DATELINE MAY 4, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit http://www.thescea.org/.
VOUCHER BILL DEFEATED IN BIPARTISAN VOTE
At about 2:30 p.m. today, without any debate, the voucher-and-tuition-tax-credit plan that has been the cornerstone of Sanford’s education agenda was defeated by a broad bipartisan vote of 60 to 53. A subsequent motion to reconsider the vote was tabled by a vote of 60 to 55, which means this particular bill cannot be considered again.
The entire exchange lasted less than 10 minutes, with public school advocates on the chamber floor and in the gallery breaking into spontaneous, sustained applause at the two votes.
The issue of vouchers has galvanized groups in the education and business communities, which organized various coalitions to support public education and to oppose Sanford’s proposal. The SCEA began a three-year multi-media campaign against vouchers in 2002 that included issue advertising on radio and television, and a series of billboards in Columbia and elsewhere, and it has sponsored and co-sponsored rallies at the State House and "virtual" electronic rallies to communicate opposition to Sanford's plan.
In October 2004, The Right Choice campaign was begun by a coalition of the S.C. School Boards Association, the S.C. Association of School Administrators and others, and in March 2005, business leaders organized Choose Children First to give voice to opponents in their community.
In addition, more than 125 active and retired members of The SCEA attended a series of four lobby days at the Capitol, addressing their representatives directly and soliciting support against the bill. At the same time, The SCEA members and others statewide delivered thousands of emails and telephone calls to House members, and they gathered more than 3,000 signatures on anti-voucher petitions in February and March. The petitions were delivered to members of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Investment and Other Taxes, chaired by Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek, in April.
Untold funding — estimated in the millions — from out-of-state sources allowed voucher proponents to flood airwaves with their own television and radio advertising, and for grassroots organizing for State House rallies and press conferences.
The national groups All Children Matter, based in Michigan, and the Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD) based in Chicago, Illinois, fueled the new South Carolinians for Responsible Government and the S.C. Policy Council, which commissioned a study from Clemson University economics professor Cotton Lindsay to claim savings. Clemson University President James Barker later disavowed the study and an independent fiscal impact statement by the S.C. Board of Economic Advisors revealed a cost of more than $230 million to the state’s General Fund rather than any savings.
DATELINE MAY 6, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit http://www.thescea.org/.
VIERS OPENS ROUND TWO FOR SANFORD VOUCHERS
Ignoring the bipartisan vote that killed Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tuition-tax-credit bill on Wednesday, Rep. Thad Viers of Myrtle Beach has re-introduced the proposal with a new number, H 4054. The new bill joins the first two versions of Sanford's plan, H 3012 and H 3204, in legislative limbo: they're alive but haven't been considered by any subcommittee or committee, and since they missed the crucial May 1 crossover deadline, it's virtually assured they can't be made law this year. Their only real value is political, as proponents who plan to use the Sanford vouchers as a campaign issue against public education supporters can use the bills as flashcards during stump speeches in 2005.
Viers's bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Tracy Edge of North Myrtle Beach and Rep. Jim Merrill of Daniel Island.
Upon introduction of H 4054, Rep. Dan Tripp of Mauldin attempted the legislative equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, asking for unanimous consent that the bill be placed on the calendar without reference to any committee. The play would have prevented tedious subcommittee and committee debates and could ensure floor debate within days. But Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg objected, and the bill was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. The next meeting of the full Ways and Means committee hasn't yet been scheduled.
For a complete list of lawmakers who voted for and against the motions to kill H 3652 on Wednesday, refer to May 4 edition of The SCEA Dateline, available at http://www.thescea.org/.
EDITORIALS PRAISE, DECRY DEFEAT OF SANFORD VOUCHERS
Editorial writers across South Carolina have weighed in on its death, some coming to bury, others to praise.
The Myrtle Beach Sun-News credits "the lobbying muscle" of "public school boards, school administrators, teachers and parent organizations" for killing a "useful schooling alternative". It acknowledges the "considerable out-of-state money and lobbying support behind" voucher proponents, which voucher proponents themselves have avoided acknowledging.
"Indeed, proponents' only chance of overcoming the education lobby lay in mustering public support with its media campaign, conducted primarily via mass mailings and TV ads. For the most part, the campaign flopped - suggesting most South Carolinians are content to stake the future of the state's children on the public school system," the Sun-News laments.
The Charleston Post and Courier concurred: "In the hasty end, the proposal's entrenched opposition was consistent in its knee-jerk rejection of any legislative effort to give even the children in failing schools a private-school option. The predictable core of this opposition remains the state's education establishment..."
"Still," it writes, the bill "has gained ground. Last year, it didn't make it to the House floor. This year, it did."
But the Island Packet of Beaufort declared the vote "an important victory," saying "the bill never did add up."
"It was never shown how boosting private schools at the expense of public schools would improve the public schools," the Packet explains. "This issue never was about improving public schools. It was a tax scheme to reward a small segment of the population."
"Unfortunately," it states, "the tone of [the bill's] supporters, including Gov. Mark Sanford, was marked by appalling negativity toward public schools that are improving, but have a long way to go."
"When all is said and done, this state has but one obligation in education, and that is to the public schools. Those are the only schools that are accountable to the public for specific classroom results on specific, rigorous standards. They are the only schools that will take all comers, including those below grade level in achievement, the handicapped and behavioral risks. Private schools are accountable to individual customers, while public schools are accountable to all of society. It is the public schools that need the full devotion from public policy-makers and public dollars."
April 2005
DATELINE APRIL 1, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
CLEMSON PRESIDENT DISAVOWS VOUCHER STUDY
James Barker, president of Clemson University, has disavowed the controversial study commissioned by the S.C. Policy Council and the Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD) of Chicago, and authored by Cotton Lindsey, a professor of economics at Clemson University.
In an email response to concerned Clemson alumni, Barker wrote last night, "The study in question is a 'Cotton Lindsey study' not a 'Clemson study'. Clemson has not and will not take a political position on this issue."
Barker's statement disputes the declaration made by Eric O'Keefe, LEAD president, on Wednesday to Rep. Shirley Hinson's House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Improvement and Other Taxes. O'Keefe said the Policy Council and LEAD "paid a premium to get a Clemson University study."
