Louisiana School Choice

Louisiana Federation of Teachers, et al v State of Louisiana, et al
IJ, Parents and Organizations to Defend Choice Law in Louisiana

	IJ client Valerie Evans and BAEO members stand in front of the LA state court and ask for the opportunity to choose their children’s schools.

Parents and organizations of parents who support effective education reform will ask a Louisiana state court to allow them to intervene in defense of the state’s new school choice program. The program has been challenged by school boards and teachers unions seeking to preserve the state’s educational status quo. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that is the nation’s leading legal advocates for school choice, has filed papers with the court seeking to represent these parents and school reform groups. The parents moved to intervene on Monday, July 9, 2012, in the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge.

In April 2012, Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law Act 2, his innovative effort to improve elementary and secondary education in Louisiana by giving parents more choices in the education of their children. Despite having been enacted only recently, response to the program from parents across Louisiana has been strong and positive. More than 5,000 applications from new families have been received, as well as renewal applications from the nearly 2,000 families in the preexisting New Orleans program.

The intervening parents and the Institute for Justice seek to support the new statewide voucher scholarship program that allows low-income families with children assigned to underperforming and failing public schools to apply for state scholarships to attend participating private schools of the parents’ choosing. For many families the new program represents their first opportunity to choose their children’s schools instead of having to accept assignment to the public school nearest their homes.