Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools

(Reuters) - Louisiana is embarking on the nation's boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children.
www.reuters.com...

Bobby Jindal is the kind of Citizen-based Statesman the the USA needs in all elected positions of government leadership.
Here he is putting the children’s best interests ahead of the incompetent and union-corrupted teacher lobby. This is good.
Anything other than the current Government run education system would be vastly superior to the demonstrated incompetence of the current approach.

i live in louisiana and bobby jindal is a known sell out. i do agree it's good to privatize schools. make them compete for the states money

Competition is always good, especially when it comes to getting RESULTS.

This is my theory as to what will happen, as long as this thing doesn’t get wrapped up in all kinds of red tape, and it free to function as it seems to be intended to do…

1. Poorly functioning and performing public schools will lose funding, because parents will relocate their kids elsewhere.
2. The kids will perform better elsewhere at private insitutions, and the private schooling industry will grow, creating more jobs, stronger communities, better education with higher performing students graduating.
3. The public schools that lost their funding will have to look at themselves, and fire the bad teachers, principles, and others in administration, cutting costs, and getting better quality staff onboard who are more suited for the job.
4. Those who survive through the cuts, and those who get hired will have to perform, and will have to do well to compete with the private institutions, therefore FORCING public schools to step up to the plate in every which way.
5. Eventually, the entire system will become a sort of private system where competition thrives, and as a result, performance excels in every possible manner.
6. There will be less bullying as well. If a child is bullying another, the private schools will have a much easier task of either working with the child/parent to get the kid in line, or the private school can easily remove the child from their institution, hopefully without all the red tape. The parent then is faced with the task of relocating their child… IF this pattern continues, the parent runs out of school options as their kid keeps getting disciplined/removed, and is forced to look at themselves, and fix their kid real quick like.

Originally posted by biggmoneyme
i live in louisiana and bobby jindal is a known sell out. i do agree it's good to privatize schools. make them compete for the states money

edit on 2-6-2012 by biggmoneyme because: (no reason given)

They will probably do well for the first year or so, then they will cost more than the public schools they replaced.

That's how privatisation works.

Some things should never be privatised.....IMO of course.

well they way it works is the parents get a type of credit from the state and schools compete for it right?

Yes, lets privatize schools just like they did prisons. Look how well that turned out. 275% increase in prison population....


Honestly, unless these schools are carefully monitored by parent groups, I would never ever send my children to one of those institutions. But hey, what parents have time to worry about their childrens education system anymore?

hey, what teachers have time to worry about their childrens education anymore? 50% drop out.

Originally posted by AaronWilson
Yes, lets privatize schools just like they did prisons. Look how well that turned out. 275% increase in prison population....


Honestly, unless these schools are carefully monitored by parent groups, I would never ever send my children to one of those institutions. But hey, what parents have time to worry about their childrens education system anymore?

so we're gonna have 275% increase in students attending school?

reply to post by Surfrat


What about the schools that perform poorly because the children who attend them haven't been fed that morning because dad was arrested last night for beating up mom? Should they lose all their funding? Should those teachers be penalized? The system you're describing is one where the affluent neighbourhoods have the "best" teachers, and the poorer neighbourhoods have the "bad" teachers, plus a smattering of teachers who stay there only because they care. Believe it or not, a child's home life has a significant bearing on how well they perform on the academic measures introduced at school. It's hard to give a damn about multiplication when your brother just got sent to jail.

reply to post by Jebbaroo


The Louisiana plan would give these children hope; something they don't have in their current environment.
I hope they do give 275,000 kids hope

The roots of this go back decades. Desegregation and forced busing caused white flight from schools in the major metro areas, particularly Baton Rouge, the capital city. With so many children in private schools, no one wanted to pay to fund the public schools. The schools are quite literally falling apart.

No one could learn there nor would want to teach there. It's shameful.

I'm not sure privatizing fixes what should be a civic issue though.

Originally posted by AaronWilson
Yes, lets privatize schools just like they did prisons.

And Louisiana incarcerates more people per capita (in it's privatized prisons) than anywhere in the world.

Originally posted by biggmoneyme

Originally posted by AaronWilson
Yes, lets privatize schools just like they did prisons. Look how well that turned out. 275% increase in prison population....


Honestly, unless these schools are carefully monitored by parent groups, I would never ever send my children to one of those institutions. But hey, what parents have time to worry about their childrens education system anymore?

so we're gonna have 275% increase in students attending school?

Well I am sure some people will cook some books to get the cash. More students more money. High pass rate more money. It will most likely end up like for profit college diploma mills.

Sure, because when the likes of WalMart sponsors a school, we won't have a thing in the world to worry about.

Sometimes it isn't possible to make something better but it is possible to prevent it from becoming worse. Learning the difference is challenging.