The disavowal also undermines the insistence of Governor Mark Sanford and his former advisor, Barbara Nielsen, who has used the Clemson University name in television ads promoting the governor's voucher bill. In the latest rounds of tv ads, Nielsen notes the "Clemson study," not the "Policy Council study" or the "Cotton Lindsey study."
CHARLESTON ED NETWORK PRESIDENT CALLS FOR EQUAL TIME
Jon Butzon, president of the Charleston Education Network, has called on Rep. Shirley Hinson to grant opponents of Governor Mark Sanford's voucher proposal equal time in the name of "fair play."
Notice of a public hearing on the voucher was given late yesterday morning, and by early afternoon, all of the slots allowed by Hinson to proponents and opponents of the bill were filled. The hearing is scheduled Wednesday, April 6 at 3 p.m. in the Blatt Building.
But Hinson gave proponents from South Carolinians for Responsible Government and the Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD) of Chicago a 90-minute opportunity to sell the plan on Wednesday. Speakers at the April 6 public hearing will only have five minutes each. Sixteen five-minute slots have been allowed for opponents, and proponents will have another sixteen five-minute slots.
[For those keeping count, this will total almost three hours of time (2:50) allotted to proponents of the bill, and only 80 minutes of time for opponents, cumulatively.]
Butzon's letter, sent to Hinson and copied to various newspaper editors last night, reads:
"Ms. Hinson:
"Yesterday you granted proponents of the Let's Abandon Public Schools Act (H.3652) 90 minutes to promote their bill, denying opponents of the bill a similar time to present facts in opposition. I expect that you will argue that what you did was to get "expert testimony" on the bill, but you got a lopsided view and certainly not from all the experts. This meeting was supposed to "orient the committee" to the bill, a task that any and every sponsor of the Bill should be able to do, though I'm finding that many have not yet read the bill. There are two sponsors on your subcommittee, you and Mr. Limehouse. Either of you should have been able to conduct that orientation. However, there may be something to be said for hearing directly from a bill's author. Otherwise, there was no need for outside input unless you got it from both sides of the issue, a discrepancy I ask you to set right.
"You might think that the good people of your district sent you to Columbia to further the Governor's agenda. You would be wrong. They sent you to Columbia to protect and defend the Constitution of the State of South Carolina, an oath you took and swore to uphold. The Constitution is in place to ensure that everybody in this state gets a fair shake. Just because somebody has money, or says what the Governor likes to hear, or passes out money so that they can try some awful experiment on South Carolina's children, they don't get special treatment. You swore to play fair and you didn't. You know you didn't play fair and I know you didn't play fair. And we both know that you have a moral obligation to fix that. "I look forward to your announcement of another meeting to do just that."
Jon Butzon
Hinson has allotted 20 minutes to the Board of Economic Advisors at the April 6 public hearing, in hopes that the BEA's study on "cost savings" will be ready by that date. Dr. Bill Gillespie, the state's chief economist, revealed Wednesday that state resources and personnel are being used by Hinson and other pro-voucher members of the subcommittee to conduct research specifically designed to support the bill. Gillespie said his staff has worked on this research for the past six months, at pro-voucher legislators' request.
Hinson has determined that the public hearing on April 6 will not last longer than three hours, but Hinson can choose to open a second hearing at a later date. Those who would like for voucher opponents to have equal time to speak against the Sanford plan can contact Hinson at 803-734-2951 (legislative office in Columbia) or 843-572-1722 (home), or email her at HinsonS@scstatehouse.net and ask for equal time.
DATELINE APRIL 8, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HINSON SUBCMTE ADOPTS SANFORD VOUCHERS 3-1
As expected, Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek, Rep. Chip Limehouse of Charleston and Rep. Jim McGee of Florence voted Thursday to allow the diversion of more than $200 million annually from the General Fund through a pair of tax credits designed to encourage enrollment in private and parochial schools. By the three-to-one vote, with only Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter opposing the measure, the Hinson subcommittee approved Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax credit scheme without discussion of the bill's provisions.
Rep. Alex Harvin, who was absent from the meeting, sent written notice of his opposition to the bill.
The vote took place in a meeting called by Hinson following the adjournment of the House session, and it lasted only fifteen minutes, sharply contrasting the four-hour marathon public hearing crashed -- and lengthened -- by Sanford on Wednesday.
There, more than 30 proponents and opponents of the Sanford bill praised and trashed the legislation in five-minutes segments, more or less, with Sanford himself grandstanding before television cameras for nearly fifteen minutes. In his monologue's successive closing statements, Sanford offered the Milwaukee voucher program as a model, praised China's competitive education system as a model, and quoted the free-market sentiments of both Thomas Friedman and Bill Gates.
In scheduling the public hearing, Hinson restricted the number of people who would speak, and she set their time limit at five minutes each. Even S.C. Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum delivered a cogent offense of the Sanford voucher plan -- and a data-driven defense of progress being made in public schools -- in her five-minute-only opportunity at the hearing's opening. Sanford was not one of the scheduled speakers but made a theatrical entrance to the hearing and interrupted the remarks of his own fourth education advisor, Charmeka Bosket, whose repetition of talking points of third education advisor Barbara Nielsen was well under way.
After Sanford's departure, Hinson advised the hearing that "the governor has completely thrown us off, but I hated to tell the governor that." And several speakers (including the Rev. Richard Davis of Clergy for Education Options, Rich Townsend of the Southern Association of Black Independent Schools, parent Hollie Bennett and the Rev. Huey Mills of the S.C. Association of Christian Schools -- all voucher proponents) continued speaking past their allotted time, with Hinson's permission. When the hearing dragged toward 6 p.m., however, Hinson asked the last 14 listed speakers to shorten their remarks -- that is, not to take their full five minutes each -- in order that she might adjourn the hearing sooner.
But Thursday's subcommittee meeting was a subdued affair, attended by only 15 or so lobbyists, lawmakers and reporters. McGee advised Hinson that he has drafted an amendment that re-writes the bill, crafting a straightforward voucher plan and eliminating Sanford's proposed tax credits. But after consulting with Sanford and House leaders, McGee said, he would honor their request that he hold his amendment until the full Ways and Means Committee meets on the bill.
