I see this is basically a dead thread now, and everybody has moved on, but a couple of points:

1) Charter schools are not the same as PRIVATE schools in the La voucher program. The La. voucher program is a POS program; private schools opened up virtually overnight and vouchers are being given for schools with absolutely no requirement that any educational criteria be met. I think an attempt has been made to rectify that particular thing, but I’m not sure it’s particularly vigorous, and bottom line - many of these private schools, particularly the ones that opened up overnight, are indeed run by fundamentalist sects that do plan to teach creationism as science, which of course is ridiculous. I am firmly against these school, and indeed, the Louisiana voucher program, which as far as I can tell, will do virtually nothing to put kids in good schools.

2) Now let’s look at Charter schools. There are 5 types of charter schools in La., though I can’t really tell what the differences would be. But the charter schools are governed either by the local public School Board, OR the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). They are not out there operating on their own with no oversight from those same folks who are responsible for overseeing public schools.

In NOLA, not only did many of the students fail to return to New Orleans - many of the TEACHERS failed to return as well, having gained employment in whatever town they eventually landed after Katrina. So there is very real shortage of those teachers who used to teach in the New Orleans public school system.

Now, you can have reasonable objections to charter schools, I’m sure. But some of the things I’ve seen in this thread are just not at all accurate as to what is happening in New Orleans.

Here is the La. Department of Education’s page on Louisiana Charter Schools. They have NO such page on the voucher program or private schools. Louisiana Charter Schools are considered to be public schools, open to all.

louisianabelieves.com