Louisiana could spend about $3.4 million under the state’s first school voucher program and pay the tuition to nonpublic schools for up to 870 students, state education officials said Friday.
Officials mailed letters Thursday — — the self-imposed deadline to notify applicants — to families of 1,147 students who qualified for the program after a random computerized selection process matching schools, grade-levels and seats to applicants‘ choices. But 277 of those will be placed on a waiting list to be considered for placement at one of the three choices parents selected.
The placements are limited by the number of nonpublic schools agreeing to participate in the program and the grades in which those placements were available.
State Department of Education spokeswoman Rene Greer said the department is developing a policy on how long students would remain on the waiting list. She said they are no current plans to have another application process for 2008-09.
In a press release, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said: „We’re encouraged by the number of families who demonstrated their willingness to actively participate in their child’s education through this process.“
Eligible students entering the first through third grade had to have attended one of 35 designated „failing“ public schools, including charter schools, in the Recovery School District in the 2007-08. First-time kindergarten pupils had only to meet the law’s other requirements.
All applicants had to be New Orleans residents and their household income could not exceed 250 percent of poverty guidelines. That amounts to $53,000 for a family of four.
In New Orleans, the teachers‘ union United Teachers of New Orleans and Save Our Schools NOLA, a parent and education advocacy group, opposed the voucher plan saying that it siphons money from a public education school system that needs more resources and attention to prosper.
In the first year, the state committed to pay either $6,300 to a participating school for each pupil entering kindergarten through third grade, or the school’s tuition — — whichever is less — — and spend up to the $10 million. Families do not have to pay tuition once they are awarded a voucher.
The average scholarship award is about $3,856, which covers tuition and other fees, according to the State Department of Education.
870 win nod for school vouchers
Unlike public schools, the nonpublic schools are not obligated to take special education students but do get extra dollars if those students enroll. The roughly $3.4 million the state could spend on the program does not take into account extra dollars given to schools for special education students.
The voucher bill, signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal in late June, is intended to pay for up to 1,500 scholarships in its pilot year. Greer said any money that isn’t spent in this fiscal year can be carried over to the next year.
The families of the 870 students still have to accept the vouchers or scholarships and the number of available seats may have changed at some nonpublic schools since they qualified last month to accept recipients, officials said.
Fifty-one private and parochial schools mostly in Orleans and Jefferson parishes and mostly operated by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, agreed to accept students. The Archdiocese of New Orleans stands to receive the bulk of voucher recipients. For instance, 145 vouchers were awarded to attend Resurrection of Our Lord School in New Orleans and 89 vouchers were awarded to attend St. Alphonsus School, also in New Orleans.
The State Department of Education received applications for about 1,250 students two weeks ago during a sign-up process in New Orleans.
Heavily supported by Jindal, the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program is the fourth city-based voucher program in the country, joining those in Washington, D.C., Cleveland, and Milwaukee. Jindal and supporters of the bill avoided using the term „vouchers“ opting to call it a scholarship program, while not engaging in the debate about whether the plan misdirects money from public schools.
Jindal’s proposal moved quickly through the Legislature buoyed more by back-room political deals than local grass-roots outreach in New Orleans, the targeted city.
Source: http://www.nola.com/education/t-p/index.ssf?/base//news-4/1217655118295650.xml&coll;=1