"I believe that choice should be a vital component of education in South Carolina," McGee said. "It's apparent that people have drawn their opinions about the bill. As it sits, it doesn't appear to have the votes to pass the House."
Although the legislature's subcommittee structure is designed to allow discussion and debate to craft, amend or dispose of legislation as necessary, Limehouse agreed that the full committee was the "proper venue" for McGee's amendments.
Cobb-Hunter advised then that she, too, will bring amendments to the full committee, which may take up the voucher package as early as next week. "It's no secret, I'm not supportive of the bill," she said. "I want to address some accountability issues, and I'm still waiting to see a fiscal impact statement."
Though Hinson is a co-sponsor of Sanford's voucher bill and has been quoted in numerous venues expressing support for the concept, she told her subcommittee, "This has been a difficult issue." She also has amendments to the bill, she said, but would bring them to the full committee "rather than clouding it, making it cumbersome with amendments."
One of her proposals, she said, "failing all else, is to look at doing a pilot program."
"We've learned a lot" from the public hearing's speakers, she said and added, "I've given thought to deregulating schools who lose ten percent of their population and allow them to operate as a charter school, give them the flexibility to do what they need to do for their students and their needs."
Again, feigning objectivity toward the bill, she suggested that a favorable vote from the subcommittee was appropriate if only to "allow greater debate by more people" in the full committee.
In a startling lament from a subcommittee chair who has served in the legislature for nearly a decade, Hinson opined, "It's difficult to sit and know that you're under public scrutiny all the time."
"All of us are believers in the system, and nobody wants to derail it," she concluded.
McGee then moved to give the voucher bill a favorable report, with Limehouse seconding. Hinson joined them in voting for the motion, with Cobb-Hunter opposing. Hinson noted that Harvin had communicated his opposition in writing.
The bill may be placed on the full committee's calendar as early as Tuesday, depending on the fullness of its agenda.
COLUMBIA CHAMBER ANNOUNCES VOUCHER OPPOSITION
Joining a number of local chambers of commerce who have allied beneath the Choose Children First banner, the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce announced on Thursday its opposition to Sanford's voucher plan. Chamber President Ike McLeese highlighted legislative positions his organization has shared with Sanford -- their joint support for tort reform, legislative rule changes, etc. -- but said his chamber leaders "cannot support the school tuition tax credit bill in its present form."
"We are very concerned about the transfer of state tax dollars to private educational institutions without accountability to the taxpayer," McLeese said. "We find nothing in the proposed legislation that addresses student academic achievement standards for private- or home-schooled children who qualify for the tuition tax credit, nor any provision for school, teacher or curriculum standards."
"Additionally, we are concerned about the tax implications of this bill. We do not believe that the state's already tightly-budgeted General Fund can withstand the removal of $135 million to $250 million in tuition tax credits projected by this legislation without new taxes or fees levied as replacement," he added. "Legislation of this kind sets a precedent for 'designated taxation,' potentially opening a Pandora's box of legislation created to allocate tax dollars for special purpose allocation."
The Greater Columbia Chamber includes 2,000 members in Calhoun, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lexington, Newberry and Richland counties. McLeese said the local chamber acts as the voice of its members and the business community on matters of economic, educational, social, cultural and political concern.
RYBERG TERI-KILL AMENDMENTS FAIL
Sen. Greg Ryberg of Aiken County attempted to kill the Teachers and Employees Retention Incentive (TERI) and to eliminate the 28-year retirement option for educators and state employees yesterday, offering amendments to a retirement system investment bill (S 618) under consideration by the Senate. All three of his attempts failed.
One important amendment by Sen. Glenn Reese of Spartanburg County was adopted, however, which eliminates the cap of earnings of state retirees.
S 618 seeks to allow the S.C. Retirement Systems Investment Board greater flexibility in investing funds in foreign markets, and it establishes an advisory panel. Because the bill affects the retirement system, it provided Ryberg a convenient vehicle; by offering amendments on the Senate floor, Ryberg could avoid risking defeat of the controversial proposals at the committee or subcommittee level.
One amendment sought to close the program to new participants effective July 1, 2005, but Sen. Nikki Setzler of Lexington County moved to table the proposal and the proposal was tabled by a vote of 30-10. A second Ryberg amendment sought to eliminate the 28-year retirement option altogether, moving the standard retirement back to 30 years for all teachers and state employees. Sen. Thomas Alexander of Oconee County moved to table this one, and it was tabled by a voice vote.
Ryberg's third amendment called for a comprehensive study of the retirement system and its investments, with the study and accompanying analysis delivered to the General Assembly within two years, and the elimination of the TERI program within two years UNLESS the legislature voted again to maintain it. Again, Alexander moved to table Ryberg's amendment, and Ryberg's effort was killed by a vote of 32-7.
But the amendment by Reese allows retirees to earn unlimited income without penalty to retirement benefits. Currently, a state retiree suffers a penalty in retirement benefits if he or she earns more than $50,000 annually. Reese argued that this places unnecessary limitations on a retirees' ability to continue to earn a living and draw retirement benefits. The Senate agreed and removed the earnings cap by a voice vote.
DATELINE APRIL 11, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
SANFORD VOUCHER BILL ON WAYS/MEANS AGENDA TUESDAY
Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit proposal has been included on the agenda of Rep. Bobby Harrell's House Ways and Means Committee meeting, scheduled shortly following adjournment of the House on Tuesday. That agenda is already packed with reports of various subcommittees, but bills may be considered out-of-order at Harrell's discretion.
H 3652, the voucher bill, was adopted by Rep. Shirley Hinson's Economic Development, Capital Investment and Other Taxes Subcommittee last Thursday, by a 3-1 vote.
The SCEA and many other entities, including local chambers of commerce across the state, plus business and community leaders, parents and other organizations in the education community, oppose H 3652 and any amendments that maintain its diversion of public dollars from public schools or from the state's General Fund. The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher has urged members to contact lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee today, tomorrow and until the bill is discussed by that committee, to voice their opposition.
DATELINE APRIL 14, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
WAYS/MEANS VOUCHER DEBATE TO FOLLOW BUSH SPEECH
The House Ways and Means Committee's debate on Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan will apparently occur Monday, following a speech by President George W. Bush to a joint assembly of the South Carolina General Assembly. It is speculated that Bush may announce an appointment of Speaker David Wilkins to an ambassadorship, or may endorse Sanford's voucher plan, but there is no evidence yet to confirm either.
