Louisiana Gov. Jindal Fights Washington War on School Vouchers

Newsmax ^ | 01/25/2014 | Andrea Billups and Jennifer G. Hickey

[Rusty0604]

Gov. Bobby Jindal is battling to protect Louisiana’s fast-growing school voucher program from an all-out attack by the Obama administration.

The Justice Department claims the state’s private schools are defying a decades-old federal desegregation order.

In November, a judge ruled the Department could monitor Louisiana's voucher program, even though 90 percent of the 6,750 students who use the Louisiana Scholarship Program are minority, and 85 percent are black.

Jindal filed a 38-page response to the ruling earlier in January, asking a judge to overturn a 1976 "white flight" case that prohibited giving public funds to all-white private schools. "The state strongly believes that it is equally wrong to block scholarship awards to eligible children of other races, but there is a special irony in the fact that the United States would inflict this harm on so many black children and families, all in the name of Brown v. Board of Education," attorneys wrote in the filing.

The Obama administration has been somewhat open to charter schools, but those are public schools, Burke noted, adding that much of the fealty toward protecting the power base of public schools is rooted in "union labor loyalty."

"You have the teacher unions that throw tremendous amounts of money in support of this administration," Burke said.

"The teacher unions have been blockers every step of the way," she added. "When you look at the history of school choice, you see the unions always trying to put up barriers to school choice and now they have an administration that is supportive of that effort. This is a direct threat to union power — kids choosing private schools that are autonomous."