Seven New Orleans private schools that participated in the state’s private school voucher program for the 2010-2011 school year were overpaid a combined $25,000 by the state, according to the most recent independent audit on nonpublic school allocations. But the overpayments to private schools could be higher than what the audit reports, as the auditing firm was not instructed by the state to verify the attendance of all students in the program.
The state-run voucher program, which funded private school tuitions for more than 1,600 low-income students in New Orleans last year, has come under the limelight in recent weeks as Gov. Bobby Jindal pushes for a statewide expansion that would make 380,000 students eligible to attend private schools with public money.
As The Independent reports in this week’s cover story, “Incomplete,” a review of the program reveals problems with the program’s monitoring practices for the students it serves and also confirms that much of the data related to program enrollment and standardized testing for the voucher students are inaccurate.
Two weeks into a public records battle with the state Department of Education, The Independent learned that the payments to private schools are tracked through an independent audit, which verifies attendance records at each of the private schools and determines whether the schools are receiving what they are owed.
When The Ind asked for a copy, state Department of Education spokeswoman Rene Greer sent The Independent a partial document titled “Monitoring Procedures,” a four-page attachment that included pages 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the audit. The missing pages were sent to The Ind two days later and only after the newspaper specified that the entire document should be sent. The audit was not listed among the list of other DOE audit reports found on the Legislative Auditor’s website.
The report, prepared by accounting firm Provost, Salter, Harper and Alford, points out (in the missing pages) that the findings do not represent a complete audit of the program’s finances. The audit is narrow in scope and only details a random selection of the students for which private schools are billing the state.
“Had we performed additional procedures, other matters might have come to our attention that would have been reported to you,” the audit report states.
If a private school in New Orleans enrolled more than five students, the state instructed the auditor to select a random sample of 10 percent of total enrollment or a minimum of five students, whichever is higher. It’s worth noting that two private schools in the program last year accepted more than 100 students, with two others taking more than 150 students and one enrolling a whopping 294 voucher students.
Of the random students selected, the latest audit finds that the state was overbilled more than $25,000 from seven schools. Greer says the schools are required to repay the money to the state.
The report also reveals that out of more than 1,600 students in the program last year, only four were special education students, which further supports a Feb. 4 analysis from The Times-Picayune noting that the two private schools in New Orleans with the highest test scores do not enroll children with special needs, “nor are they required to” as public schools are. State Superintendent John White has repeatedly said that private schools accepting voucher money cannot be selective in their admissions.
Click here for the full Times-Pic report.
Read The Independent’s cover story and accompanying editorial on the voucher program here.
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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