There is evidence, however, that Sanford's voucher plan will cost South Carolina's General Fund more than $200 million annually. A fiscal impact statement prepared by the Board of Economic Advisors was ready for distribution at Tuesday's committee meeting, in anticipation that the committee might get to the bill on that day's calendar. While chief economic Bill Gillespie is expected to explain the statement at next Monday's meeting, interpretation of the statement is already clear: Sanford's proposal drains the General Fund, and the so-called cost-savings touted by the S.C. Policy Council, South Carolinians for Responsible Government, the Legislative Education Action Drive and others have proven virtually non-existent. Even Rep. Shirley Hinson, the voucher proponent who shepherded Sanford's plan to a 3-1 vote in a Ways and Means subcommittee last week, has backpedaled in interviews with state media.
Several amendments to the voucher plan are being devised by committee members for discussion on Monday.
The SCEA and many other entities, including local chambers of commerce across the state, plus business and community leaders, parents and other organizations in the education community, remain opposed to H 3652 and any amendments that maintain its diversion of public dollars from public schools or from the state's General Fund. The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher has urged members to contact lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee today, tomorrow and until the bill is discussed by that committee, to voice their opposition.
DATELINE APRIL 18, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
SANFORD VOUCHERS ADOPTED BY COMMITTEE, 12-9
A majority of the House Ways and Means Committee handed Governor Mark Sanford and out-of-state voucher interests a victory this afternoon as the committee approved H 3652 by a vote of 12-9. An amendment designed to re-draft the entire voucher-and-tax-credit plan failed on a tie vote, 11-11. But three other amendments passed, including one by Rep. Adam Taylor of Laurens which narrows the plan to a pilot program in only two school districts, to be identified by the Department of Education according to criteria set by the amendment.
Votes by Rep. Lanny Littlejohn of Spartanburg, Rep. Dan Cooper of Greenville and Taylor proved to be crucial, as every other member of the committee had previously taken public positions for and against the bill. The three voted together on most recorded votes on amendments and parliamentary motions but split on the straight up-or-down vote on the bill, with Littlejohn opposing the bill, Taylor favoring the bill, and Cooper present but abstaining. Because the vote was so close, however, it bears noting that if Taylor and Cooper had voted with Littlejohn, the voucher bill would have died with a tie vote.
Oddly, though Rep. Annette Young was present for much of the debate, she did not record a position in any of the roll call votes and she left before the final vote was taken.
The two other approved amendments protect funding to firefighters -- funding that was threatened by Sanford's proposed tax credit for insurance premiums -- and allow contributors to public schools to qualify for the same dollar-for-dollar credit that Sanford sought for contributors to voucher-granting organizations for private and parochial education.
In supporting the bill, as expected, Hinson took the lead. In opposing it, Cobb-Hunter did the heavy lifting with assists from Clyburn, Cotty and Kennedy.
Though she had two formal opportunities to amend the bill in the subcommittee she chaired, Hinson offered this afternoon a massive strike-and-insert amendment co-authored by eight other committee members that re-drew the plan with vouchers and tax credits but without voucher-granting organizations, euphemistically called scholarship-granting organizations.
She urged the committee to approve it "to get to the floor, to the whole House, a bill to debate," and said she anticipated that about 10 percent of students in failing public schools would use the voucher plan. Under questioning from Kennedy she admitted that no fiscal impact statement was ready on the bill, though the amendment was drawn last week.
Clyburn asked whether the new amendment didn't make H 3652 even more of a strict voucher bill. "No, we could just as easily call it a state scholarship bill," Hinson replied. Asked whether it was even clearer that public schools would lose state funding, she answered, "Yeah."
Clyburn asked, too, whether Hinson had won the approval of district superintendents, administrators or The SCEA for the amendment. "I don't think we've ever had their approval for any change," Hinson said. "I think there's a fear factor that they're going to lose students and teachers, and that schools are going to close."
Asked further if the state Chamber of Commerce had declared a position on the bill or the amendment, Hinson responded, "I don't know if they've weighed in, and that's probably a wise decision for them." [In fact, while the state chamber hasn't yet announced a position on Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan, several local chambers of commerce have stated their opposition loudly and clearly.]
Clyburn advised Hinson that superintendents, administrators and educators in his district, straddling Aiken and Edgefield counties on the state's western border, were unanimously opposed to it. Though Hinson's district is near Charleston, she explained to Clyburn that his local educators were just "scared to death of it and that's why they're opposed to it."
But Clyburn insisted. "What I'm hearing is not just out of fear. They're improving under the laws we've given them," he said.
"Yeah, they're improving," Hinson answered.
Cotty reminded committee members of the assessment by former Rep. Rick Quinn of last year's voucher proposal in the committee -- an assessment offered in a fit of candor. "This is as important a matter as any of you have dealt with in all your years here," he said. "You can call it a scholarship, you can call it a tax credit, you can call it a vampire draining the blood out of public education. But we're back to what Rick Quinn said a year ago: Yes, it's a voucher bill. The message we will send is that we've given up on public education. The truth is, that message is so dangerous that to let it out of here is wrong."
Cobb-Hunter questioned Hinson on transportation funding (the proposal includes none), the criteria for voucher eligibility (lower- to middle-class students qualify for vouchers, wealthy parents qualify for tax credits) and the difference between the amount of a proposed voucher and the actual cost of private tuition. "It could be very close," Hinson replied. "Tuition will differ."
Hearing Hinson's responses, Cobb-Hunter sharpened her judgment to a fine point. "I'm concerned about all the cosmetics in this amendment; you're just trying to dress this thing up, and I'm hearing and feeling that. Regardless of what change we make, we're still talking about abandoning the public schools system."
Urging his colleagues to approve passage of the bill from committee, "then vote your conscience on the floor," Vaughn revealed that his public school experience ended when he dropped out of school as a sophomore and joined the military. He later earned a GED and used the G.I. bill to enroll briefly at Furman University. "The G.I. bill is a voucher," he declared. "Voucher is not a dirty word."
