Public Money Goes to Private Promotions|Southern Education Desk

Documents from the Louisiana Department of Education detail the expenditure of $132,000 in promotional costs for its voucher program.

 

 

The DOE contracted with LeBlanc & Schuster – a public relations firm in Metairie Louisiana – for $132,000 to provide radio and TV spots, as well as other communications, which provided information about the vouchers. The contract also details the coordination of Department of Education representatives with voucher school administrators to “develop information fairs” about the program.

 

But the promotions were not limited to LeBlanc and Schuster’s marketing campaign.

An email sent from the Department of Education to voucher schools on May 18 says “[y]ou may immediately begin to market yourself to potential students! Feel free to get creative and help spread the word about the available scholarship seats at your school.”

 

Learning Tech Quest School

Donna Underwood is the director of Learning Tech Quest School in Monroe. She says that the Department of Education made its plans known to her through emails and webinars.

“We were not told that we were the marketer, so to speak. We were encouraged to market this student scholarship program. But we weren’t told that was our primary responsibility. We were encouraged to do that.” 

 

The Southern Education Desk’s freedom of information request asked for “all records the Department of Education possesses on marketing plans and costs of those plans related to promotion of the Louisiana Scholarship Program.”

 

But there was no mention in the government’s response to resources devoted to the emails or the webinars.

 

Patsy Brown is the director of Prevailing Faith School in Monroe. She says the Department of Education conveyed its marketing plan to her, as well.   

 

“Well they contacted me by email and by telephone. And I have had several parents come in with mailers, that they did have the names of those schools receiving state scholarships on the mailers. So we have had the state contact us.”

 

The cost of the mailers that Patsy Brown mentions totals just under $20,000, according to the Education Department. The printing and postal fees were done by a government printer after an initial attempt to contract the job out to a private printing company. 

 

 

Despite that savings, there is political opposition to the use of public money to advertise for private schools. Democratic State Representative Katrina Jackson says that the expenditures are inappropriate.

 

“This is not money well spent. I’ll tell you why. A private school has the ability with its private funding to advertise to receive students. If the private schools are interested in accepting vouchers – they are private schools, for profit – then they should be advertising for those vouchers. The state shouldn’t be spending money to help private organizations receive more funds.”

 

For its part, the Department of Education said in an email that because the program is to begin this coming fall, it had to “use every available resource to inform eligible schools and families about this new program and new options for their children.”

 

Whether or not the advertising campaign is appropriate, it appears to have worked. The Department of Education has received more than 10,000 applications for about 7,500 voucher spots.