing in the prophetic,” it says.
Delhi Charter School, meanwhile, has attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union because of the school’s unusual policy over teen pregnancy. Delhi Charter, with 600 students, apparently does not subscribe to the theory that female students have the right to a discrimination-free education.
The policy not only prevents pregnant female students from attending school, but can even force girls to take a pregnancy test to continue attending school if administrators so much as “suspect” they might be pregnant.
“The school reserves the right to require any female student to take a pregnancy test to confirm whether or not the suspect student is in fact pregnant,” says the policy. The policy also gives the school the power to refer the student to a school-designated physician.
“If the test indicates that the student is pregnant, the student will not be permitted to attend classes on the campus of Delhi Charter School” but may be required to enroll in a home study course during the duration of the pregnancy.
Nothing in the policy addresses any disciplinary action against any male student who may have had a part in getting a female pregnant. Apparent the Old Testament doctrine that gives men dominion over women holds true at Delhi Charter School.
The ALCU, however, thinks otherwise.
“The (school’s) complete disregard for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities, is astonishing,” the rights organization said in a prepared statement. “Title IX … explicitly mandate(s) that schools cannot exclude any student from an education program or activity…on the basis of such student’s pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom.”
The ACLU statement also said the policy also “treats female students differently from male students and relies on archaic stereotypes linked to sex and pregnancy.”
So apparently, if Delhi Charter School adheres to its policy of not taking action against male students, then it would be reasonable to assume that no males had any involvement in the pregnancy. The only possible course of action then would be for the girl to claim Immaculate Conception.
If the school administrators truly believe in the Immaculate Conception, that claim could place them in quite a quandary. Would they dare deny the possibility?
Louisiana Voice 
It took no time at all for ALEC-style education reform to turn into an out-of-control voucher-orgy. And I’m wanting to say a lot more but it might be considered insensitive to sexually abused pigs. State politicians, what have you done? Fix this!
Great research on charters.
I can’t believe my tax dollars are going to be paying for this! I don’t see how these schools (who haven’t been graded like public schools) can just pop up and claim they are any better. The children that are sent to these schools are going to fall even further behind. How is this helping? Maybe some of these issues could have been addressed had they not rushed this so called reform through the legislature. If they would have taken the time to evaluate the “voucher system” it wouldn’t have passed at all.
According to a recent editorial in the The Advocate, the privatization effort is not about saving money; it’s about “downsizing” government. (The editorial, by the way, was supportive of this goal, which is why we’ve had to depend upon the Monroe newspaper to get anything remotely critical of Jindal, Inc.) Well, here’s what happens when you privatize services. A patchwork of standards, uneven quality, and MASSIVE abuse and fraud. The fact is, these schools are in most cases perfectly within their rights to teach and do anything they want. It is an outrage, however, that there are so many charlatans now stealing the taxpayers’ money and siphoning resources away from public school children.
Speaking of the prophetic, was not our esteemed Governor prophesying his own disdain for Social Security and Medicare when he tepidly endorsed the esteemed Representative Ryan from Wisconsin for vp. Since Louisiana is demographically one of the oldest states in the nation, does not our esteemed Governor tread on the edge of political oblivion or is he so blinded by future ambitions that he cannot be bothered by the plight of the elderly?
thanks for the enlightening info as always. however, you really should clean up your own grammar mistakes before condemning someone else’s. proofread before posting…
As you should also. Last I checked we capitalize the beginning of each sentence.
true, crystal dear. however, it is commonly accepted internet comment protocol to not capitalize. in any case, a post which criticizes another’s grammar should be without the same mistakes.
First of all, thanks for pointing my grammatical errors (even though you didn’t specify which errors were mine and which were contained passages I lifted directly from the New Orleans school’s web page). I was in somewhat of a rush and admittedly did not proofread my copy.
I am puzzled by one statement you made, however: where, precisely, is it written that “it is commonly accepted internet comment protocol not to capitalize”? I have neither heard nor read that anywhere.
