Part 1: Bills could alter voucher program
Editor's note: This is the first installment of a three-part analysis series.
Six bills are pending in the current legislative session that could alter the Louisiana Scholarship Program, not including appropriations in House Bill 1, the budget bill.
The LSP, also known as the voucher program or the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program, was designed to give parents an alternative to sending their children to poorly performing public schools. It allows families to choose participating private schools. The program launched in 2008 and was expanded statewide in the 2012-13 school year. In the 2015-16 school year, 7,110 students are participating.
Currently, students who normally would attend public schools that received a "C," "D" or "F" on Louisiana Department of Education assessments can apply for the LSP. The Recovery School District, a statewide district that works to turn around failing schools, also is eligible. (Most RSD schools are in New Orleans.) Students also must meet residency and financial requirements, be attending first through 12th grades or be entering kindergarten for the first time.
Proposed legislation could alter eligibility requirements or place a moratorium on new students entering the program entirely. All six are pending House or Senate education committee approval.
Senate Bill 361 would drop students who would attend Recovery School District schools from eligibility, changing it to public schools with a "D" or "F" ranking. It also would allow the younger siblings of LSP recipients to enroll and open eligibility to children who were in the Nonpublic School Early Childhood Development Program during the previous school year. HB 550 makes the same changes as SB 361.
SB 138 has most of the same requirements and removes the kindergarten enrollment process at the Recovery School District from LSP factoring.
HB 137 would prevent the Louisiana Department of Education from issuing any new scholarships in the program for the 2016-17 school year thereafter. The proposed legislation does not affect current scholarship recipients as currently drafted.
HB 126 would limit eligibility to incoming kindergartners who would attend a "D" or "F" school or is entering a school system that does not assign students based on attendance zones and remove the Recovery School District kindergarten enrollment process from LSP determination.
HB 655 would expand the LSP to include incoming prekindergarteners and remove the requirement that the public school a child would attend must have scored a "C," "D" or "F" for the most recent year.
Analysis: How well does scholarship program serve students?
How does this affect NELA?
In northeastern Louisiana, nine private schools in four parishes participate in the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Eighty-three public schools in Northeastern Louisiana were scored a "C," "D" or "F" on annual performance reviews.
Changes to eligibility, particularly by limiting eligible public schools, only to those scoring "D" or "F," would drop 30 area schools from the program.
Monroe City Schools System has the seventh-highest LSP enrollment numbers per district in the state with 233 students attending LSP schools, which according to the Legislative Fiscal Office, costs the state an additional $215,471. It makes up 3 percent of the program's total costs.
Two of the district's 15 eligible public schools are "C" schools, Lee Junior High and Lincoln Elementary. Nine are "D" schools and four are "F" schools.
In Union Parish, 66 students attend school on a voucher, which according to the Legislative Fiscal Office, costs the state an additional $5,996. Those students are among 416 statewide with tuition less than the MFP amount. Two of the district's five eligible public schools ranked a "C" for the previous academic year.
What's the cost?
The total LSP costs the state approximately $42 million a year, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office. Twenty parishes account for 89 percent of the participants and cost $9,596,276 more than what it would to send the same students to public schools. The remaining 748 participants in another 12 parishes constitute a savings of $1,269,152 for the state.
In the 2015 Louisiana Nonpublic School Choice Annual Report released Feb. 19, the Louisiana Department of Education said the program saved $23,626,260 for the 2014-15 school year statewide.
According to a report issued March 7 by the Legislative Fiscal Office, however, the program cost Louisiana taxpayers an additional $8.3 million compared to what the minimum foundation program allotment would be.
"It was based on data I received from the Louisiana Department of Education with current year enrollment and tuition information," Jodi Mauroner of the Legislative Fiscal Office, said. "Proposed reductions contained in the governor’s executive budget recommendations for FY 17 could potentially impact state funding for the voucher program. The analysis concluded that should the program be downsized, or eliminated, it could actually result in a savings for the state if students were to return to public schools and were funded through the state’s Minimum Foundation Program formula, which is the primary funding mechanism for K-12 education."
According to 2014-15 school year information from the LDOE, it paid schools the full tuition and required fees up to the maximum state allocation per student, which is what a public school receives for each student. The average LSP cost per student was $5,545. What the state contributes to each public school district varies, depending on local funding sources, but the average cost was $8,854 per student.
The Legislative Fiscal Office report states LSP "tuition shall not exceed the combined state and local per pupil amount of the district in which the student resides."
According to the Fiscal Office report, per the fiscal year 2016 MFP, "the average state per pupil amount is $5,196, and the average local per pupil amount is $3,686 for a combined per pupil average payment of $8,882. The average voucher payment in the first quarter was $5,852 or $656 more than the state average," and the LDOE bases the $23 million savings on the $8,882 average.
Ken Pastorick, media information director for the LDOE, said the difference comes from how his department and the Legislative Fiscal Office calculated the costs. He said the Fiscal Office looked at only the funds that come from the state, but the LDOE looked at what the program saved the local taxpayers.
The Legislative Fiscal Office report notes "the state pays the combined state and local share, which actually represents an increased cost for the state. Local school districts do not see a reduction in revenue collections even though that student is not enrolled in local schools."
At at Board of Elementary and Secondary Education School Innovation and Turnaround Committee meeting on March 3, State Superintendent of Education John White presented the 2015 Louisiana Nonpublic School Choice Annual Report.
At-large BESE member Doris Voitier questioned the average savings per student provided in the report because it didn't account for students with special needs and the difference in funds that go to each child. The children most expensive to educate stay in the public school system, which skews the per-pupil average costs used to compute the savings the LDOE presented.
White said LSP schools take any student assigned to them in the program, regardless of whether the child has disabilities. However, private schools use a different classification of service for those students and use different terminology than public schools.
At the time, the committee accepted the report. BESE School Innovation and Turnaround Committee chair Gary Jones, District 5, said accepting the report would not reflect the board's approval of the report's content.
At a Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting the next day, the board declined to accept the report until it had been modified after public comment.
Voitier said the data as presented were misleading "from a holistic approach." She said the misleading nature of the report could be hurtful to Louisiana's schools and asked that the LDOE offer clarity to the report.
White then suggested that BESE receive the item with instruction to include the Legislative Fiscal Office because ultimately BESE is not obligated to receive, approve or otherwise publish the report. White said he agreed that the issue was more complicated that originally laid out in the report.
Jones suggested that the issue be stricken from the agenda rather than accept it.
"I'm uneasy saying we have nothing to do with this because it is implied consent," Voitier said, noting the department's actions are reflective of BESE's actions.
The board discussed the report in terms of catching information before it had been published, but the report had been published weeks before. Voitier asked that it not be published until the budget information was revised.
Voitier amended that the motion to require that the report "not be distributed until this is cleared up." White asked if that meant submitting it to the Legislature. Voitier said she meant to anyone.
The amended motion passed without opposition.
Scott Richard, executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association, addressed the committee and the full BESE meeting. He later called the LDOE report a financial analysis in "the state superintendent's view of the world." He said the organization, in light of the conflicting information from the Legislative Fiscal Office, felt BESE should be notified that the report as presented and published was "erroneous and misleading" and provided the LFO documentation.
"We know the voucher program is funded with state general fund dollars, just like a lot of other programs are funded with state general fund dollars," Richard said.
"The School Boards Association's concern with that report is that it was cleverly misleading in the way the report noted that the taxpayers were saving money by having the voucher program exist in Louisiana."
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