Taylor noted that Hinson's amendment would allow parents who received a voucher and/or tax credit one year would be eligible for the voucher and/or tax credit for the remainder of the student's years of K-12 education, even if their financial circumstances or location changed. He asked why.
"The idea is continuity," Hinson answered. "The child makes friendships, relationships, and you want them to have continuity."
Edge supported Hinson and noted that "adminstrators are generally for the status quo and oppose change."
Kennedy, an African-American legislator, cast his own interpretation of the voucher plan as a re-segregation plan.
"My nose bleeds for you, Mr. Vaughn, but I came up on another side of the street: separate but equal," he said. "The first time I saw a school bus was in 1954 after Mr. Delaine filed a lawsuit and joined the Brown v. Board of Education case. That was 50 years ago, and after all this, we're headed right back.
"All these people they brought from Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. -- they don't know what happened in South Carolina," Kennedy continued. "South Carolina has never lived up to its responsibility to public schools. In Williamsburg County, we graduate hundreds of students and they leave to teach in Greenville County, York County -- you know why? Because your economic base is greater. You can afford the best and the brightest. You had no problems in school; you didn't see what I saw."
"I hope we will send all these people from outside South Carolina -- come to sell us this voucher bill -- back home to get a real job," he declared. "This whole thing is a big farce. They talk about Milwaukee, but tell me this: Why didn't the whole state of Wisconsin take this voucher plan? Evidently, there's something they know that we don't. People from outside our state brough a bad bill and a bag of money down here. All this is is another move to resegregate schools."
Cobb-Hunter returned, in her questioning, to the issue of accountability and asked Hinson why the plan doesn't require private or parochial schools to administer the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT). Hinson replied, "We don't want to put additional responsibility on them to change what is obviously successful."
Concerned that the bill didn't require private and parochial schools to take all comers, as public schools do, Cobb-Hunter asked whether the bill allowed private schools a "right of refusal. They're very selective, shall we say, in who they admit."
"No, the school has the authority to approve or disapprove an applicant based on their own criteria," Hinson said. "I don't think we can force a private school to participate, but that's my opinion."
"I'm getting all warm and fuzzy about the concern I'm hearing around this table for poor people, " Cobb-Hunter went on. "But there's nothing in this amendment that's going to help poor people. Rhetoric and reality are two different things. You can talk about choice all night but we need to be clear that we're providing a benefit to people with means. It's not about black or white; the most important color in America is green -- it's about money. If you're poor, you catch hell no matter what color you are." Clyburn urged the committee to reject the message the bill sends to educators. "We have teachers, administrators who have given thousands of hours, working hard to improve, and all I hear is how they're failing. What do we say to our educators? And they're all against this bill."
Cotty moved to "continue" the amendment, which would postpone consideration of the amendment AND the bill to NEXT year's legislative session. On a roll call vote, the motion failed 11-10.
Cotty then moved to table the amendment, but that vote failed with an 11-11 tie. The vote to approve the amendment ALSO failed with an 11-11 tie.
Taylor's amendment to reduce Sanford's plan to a pilot program in two districts won by 13-9.
An amendment to cap contributions to voucher-granting organizations at $10,000 per person/corporation per year was approved on a voice vote, as did Rice's amendment to hold firefighters harmless from loss of revenue from the insurance premium tax credit, and Cobb-Hunter's amendment guaranteeing a credit against contributions to public schools.
Cobb-Hunter and Vaughn tangled twice more over amendments allowing the Department of Education to monitor the receipts of voucher-granting organizations (tabled by a vote of 14-7, though not a roll call vote) and requiring private and parochial schools to conform to the Education Accountability Act of 1998.
At Cobb-Hunter's explanation of this proposal, Vaughn immediately moved to table it. "I can't let you win this one," he told her aloud. "If you want to kill any change to school choice, you bring all these schools under regulation, and then you don't have a bill any more. Private schools aren't going to submit to regulation under state government."
"But it's okay to give them public dollars?" Cobb-Hunter asked him, without a response. "We're saying it's okay to have a double standard: One for public schools, for teacher we're busily badgering, but it's not okay for us to thinking, Heaven forbid, that a private school ought to be accountable for public dollars?"
That amendment and a final one -- requiring funding for transportation -- were each defeated 13-6, but without roll call votes.
DATELINE APRIL 27, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
VOUCHER BILL WILL MISS CRUCIAL CROSSOVER DEADLINE
A move by Rep. Jim Merrill of Daniel Island guaranteed early this evening that Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tuition-tax-credit proposal won't become law in 2005. Merrill, a co-sponsor of the bill, moved to adjourn debate on House Bill 3652 until next Tuesday, May 3. Under legislative rules, any bill that doesn't pass one chamber by May 1 is ineligible for consideration by the opposite chamber in a given year's session. Merrill's move -- precipitated in part by pressure on House leaders to avoid debate on the unpopular bill -- marks a significant victory for public education advocates, who have organized in unprecedented coalitions to defeat the Sanford plan.
The delay also punctuates another milestone in The SCEA's three-year campaign against vouchers, which was inaugurated with television advertisements in 2002 and has continued through ongoing billboard and radio advertisements. In the past month, more than 125 active and retired members of The SCEA have participated in a series of four lobby days at the Capitol; more than 50 members of The SCEA-Retired traveled to Columbia today to lobby against the bill and to witness the anticipated -- but delayed -- debate.
In addition, The SCEA members and others statewide have delivered thousands of emails and telephone calls to House members, and they gathered more than 3,000 signatures on anti-voucher petitions in February and March. The petitions were delivered to members of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Investment and Other Taxes, chaired by Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek, earlier this month but had little impact on Hinson, Rep. Chip Limehouse of Charleston and Rep. Jim McGee of Florence, who voted to approve the bill over educators' concerns.
But Merrill's delay isn't a permanent defeat for the bill. Depending on the scheduling of committee meetings on Tuesday, the House could begin to debate the Sanford plan on that day or on Wednesday. The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher continues to urge The SCEA members to contact their members of the House tonight and through the weekend, encouraging them to oppose the bill and all amendments to it, without exception.
