There's something really fishy going on in Baton Rouge. I got really obsessed with people and corporation money laundering/funneling cash out of Louisiana's education budget and circumventing laws to bring public funding to private schools. This is from an email I wrote.
It all started when I found out this guy, "business man and philanthropist" Ed Rispone, was exploring a gubernatorial bid. Then, I saw his sketchy promotional video of him extolling "school choice" and The Louisiana Scholarship Program which he is/was campaigning in the capital for "full funding" - more on that in a moment. Being sufficiently creeped out by this guy and his incoherent plea for state funding, I looked him up and found this great blog (LAvoice) about the state's deal to provide rebates program which was initially a 100% reimbursement (or however much tuition costs) and now 95% tax credit to donors out of Louisiana Department of Revenue.
Individuals and private businesses and corporations can donate to one of three School Tuition Organizations including New Schools for Baton Rouge (who have made the curious choice to list their board members since many of them work at the some corporations that I suspect are highly enjoying the tax credit), Arete Scholars (whose board features the pious Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum among others), and finally Ace Scholarship, which doesn't reveal its board members but their state director, 32 year old Metairie lawyer Alex Dupre, is keen to sing the praises the chairman of the Louisiana Federation for Children, Ed Rispone. According to information requests posted on the above Lavoice article (and attached) Rispone also contributed a generous one million dollars to Ace in 2014.
These LLC's take a 5% of the donation for themselves for themselves but, as the LA Voice writes, the two local donation entities are the products of almost another million in state handouts, endowing News Schools for Baton Rouge with $500,000 and Ace with a conspicuous $499,750 in start-up funds. These were directly provision by BESE under the guidance of superintendent John White - who actually sued (twice!) the authors of the linked LA voice article to argue that he had the right to release incomplete information on student performance post-2012. Given that the program has largely been considered a failure and John White publicly at odds with the governor - who has sued to have him removed (twice!) - one may have thought he'd have hit the road by now. But alas, BESE's strange autonomy from the governor's direct control has propped up White's position, more so as groups like the Louisiana Federation for Children PAC - the same group chaired by donor and potential gubernatorial candidate Ed Rispone - have invested a ton of money in packing the board with members favorable to "school choice."
Between Ed Rispone and John White there is clearly some double dipping going on here. The program is so unabashedly a scheme to divert funding from public education and launder money under a system of "donation" that it barely seems possible. In this footage from a State ways and means committee meeting from 2017 (skip to 2:28:00) the absurdity becomes nauseating as proponents and lawmakers alternate between patting themselves on the back for their own generosity and moral clarity and talking about needing a better profit motive and making the case for a tax credit greater than 95%.
At one point a representative loses the thread and straight up admits that their just "funneling money." Eventually the niceties melt into confusion as the legislators reckon with the fact that the philanthropy is really just a screen for another kind of welfare - but one they can get behind, especially since they never seem to know any of the numbers or economics behind it. It's really worth watching the whole thing. Given that these programs, from as much as we've been allowed access to data, have proven barely any better than the public school system that it's attempting to choke off, it's hard to see this as anything other than a straight up theft of tax payer revenue, held in place by a cadre of wealthy "donors" who under the guise of philanthropists.
In fact, the program has recently given up almost any pretension to being about education rather than a financial loophole. The most recent ACE pamphlet advertising the tax credit features advice on how to make the most out of your contribution to off-set state and federal income taxes. "As a supporter, you can not only be confident in knowing that you can directly transform a child's life, but you can also enjoy what is simply the best tax benefit around." There is a lot more I could add to this about how Betsy De Vos is fanning this fire through policy and personal actions but I'll leave that alone for now.
It just seems like there's some definite illegal activity going on here as far as public money being drained and circulated among elected and unelected officials, national advocacy groups, wealthy individuals, and private corporations. I just find something a little uneasy in BESE and Louisiana House using the education system as a kind of desiccated corpse to hide their money - at least once they've sucked the blood dry.
I'm starting to get to tired but I hope I've made my point. All of these things are connected in a really insidious way that is at its core greedy, racist, incredibly cynical, and deeply offensive. In all the ways the state is screwed up, it's especially offensive to see our officials continue to throw money into the void at the expense of the most vulnerable. I think if there was any place to uncover serious corruption it would be somewhere around here. It would be an amazing and infuriating story to see all these dots fully connected. Maybe you can help me out or give me some advice - I would pursue it myself if I knew where to start. (I'd probably start with more document requests).
Sorry for writing so much. I hope laying all this out yields a useful perspective.
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