School Choice

Except that the school you choose may not choose to participate because it doesn't want to be forced to administer the LEAP test.

BATON ROUGE -- As the Legislature nears a final vote on Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed school voucher program for New Orleans, the bill's backers and Catholic Church authorities have agreed on accountability provisions in the program.

But it remains unclear how many private schools will volunteer to participate if the program begins this fall, as expected, for kindergartners through third-graders from low-income households. The participants can use state-financed tuition vouchers, or scholarships, to attend private and parochial schools.

For some schools, the decision may hinge on the outcome of the debate over standardized testing requirements for the schools. Private schools -- always wary of mandates tied to government money -- have resisted proposals that vouchers come with requirements that their students take the LEAP, iLEAP and graduate exams, as do all public school students.

Even then if the school you choose, chooses to administer the test, it turns out they can then choose to test only to the voucher students... which may make for some very choice schoolyard dynamics.

At the same time, choosing to administer the test often means a school must choose to teach the test. I wonder how the tuition paying parents might feel about their students having a curriculum chosen for them which applies to a test they may not choose to take.

And then there's this.

New Orleans private and parochial schools gave mixed responses as to whether they would be interested in the program.

The 500 spots guaranteed by Catholic schools amount to a third of the 1,500 students that the first year's $10 million allocation would cover. Loar said he has a list of archdiocese schools that would participate.

"But I've been asked not to release that until the governor signs the bill," he said.

Sarah Comiskey, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said the archdiocese schools are still actively enrolling children and officials have not yet determined which ones are full.

"We would make space available wherever there are openings," she said.

What the article doesn't state openly is that even without the LEAP issue limiting the options, many of the choicest New Orleans area parochial schools already have long waiting lists for enrollment. Space in these schools is not available even to students whose parents are choosing to spend their own money on tuition. So the schools choosing to participate may not be the first second or third choice of parents who opt for vouchers. If you sign up for the choice program and find that you still can't actually send your kids to the school of your choosing then how much choice have you really experienced?

Why can't the Governor's School Choice advocates seem to get the hang of this free market choice thing?