Opinion

Choice lie

TBO.com
Staff
Published: June 20, 2012

Word on the street is the New Orleans school system is being closely watched by education experts. Supposedly, we here in the Crescent City are on the cutting edge. New Orleans education is the mixed charter-private school system dreamed of by free market theorists for decades. It isn't doing all that well, but that point should probably be ignored for the moment.

The dream is that any child can go to any school and if the school is private the government, hopefully, will foot the bill. Children would then be able to learn in the environment most conducive to their education. We all pretend that the system, at least, sort of operates functionally this way, because the alternative is to just start screaming and never stop.

That was working fine, until the Louisiana Legislature realized that not all private schools in the state are Christian. The problem started when someone accidently read a voucher funding bill and realized that one of the schools was suspiciously named the "Islamic School of Greater New Orleans."

State Rep. Kenny Havard, a Republican — not that that matters, as the bigotry on this issue is bipartisan — sagely notes that he couldn't vote for "giving state money to Muslims for Islamic schools."

Another Republican, state Rep. Steve Carter, sees the issues as closed. The Islamic school withdrew its request for voucher funding after the controversy erupted. "They're not interested," Carter said, adding, "The system works." Presumably, the definition of "system" and "works" are the representative's alone.

This is the lie of school choice. Private interests set the choices and pressure lawmakers to lock out competing interests. The Islamic school found its way in by accident and ducked out after realizing the truth.