[Editor's Note: This story has been updated following a phone call to The Independent from state Superintendent of Education John White. White expressed his ire with The Ind for citing education reform critic Diane Ravitch's blog, which White says includes inaccurate enrollment numbers for Eternity Christian Academy in Lake Charles. White says the Calcasieu Parish Christian school's current pre-voucher enrollment is 38 students, not 14. The Independent regrets the error.]
The north Louisiana minister making headlines for trying to lure 315 voucher students into a Ruston Christian school with no classrooms and no computers is also the former head coach of the UL Lafayette football team whose lawsuit against UL for wrongful termination and racial discrimination is still pending.
According to a report from The Monroe News Star, the Rev. Jerry Baldwin is minister of New Living Word Ministries and dually serves as principal of the New Living Word School. When the state Department of Education recently released its list of private schools that have been approved to participate in the state’s new voucher program for public students to attend private schools, New World School had been approved for 315 students — accepting 100 more voucher students than any other private school in the state.
But when The News-Star paid a visit to the “school,” the newspaper discovered that “New Living Word did not have facilities, computers or teachers to accommodate the students the state approved them to accept:”
Meanwhile, plans are under way for a tuition increase, a summer construction project, hiring faculty, purchasing computers and constructing desks. The school, the principal said, is moving forward “on faith.”Speaking of opportunities, The News-Star reports that Baldwin’s “school” is slated to receive $2.7 million in public money if he meets maximum voucher enrollment.
“If you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to stop looking at the obstacles and look at the opportunities,” Baldwin said.
When White appeared in front of the committee on Wednesday, he said the approvals were preliminary and the department will now begin its “due diligence” process to ascertain if schools involved in the program could accommodate the number of students they said they would accept.And according to education historian and reform critic Diane Ravitch, New Living World isn’t the only school in the state taking a rather profitable leap of faith on voucher students. Ravitch erroneously reports on her blog that Eternity Christian Academy in Lake Charles has a current enrollment of 14 students and has agreed to accept 135 voucher students in exchange for roughly $1 million in state funds. But White points out that Ravitch's blog is inaccurate, as the Lake Charles Christian school's current pre-voucher enrollment stands at 38 students.
It is during that process that White said the department would learn about the school’s teacher capacity and certifications, tuition, fees and facilities and make necessary adjustments.
The review process, which White told the group had been in the works, was one that participating schools learned about on Wednesday.
Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, said he believes the “due diligence” step is a recently added one. “I would have to believe it came up after the (News-Star) article,” Kostelka said. “You don’t have enough time to do due diligence for this school year.”
An email sent to schools from the Department of Education following approval to participate contained no mention of approvals being “preliminary” or of any further review.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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