The present version of the Sanford plan narrows the statewide voucher program to two districts, to be identified by the Department of Education using House-drafted criteria. But an amendment is circulating which would revise the bill further, transforming it into a straightforward voucher-without-tuition-tax-credits plan. A fiscal impact statement drafted by the Board of Economic Advisors has indicated that the amendment would carry a price tag of more than $500 million dollars, twice the amount of the original version of Sanford's plan.
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
CLEMSON PRESIDENT DISAVOWS VOUCHER STUDY
James Barker, president of Clemson University, has disavowed the controversial study commissioned by the S.C. Policy Council and the Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD) of Chicago, and authored by Cotton Lindsey, a professor of economics at Clemson University.
In an email response to concerned Clemson alumni, Barker wrote last night, "The study in question is a 'Cotton Lindsey study' not a 'Clemson study'. Clemson has not and will not take a political position on this issue."
Barker's statement disputes the declaration made by Eric O'Keefe, LEAD president, on Wednesday to Rep. Shirley Hinson's House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Improvement and Other Taxes. O'Keefe said the Policy Council and LEAD "paid a premium to get a Clemson University study."
The disavowal also undermines the insistence of Governor Mark Sanford and his former advisor, Barbara Nielsen, who has used the Clemson University name in television ads promoting the governor's voucher bill. In the latest rounds of tv ads, Nielsen notes the "Clemson study," not the "Policy Council study" or the "Cotton Lindsey study."
CHARLESTON ED NETWORK PRESIDENT CALLS FOR EQUAL TIME
Jon Butzon, president of the Charleston Education Network, has called on Rep. Shirley Hinson to grant opponents of Governor Mark Sanford's voucher proposal equal time in the name of "fair play."
Notice of a public hearing on the voucher was given late yesterday morning, and by early afternoon, all of the slots allowed by Hinson to proponents and opponents of the bill were filled. The hearing is scheduled Wednesday, April 6 at 3 p.m. in the Blatt Building.
But Hinson gave proponents from South Carolinians for Responsible Government and the Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD) of Chicago a 90-minute opportunity to sell the plan on Wednesday. Speakers at the April 6 public hearing will only have five minutes each. Sixteen five-minute slots have been allowed for opponents, and proponents will have another sixteen five-minute slots.
[For those keeping count, this will total almost three hours of time (2:50) allotted to proponents of the bill, and only 80 minutes of time for opponents, cumulatively.]
Butzon's letter, sent to Hinson and copied to various newspaper editors last night, reads:
"Ms. Hinson:
"Yesterday you granted proponents of the Let's Abandon Public Schools Act (H.3652) 90 minutes to promote their bill, denying opponents of the bill a similar time to present facts in opposition. I expect that you will argue that what you did was to get "expert testimony" on the bill, but you got a lopsided view and certainly not from all the experts. This meeting was supposed to "orient the committee" to the bill, a task that any and every sponsor of the Bill should be able to do, though I'm finding that many have not yet read the bill. There are two sponsors on your subcommittee, you and Mr. Limehouse. Either of you should have been able to conduct that orientation. However, there may be something to be said for hearing directly from a bill's author. Otherwise, there was no need for outside input unless you got it from both sides of the issue, a discrepancy I ask you to set right.
"You might think that the good people of your district sent you to Columbia to further the Governor's agenda. You would be wrong. They sent you to Columbia to protect and defend the Constitution of the State of South Carolina, an oath you took and swore to uphold. The Constitution is in place to ensure that everybody in this state gets a fair shake. Just because somebody has money, or says what the Governor likes to hear, or passes out money so that they can try some awful experiment on South Carolina's children, they don't get special treatment. You swore to play fair and you didn't. You know you didn't play fair and I know you didn't play fair. And we both know that you have a moral obligation to fix that. "I look forward to your announcement of another meeting to do just that."
Jon Butzon
Hinson has allotted 20 minutes to the Board of Economic Advisors at the April 6 public hearing, in hopes that the BEA's study on "cost savings" will be ready by that date. Dr. Bill Gillespie, the state's chief economist, revealed Wednesday that state resources and personnel are being used by Hinson and other pro-voucher members of the subcommittee to conduct research specifically designed to support the bill. Gillespie said his staff has worked on this research for the past six months, at pro-voucher legislators' request.
Hinson has determined that the public hearing on April 6 will not last longer than three hours, but Hinson can choose to open a second hearing at a later date. Those who would like for voucher opponents to have equal time to speak against the Sanford plan can contact Hinson at 803-734-2951 (legislative office in Columbia) or 843-572-1722 (home), or email her at HinsonS@scstatehouse.net and ask for equal time.
DATELINE APRIL 8, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HINSON SUBCMTE ADOPTS SANFORD VOUCHERS 3-1
As expected, Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek, Rep. Chip Limehouse of Charleston and Rep. Jim McGee of Florence voted Thursday to allow the diversion of more than $200 million annually from the General Fund through a pair of tax credits designed to encourage enrollment in private and parochial schools. By the three-to-one vote, with only Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter opposing the measure, the Hinson subcommittee approved Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax credit scheme without discussion of the bill's provisions.
Rep. Alex Harvin, who was absent from the meeting, sent written notice of his opposition to the bill.
The vote took place in a meeting called by Hinson following the adjournment of the House session, and it lasted only fifteen minutes, sharply contrasting the four-hour marathon public hearing crashed -- and lengthened -- by Sanford on Wednesday.
There, more than 30 proponents and opponents of the Sanford bill praised and trashed the legislation in five-minutes segments, more or less, with Sanford himself grandstanding before television cameras for nearly fifteen minutes. In his monologue's successive closing statements, Sanford offered the Milwaukee voucher program as a model, praised China's competitive education system as a model, and quoted the free-market sentiments of both Thomas Friedman and Bill Gates.
In scheduling the public hearing, Hinson restricted the number of people who would speak, and she set their time limit at five minutes each. Even S.C. Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum delivered a cogent offense of the Sanford voucher plan -- and a data-driven defense of progress being made in public schools -- in her five-minute-only opportunity at the hearing's opening. Sanford was not one of the scheduled speakers but made a theatrical entrance to the hearing and interrupted the remarks of his own fourth education advisor, Charmeka Bosket, whose repetition of talking points of third education advisor Barbara Nielsen was well under way.
After Sanford's departure, Hinson advised the hearing that "the governor has completely thrown us off, but I hated to tell the governor that." And several speakers (including the Rev. Richard Davis of Clergy for Education Options, Rich Townsend of the Southern Association of Black Independent Schools, parent Hollie Bennett and the Rev. Huey Mills of the S.C. Association of Christian Schools -- all voucher proponents) continued speaking past their allotted time, with Hinson's permission. When the hearing dragged toward 6 p.m., however, Hinson asked the last 14 listed speakers to shorten their remarks -- that is, not to take their full five minutes each -- in order that she might adjourn the hearing sooner.
But Thursday's subcommittee meeting was a subdued affair, attended by only 15 or so lobbyists, lawmakers and reporters. McGee advised Hinson that he has drafted an amendment that re-writes the bill, crafting a straightforward voucher plan and eliminating Sanford's proposed tax credits. But after consulting with Sanford and House leaders, McGee said, he would honor their request that he hold his amendment until the full Ways and Means Committee meets on the bill.
"I believe that choice should be a vital component of education in South Carolina," McGee said. "It's apparent that people have drawn their opinions about the bill. As it sits, it doesn't appear to have the votes to pass the House."
Although the legislature's subcommittee structure is designed to allow discussion and debate to craft, amend or dispose of legislation as necessary, Limehouse agreed that the full committee was the "proper venue" for McGee's amendments.
Cobb-Hunter advised then that she, too, will bring amendments to the full committee, which may take up the voucher package as early as next week. "It's no secret, I'm not supportive of the bill," she said. "I want to address some accountability issues, and I'm still waiting to see a fiscal impact statement."
Though Hinson is a co-sponsor of Sanford's voucher bill and has been quoted in numerous venues expressing support for the concept, she told her subcommittee, "This has been a difficult issue." She also has amendments to the bill, she said, but would bring them to the full committee "rather than clouding it, making it cumbersome with amendments."
One of her proposals, she said, "failing all else, is to look at doing a pilot program."
"We've learned a lot" from the public hearing's speakers, she said and added, "I've given thought to deregulating schools who lose ten percent of their population and allow them to operate as a charter school, give them the flexibility to do what they need to do for their students and their needs."
Again, feigning objectivity toward the bill, she suggested that a favorable vote from the subcommittee was appropriate if only to "allow greater debate by more people" in the full committee.
In a startling lament from a subcommittee chair who has served in the legislature for nearly a decade, Hinson opined, "It's difficult to sit and know that you're under public scrutiny all the time."
"All of us are believers in the system, and nobody wants to derail it," she concluded.
McGee then moved to give the voucher bill a favorable report, with Limehouse seconding. Hinson joined them in voting for the motion, with Cobb-Hunter opposing. Hinson noted that Harvin had communicated his opposition in writing.
The bill may be placed on the full committee's calendar as early as Tuesday, depending on the fullness of its agenda.
COLUMBIA CHAMBER ANNOUNCES VOUCHER OPPOSITION
Joining a number of local chambers of commerce who have allied beneath the Choose Children First banner, the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce announced on Thursday its opposition to Sanford's voucher plan. Chamber President Ike McLeese highlighted legislative positions his organization has shared with Sanford -- their joint support for tort reform, legislative rule changes, etc. -- but said his chamber leaders "cannot support the school tuition tax credit bill in its present form."
"We are very concerned about the transfer of state tax dollars to private educational institutions without accountability to the taxpayer," McLeese said. "We find nothing in the proposed legislation that addresses student academic achievement standards for private- or home-schooled children who qualify for the tuition tax credit, nor any provision for school, teacher or curriculum standards."
"Additionally, we are concerned about the tax implications of this bill. We do not believe that the state's already tightly-budgeted General Fund can withstand the removal of $135 million to $250 million in tuition tax credits projected by this legislation without new taxes or fees levied as replacement," he added. "Legislation of this kind sets a precedent for 'designated taxation,' potentially opening a Pandora's box of legislation created to allocate tax dollars for special purpose allocation."
The Greater Columbia Chamber includes 2,000 members in Calhoun, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lexington, Newberry and Richland counties. McLeese said the local chamber acts as the voice of its members and the business community on matters of economic, educational, social, cultural and political concern.
RYBERG TERI-KILL AMENDMENTS FAIL
Sen. Greg Ryberg of Aiken County attempted to kill the Teachers and Employees Retention Incentive (TERI) and to eliminate the 28-year retirement option for educators and state employees yesterday, offering amendments to a retirement system investment bill (S 618) under consideration by the Senate. All three of his attempts failed.
One important amendment by Sen. Glenn Reese of Spartanburg County was adopted, however, which eliminates the cap of earnings of state retirees.
S 618 seeks to allow the S.C. Retirement Systems Investment Board greater flexibility in investing funds in foreign markets, and it establishes an advisory panel. Because the bill affects the retirement system, it provided Ryberg a convenient vehicle; by offering amendments on the Senate floor, Ryberg could avoid risking defeat of the controversial proposals at the committee or subcommittee level.
One amendment sought to close the program to new participants effective July 1, 2005, but Sen. Nikki Setzler of Lexington County moved to table the proposal and the proposal was tabled by a vote of 30-10. A second Ryberg amendment sought to eliminate the 28-year retirement option altogether, moving the standard retirement back to 30 years for all teachers and state employees. Sen. Thomas Alexander of Oconee County moved to table this one, and it was tabled by a voice vote.
Ryberg's third amendment called for a comprehensive study of the retirement system and its investments, with the study and accompanying analysis delivered to the General Assembly within two years, and the elimination of the TERI program within two years UNLESS the legislature voted again to maintain it. Again, Alexander moved to table Ryberg's amendment, and Ryberg's effort was killed by a vote of 32-7.
But the amendment by Reese allows retirees to earn unlimited income without penalty to retirement benefits. Currently, a state retiree suffers a penalty in retirement benefits if he or she earns more than $50,000 annually. Reese argued that this places unnecessary limitations on a retirees' ability to continue to earn a living and draw retirement benefits. The Senate agreed and removed the earnings cap by a voice vote.
