Tagged: Department of Education

After saying last August that a public records request would be fulfilled, Louisiana's education department is again refusing to provide The Associated Press with records on how schools were chosen to participate in Gov. Bobby Jindal's new statewide voucher program.

The News-Star newspaper in Monroe has sued the Louisiana Department of Education over a denied Freedom of Information request.

The News-Star reports that it took the legal action after the Education Department first ignored and then denied the request, claiming the governor's exemption of deliberative process.

The complaint was filed Friday. It gives only one side of the legal argument.

Education officials say the number of public schools facing state sanctions rose by 33 percent this year amid tougher state standards.

Barry Landry, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, tells The Advocate a total of 180 schools are listed as academically unacceptable, up from 135 last year.

The list represents 13 percent of public schools statewide.

Taxpayer dollars in Louisiana's new voucher program will be paying to send children to schools that teach creationism and question evolution, challenging the lessons central to public school science classrooms.

Several religious schools that will be educating taxpayer-subsidized students tout their creationist views. Some schools question whether the universe is more than a few thousand years old, openly defying reams of scientific evidence to the contrary.