The ink was barely dry on Bobby Jindal’s new school voucher program, state tax money given to private and parochial schools to teach Louisiana students, and it’s already a national disgrace and a scandal. Due to the diligent investigative reporting of the Monroe News-Star, this past week has been a nightmare for the Jindal Machine.
The News-Star is publishing a tremendous series of reports on school voucher corruption in Louisiana. These stories are going viral. At the same time former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is saying the Jindal education plan should be the national model, the truth is finally coming to light.
What happened?
The church-related New Living Word School in Ruston was approved by Superintendent John White’s Louisiana Department of Education to increase its enrollment from 122 to 315 children through vouchers. What’s the problem? Well, they don’t have facilities and their teaching method, according to the News-Star, is to play DVDs for students. Yes, just show an educational DVD. Who needs certified teachers anyway?
This particular “school” would have been the largest voucher recipient in Louisiana. The News-Star articles detail the woeful inadequacy of their program. Worse, the school jacked up their tuition from $200 per month to $8500 per year in order to claim all but $32 of the maximum voucher money allotted per child. What was the total tax money going to this boondoggle? Only 2.7 million dollars of taxpayer cash.
Talk About the South: Vouchers gone wild: