The Louisiana Federation of Teachers, through a series of ill-planned posts on its Twitter account, accuses the Black Alliance for Educational Options of supporting the Ku Klux Klan through the group's push for private school vouchers.
Louisiana's largest teachers' union is leading a heavy charge against a leading national school choice advocacy group, tweeting a series of posts on its Twitter page that links the Black Alliance for Educational Options to a pro-KKK agenda through its support of Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program.
According to The Washington Examiner, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers used its official Twitter page to send the following message about the Black Alliance for Educational Options, a national school choice advocacy group with a Louisiana branch that's invested heavily in billboards in north Lafayette and in advertisements that target the city's high-poverty neighborhoods: "LaBAEO supports pro KKK curriculum via vouchers."
The union also noted on Twitter that BAEO is "delusional ... a black special interest group supporting curriculum that teaches the KKK was good. YOU do that! It's nuts."
Presumably, LFT is referring to the curricula of some of the schools accepting voucher students, a number of which use textbooks that portray the white supremacist hate group as an organization that fought "declining morality."
In response to the union's claims, former BAEO Chairman Kevin Chavous tells the conservative Heritage Foundation that the union is "race-baiting."
"It's a sad day when an organization like the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, which says it cares about kids, is among the organizations using degrading, race-baiting tactics to demean the very people who are doing their best to give kids hope," he continues.
No doubt, the Black Alliance for Educational Options has raised at least a few flags at various media outlets, this publication included, particularly for its financial ties to ultra conservative political interests that seek to completely privatize public education. Asserting, however, that the group is somehow in favor of a more light-hearted teaching of the KKK by supporting vouchers for private schools is indeed a stretch.
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