By the way, I am not offended at your correcting my grammar. In fact, I am appreciative. I’m human and I do make mistakes and I don’t like mistakes. Your email prompted me to go back in and make some corrections. (I hope I got them all.)
good job. haha- i’ve never seen it ‘written’, but from observation after reading gazillions of comments over the years, it is a common practice, and so in my own words, ‘commonly accepted internet protocol’ to not capitalize. however, my original comment was more about the irony in your statement about someone else’s grammar than it was about your grammatical errors per se.
i greatly appreciate all the effort you expend to enlighten us with your investigative blogging, and share almost every post on facebook (on the gillespie breakfast page, which reaches many social justice advocates and activists), and with other like-minded progressives all over the internet. thanks for keeping us informed.
You should lighten up Mac. Don”t be the kid that disrupts the class all day and tell your parents you didn’t learn anything. It is a Blog. all comments are welcome. You really did not add to the conversation here. But just in case you missed it reread the article and add wisdom(beyond grammar). My grammar is awful. I was educated in Charter School. I believe in the Locness Monster. I believe Jindal when he preformed the exorcism in College, because he is sucking the life out of Louisiana. Be with him on his way out of State.
holy crap. the article doesn’t require any addition of ‘wisdom’- it’s content stands out quite eloquently on its own. i want to share it in several circles, but it needs a bit of refining. i’d volunteer to do this myself, but don’t want to without the author’s permission. maybe my original remarks were a bit snarky; i apologize for that. but i follow this blog regularly and share almost every post- this particular one has the most errors i’ve ever seen, and i was a bit put off by the author’s condemnation of someone else’s grammar. you, how, seemed to miss that irony, and perhaps YOU should reread the post. as for leaving with jindal, i might leave BECAUSE of him, but not with him, and certainly not to please you.
Hi Mac. Thanks for clearing things up for me. You are correct, I did not catch the irony of your comments. It would not please me for this state to lose any of its best and brightest. I am happy to hear that you share this post in multiple sites and hope others will join in and share these messages.
Does Delhi receive Federal Funds? The reason I ask is not to support this ignorant policy but to see if they can in fact implement the policy as long as Federal funds aren’t received. Curious because this could be another reason charters will be formed in order to skirt federal laws because they receive state funds only. Yet how does DOE separate out the funds sent? How do they know none comes from Feds because it looks as if there is NO tracking mechanism for any school other than regular public schools.
Even given the best-case scenario – that Bobby Jindal is a young man in a hurry to make a name for himself and that in his haste he and his supporters overlooked some of the loopholes – even in that case, the Jindal Administration also displays an arrogance that forbids it from admitting there are gaping holes that allow obviously unqualified and even fraudulent people to take advantage. It’s obvious that the traditional system isn’t working in Louisiana but it’s equally obvious this “solution” is as bad or even worse. The issue is in the courts and will certainly be declared unconstitutional. So let’s prepare for the next time: accept charters and vouchers but demand equal standards for ALL schools, so that parents and other taxpayers can make apples-to-apples comparisons and act accordingly.
As noted by Randy above, I’m also curious about Federal funding of the Delhi school. If it truly is privately tuition-funded with no taxpayer money involved (up until now), it probably can set any rules and requirements for students it sees fit whether I–or anyone else–like it or not. But I find it somewhat amazing that the DOE seems to be handing out vouchers to just about anyone who applies. Oh, wait…I forgot that Louisiana is regressing to where it was in the 1920s when there was a “For Sale” sign on each road leading into the state.
I would only like to point out a discrepancy in the writer’s understanding of the Catholic doctrine of Immaculate Conception. That doctrine has absolutely nothing to do with the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, which the writer seems to assume in the statement about teen pregnancy. The Immaculate Conception was the conception of Mary, the alleged mother of the alleged Jesus, in the womb of Anne (St. Anne for Catholics). The reasoning, which I find nothing short of laughable, is that Mary could not have been born with the burden of Original Sin, another laughable idea, or she would not have been a fit vessel for the Mother of God. Ho hum and fiddledeedee.
I, in kind, would like to point out a discrepancy in the reader’s understanding of parody. While the doctrine of Immaculate Conception may mean one thing in the Catholic Church, Protestants interpret it as Jesus’s conception, not Mary’s, and since this charter school is in all probability a Protestant school, my tongue-in-cheek commentary about their sanctimonious rules was obviously lost on you in your literal reading. So, fiddledeedee and ho-hum, lighten up.