Thanks to a budget cut that affects only a miniscule portion of the state budget, Gov. John Bel Edwards, D-La., is keeping poor children out of private schools.
The Louisiana Scholarship Program gives low-income students assigned to failing public schools several thousand dollars to use toward private school tuition. But due to a roughly $6 million cut to the program in the state budget, the program has had to withhold tuition funds from students who had just been accepted this school year.
WDSU – New Orleans reports that some parents, like Nikesha Hudson, were told in April their child would receive a scholarship. She proceeded to spend hundreds of dollars on school uniforms and supplies for her daughter, Nicole. But when funding was distributed, Nicole was left out.
It wasn’t until Tuesday, more than three months after they were told they’d get a scholarship, that Hudson was informed by the state that Nicole wouldn’t get funding. “I don’t know what to do because I have all these uniforms, and my daughter is crushed because she thought she was going to that school,” Hudson told WDSU. “The governor said no child would lose the scholarship because of the budget cuts,” referring to Bel Edwards’ promise during the 2015 campaign.
Ann Duplessis, president of the pro-school choice group Louisiana Federation for Children, said Bel Edwards used the state’s budget shortfall to claim cuts to the scholarship program were necessary. “During session it was evident the budget shortfall became his way out to renege on that promise,” Duplessis told the Washington Examiner. “The problem is because of when this was done families are now caught in a quandary.”
The previous budget for the program was $42 million a year. According to Duplessis’ group, it would have needed a $5 million increase to give scholarships to every eligible family that wants one. Instead, it got cut by $6 million.
But the $42 million program is less than one percent of the total state budget. The $5 million increase that could have given scholarships to every wanting family, even less. It’s not clear why Bel Edwards wanted to cut the school choice program, a political lightning rod, to balance the state’s budget.
The problem will affect roughly 400 families like Hudson’s, who are now on a waitlist. “Four-hundred families who have no clue what’s going to their child in the next two weeks. School starts, literally for some, in a week,” Duplessis said.
Bel Edwards describes the scholarship program as an “unproven gimmick.” But Duplessis says it clearly works. “All of the statistics that we’ve seen in the last few years have proven that the program, the vouchers, this works,” Duplessis said.
The Louisiana Federation for Children and the Black Alliance for Eduational Options released survey results in May showing that more than 93 percent of parents in the program are satisfied or very satisfied with their school.
But, at least for now, fewer families will be able to join the program. “It’s devastating… They’re trying to figure out where, how, what to do with their kids future,” Duplessis said. “It’s difficult for some people on the outside to understand, these are their babies.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
