DOJ Tries to Stop Parents from Defending Louisiana School Voucher Program

Injunction will prevent vouchers from being awarded in 

2014

The Justice Department is attempting to block parents from defending the Louisiana school voucher program in court, according to a brief filed Tuesday.

Four families filed last month to intervene in the DOJ’s lawsuit against the Louisiana Scholarship Program, which grants vouchers to students so they can flee failing schools rated C, D, or F.

The DOJ is seeking a permanent injunction against the school choice program, which would block access to vouchers beginning in 2014 unless a federal judge approves them. The lawsuit claims the vouchers are “impeding desegregation” because some recipients were in the racial minority at their failing school. Vouchers are awarded randomly by lottery.

The DOJ said in a motion filed Tuesday that parents whose kids have benefited from the program have no legal standing to become defendants in the case.

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal blasted the DOJ for “trying to muzzle parents.”

“The Obama administration wants to deny a voice to the very people who will be harmed by this ridiculous lawsuit,” Jindal said in a statement. “In an offensively worded motion, the U.S. Department of Justice is trying to muzzle parents who simply want to express an opinion about why their children should have the opportunity to escape failing schools.”

Among the parents petitioning to join Louisiana as defendants against the DOJ is Mitzi Dillon, who said in a statement with the Louisiana Federation for Children that her kids would be heartbroken if they had to return to their former school.

Via: WFB

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[OPINION] Obama’s cruel fight against school choice

While President Obama publicly celebrated the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech last week, his administration took action behind the scenes in Louisiana that was a complete rejection of King’s dream.

The Justice Department has challenged my state in court for having the temerity to start a scholarship program that frees low-income minority children from failing schools. In other words, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder would rip children out of their schools and handcuff them to the failing schools they previously attended. And, in the ultimate irony, they are using desegregation orders set up to prevent discrimination against minority children to try to do it.

Never mind that 90 percent of the children receiving scholarships in Louisiana are minorities or that 100 percent of their parents choose to apply for these scholarships.

By his own words, the president is fighting for the right of these children to live the American dream, but his actions would destroy their dreams.

We as a country have made significant progress toward King’s dream. We have more work to do, but this blatant political maneuver by the Obama administration will set the fight for civil rights back decades.

We all know the harsh cycle of poverty that exists in the United States and that a disproportionate share of those in poverty are minorities. Studies of health-care outcomes, incarceration levels and economic opportunity all show that education is key to improving quality of life.

Millions of single parents in this country work two jobs to make ends meet, hoping that their children won’t have the same struggles. Hope is their only option because they live in neighborhoods with chronically failing public schools and lack the means to move to better school districts or to send their children to private schools.

Via: Washington Post

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Obama’s Jim Crow Education System

How is banning school vouchers for poor black students a fulfillment of MLK’s dream?

In his speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s march on Washington, President Obama hypocritically bemoaned the current state of education, saying that many Americans face a “fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects.” He claimed that such schools were “underfunded” and that every child has a “right ... to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit and prepares them for the world that awaits them.”

However, it is the Obama administration that has been instrumental in depriving poor, especially minority, children from the “right” to a quality education with its campaign to eradicate school vouchers. Just recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit in New Orleans federal court to prevent Louisiana from implementing a voucher program at public schools that remains under federal desegregation orders.

According to the DOJ, the 570 students who received the vouchers for the 2012-2013 school year “impeded the desegregation process,” and therefore vouchers for 2014-15 school year must be blocked. The great irony here is that 90 percent of the children who used the vouchers to get themselves a better education are black Americans. Yet the DOJ remains concerned that 10 percent of the 2012-2013 voucher recipients came from schools that remain under desegregation orders written a half-century ago. In their court petition, the DOJ insists that some of the voucher recipients were “in the racial minority at the public school they attended before receiving the voucher.” As the Wall Street Journal wryly notes, the DOJ “is claiming that the voucher program may be illegal because minority kids made their failing public schools more white by leaving those schools to go to better private schools.”

However, it is the Obama administration that has been instrumental in depriving poor, especially minority, children from the “right” to a quality education with its campaign to eradicate school vouchers. Just recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit in New Orleans federal court to prevent Louisiana from implementing a voucher program at public schools that remains under federal desegregation orders.

According to the DOJ, the 570 students who received the vouchers for the 2012-2013 school year “impeded the desegregation process,” and therefore vouchers for 2014-15 school year must be blocked. The great irony here is that 90 percent of the children who used the vouchers to get themselves a better education are black Americans. Yet the DOJ remains concerned that 10 percent of the 2012-2013 voucher recipients came from schools that remain under desegregation orders written a half-century ago. In their court petition, the DOJ insists that some of the voucher recipients were “in the racial minority at the public school they attended before receiving the voucher.” As the Wall Street Journal wryly notes, the DOJ “is claiming that the voucher program may be illegal because minority kids made their failing public schools more white by leaving those schools to go to better private schools.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama's War on Black Education

Notorious for being violent, under-performing laggards, D.C. public schools have among the highest dropout and lowest graduation rates in the country. In 2007, D.C.'s 4^th and 8^th grade students scored lower than children from all 50 states on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Fewer than half of children in D.C, public schools rated "proficient"!

So President G.W. Bush signed the D.C. School Choice Incentive Act, creating a program to provide scholarships to students from low-income families to attend a private school of their choice. This program targeted 2,000 children from low-income families in Washington D.C. In 2008 the program funded attendance at 54 D.C.-area private schools.

In one of his first acts as President in March of 2009, Barack Obama signed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill in to law. Buried in that bill was an appeasement to the teacher's unions that helped put him into the White House; an amendment that killed the District of Columbia's school voucher program, then known as the "D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program."  Over 94% of the participating families in the D.C. voucher program were black families. The immensely successful program allowed parents of children in failing, inner-city schools to send their children elsewhere.

Not only did the amendment kill the program, but the language was included to prohibit any new students from receiving scholarships too. The president rescinded the scholarships set to go to 214 families in the 2010 school year. Of those 214 families, 214 were black households. 

Via: American Thinker

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