Please Help Elect Public Education Advocates

Many of our public schools, particularly those in urban districts in Louisiana, are the targets of privatization efforts funded by out-of-state and local power brokers who continue to believe that school privatization works despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Fortunately there are active citizens here who have studied the facts and are determined to protect local control of our schools and our public education tax dollars. This blog post is encouraging local Baton Rouge voters to support one of those champions of our public schools.

Tania Nyman is a parent activist in Baton Rouge running for the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, District 7, who is dedicated to  local control of our public schools. I am encouraging my readers to study her platform here, and help elect Ms Nyman to the East Baton Rouge Parish school board.

For over ten years now, outside education reform groups have pushed for the takeover of local schools in Baton Rouge by privately operated charter schools in the belief that private operators could "cut through the bureaucracy" and raise the achievement of inner city students. The selling point for charter schools was that removing regulations on charter schools, including the requirement for hiring certified teachers, would allow the private operators to focus on raising test scores. According to state regulations, these schools would be allowed to keep their charters only if they succeeded in raising the achievement levels of their students.

This entire effort has failed miserably, and instead charter operators are allowed to profit from our tax dollars even though almost all such schools have shortchanged students and taxpayers.

The latest student test scores for the great majority of Baton Rouge charter schools are well below the state average even when compared to the similar socio-economic students in our real public schools.

The state has basically reneged on its promise to close down non-performing charter schools and the operators continue to reap ill gotten profits from our tax dollars. This is wrong for the children and unfair to taxpayers who are supposed to be able to hold such operators accountable, but who are excluded from the management of such schools. This is taxation without representation!

Tania Nyman is running for school board against a political machine heavily funded by privatization interests, many of which benefit directly from our school taxes.

Please read Ms Nyman's platform information here and encourage Baton Rouge voters in District 7 to return our schools to local control!