http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/09/17/04louisiana.h33.html?tkn=TYRF6gxeViHpO0SnxbLenGQfwTBRrDvQwmv7&cmp=clp-edweek

…Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, said last week that the Justice Department is denying “black parents the right to send their children to the school the parents choose and force them to send their children to the school the courts choose because if they do otherwise it will mess up [its desegregation] spreadsheets.” The state also has support from African-Americans who embrace the voucher program. “When we have public schools that have not been meeting the needs of kids, to block this opportunity for kids just to make sure we have some classroom diversity is an unfortunate thing,” said Eric B. Lewis, the state director for the Black Alliance for Educational Options.

“This is not a situation where we have segregated schools and white people are trying to flee the public schools,” he added. “At least 85 percent of the kids benefiting from the voucher program are black kids. So for us that is the irony of the situation.”

I find it alarming that states that are doing their best to reform education from within are getting excessive flack from the Government. I’m troubled personally that the DOJ is deciding that the voucher program could be stopped on the grounds that desegregation of public schools will be moving in the wrong direction. We know that school vouchers have helped move children from poor and middle-low income districts out of failing public schools to private ones. And we have seen the results that students are succeeding, state after state, year over year. It’s true that there are bumps in the road; it’s true that the system hasn’t adjusted yet to assisting mentally disadvantaged children to the best of their ability; it’s true that in fact SOME schools are seeing a revised racial imbalance in public schools. But the cases are narrow at best. And the minutia of fighting small battles because the system isn’t perfect only harms children and emboldens over bloated teacher’s unions.

The fact is, families should have a choice at moving their children out of failing schools. The African American community in Louisiana supports this. And a big impact of the movement from public to private schools is that children now are gaining critical access to programs in private schools that they didn’t have before, namely after-school programs and arts education, as mandatory studies; areas of interest that are being systematically cut from public education. Don’t let the DOJ do this to Louisiana children. We should be supporting school choice and we should be working to improving the voucher program so that the issue of desegregation in public schools disappears. Just like brand new cars, there are always kinks to be worked out. We can work this out. We owe it to our children, now.