State superintendent: No admissions testing for voucher students

Published Mar 6, 2012 at 2:48 pm (Updated Mar 6, 2012)

Private schools with selective admissions criteria that choose to participate in the state's proposed voucher program would not be allowed to apply the same criteria to students with vouchers. "This is an open-enrollment process, where students choose the school, but they are not then subjected to an admissions screen, like an interview or an application test," says state Superintendent of Education John White. When asked if private schools have objected to that aspect of the program, White responded: "I think there's acclimation processes all around," for public school districts, parents and private schools who may ask themselves if they want "to step up and take this challenge." In a story in the current issue of Business Report by Penny Font—which you can read here—private school representatives suggest accepting voucher students who may not meet participating schools' general admissions standards could be setting those students up for failure. White says expanding the voucher program, already in place in New Orleans, should be viewed as only one small part of the larger school choice agenda. White says his department does not have an official estimate of how many children might participate among the estimated 380,000 who would be eligible, nor have they surveyed private schools to determine capacity. He suggested 2,000 initial participants might be a reasonable guess, based on Indiana's experience with a similar program. The Louisiana Department of Education released today a report that lays out the steps it would take to ensure effective implementation of the proposed expansion of the voucher program; read it here. —David Jacobs