DATELINE APRIL 11, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
SANFORD VOUCHER BILL ON WAYS/MEANS AGENDA TUESDAY
Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit proposal has been included on the agenda of Rep. Bobby Harrell's House Ways and Means Committee meeting, scheduled shortly following adjournment of the House on Tuesday. That agenda is already packed with reports of various subcommittees, but bills may be considered out-of-order at Harrell's discretion.
H 3652, the voucher bill, was adopted by Rep. Shirley Hinson's Economic Development, Capital Investment and Other Taxes Subcommittee last Thursday, by a 3-1 vote.
The SCEA and many other entities, including local chambers of commerce across the state, plus business and community leaders, parents and other organizations in the education community, oppose H 3652 and any amendments that maintain its diversion of public dollars from public schools or from the state's General Fund. The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher has urged members to contact lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee today, tomorrow and until the bill is discussed by that committee, to voice their opposition.
DATELINE APRIL 14, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
WAYS/MEANS VOUCHER DEBATE TO FOLLOW BUSH SPEECH
The House Ways and Means Committee's debate on Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan will apparently occur Monday, following a speech by President George W. Bush to a joint assembly of the South Carolina General Assembly. It is speculated that Bush may announce an appointment of Speaker David Wilkins to an ambassadorship, or may endorse Sanford's voucher plan, but there is no evidence yet to confirm either.
There is evidence, however, that Sanford's voucher plan will cost South Carolina's General Fund more than $200 million annually. A fiscal impact statement prepared by the Board of Economic Advisors was ready for distribution at Tuesday's committee meeting, in anticipation that the committee might get to the bill on that day's calendar. While chief economic Bill Gillespie is expected to explain the statement at next Monday's meeting, interpretation of the statement is already clear: Sanford's proposal drains the General Fund, and the so-called cost-savings touted by the S.C. Policy Council, South Carolinians for Responsible Government, the Legislative Education Action Drive and others have proven virtually non-existent. Even Rep. Shirley Hinson, the voucher proponent who shepherded Sanford's plan to a 3-1 vote in a Ways and Means subcommittee last week, has backpedaled in interviews with state media.
Several amendments to the voucher plan are being devised by committee members for discussion on Monday.
The SCEA and many other entities, including local chambers of commerce across the state, plus business and community leaders, parents and other organizations in the education community, remain opposed to H 3652 and any amendments that maintain its diversion of public dollars from public schools or from the state's General Fund. The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher has urged members to contact lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee today, tomorrow and until the bill is discussed by that committee, to voice their opposition.
DATELINE APRIL 18, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
SANFORD VOUCHERS ADOPTED BY COMMITTEE, 12-9
A majority of the House Ways and Means Committee handed Governor Mark Sanford and out-of-state voucher interests a victory this afternoon as the committee approved H 3652 by a vote of 12-9. An amendment designed to re-draft the entire voucher-and-tax-credit plan failed on a tie vote, 11-11. But three other amendments passed, including one by Rep. Adam Taylor of Laurens which narrows the plan to a pilot program in only two school districts, to be identified by the Department of Education according to criteria set by the amendment.
Votes by Rep. Lanny Littlejohn of Spartanburg, Rep. Dan Cooper of Greenville and Taylor proved to be crucial, as every other member of the committee had previously taken public positions for and against the bill. The three voted together on most recorded votes on amendments and parliamentary motions but split on the straight up-or-down vote on the bill, with Littlejohn opposing the bill, Taylor favoring the bill, and Cooper present but abstaining. Because the vote was so close, however, it bears noting that if Taylor and Cooper had voted with Littlejohn, the voucher bill would have died with a tie vote.
Oddly, though Rep. Annette Young was present for much of the debate, she did not record a position in any of the roll call votes and she left before the final vote was taken.
The two other approved amendments protect funding to firefighters -- funding that was threatened by Sanford's proposed tax credit for insurance premiums -- and allow contributors to public schools to qualify for the same dollar-for-dollar credit that Sanford sought for contributors to voucher-granting organizations for private and parochial education.
In supporting the bill, as expected, Hinson took the lead. In opposing it, Cobb-Hunter did the heavy lifting with assists from Clyburn, Cotty and Kennedy.
Though she had two formal opportunities to amend the bill in the subcommittee she chaired, Hinson offered this afternoon a massive strike-and-insert amendment co-authored by eight other committee members that re-drew the plan with vouchers and tax credits but without voucher-granting organizations, euphemistically called scholarship-granting organizations.
She urged the committee to approve it "to get to the floor, to the whole House, a bill to debate," and said she anticipated that about 10 percent of students in failing public schools would use the voucher plan. Under questioning from Kennedy she admitted that no fiscal impact statement was ready on the bill, though the amendment was drawn last week.
Clyburn asked whether the new amendment didn't make H 3652 even more of a strict voucher bill. "No, we could just as easily call it a state scholarship bill," Hinson replied. Asked whether it was even clearer that public schools would lose state funding, she answered, "Yeah."
Clyburn asked, too, whether Hinson had won the approval of district superintendents, administrators or The SCEA for the amendment. "I don't think we've ever had their approval for any change," Hinson said. "I think there's a fear factor that they're going to lose students and teachers, and that schools are going to close."
Asked further if the state Chamber of Commerce had declared a position on the bill or the amendment, Hinson responded, "I don't know if they've weighed in, and that's probably a wise decision for them." [In fact, while the state chamber hasn't yet announced a position on Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan, several local chambers of commerce have stated their opposition loudly and clearly.]
Clyburn advised Hinson that superintendents, administrators and educators in his district, straddling Aiken and Edgefield counties on the state's western border, were unanimously opposed to it. Though Hinson's district is near Charleston, she explained to Clyburn that his local educators were just "scared to death of it and that's why they're opposed to it."
But Clyburn insisted. "What I'm hearing is not just out of fear. They're improving under the laws we've given them," he said.
"Yeah, they're improving," Hinson answered.
Cotty reminded committee members of the assessment by former Rep. Rick Quinn of last year's voucher proposal in the committee -- an assessment offered in a fit of candor. "This is as important a matter as any of you have dealt with in all your years here," he said. "You can call it a scholarship, you can call it a tax credit, you can call it a vampire draining the blood out of public education. But we're back to what Rick Quinn said a year ago: Yes, it's a voucher bill. The message we will send is that we've given up on public education. The truth is, that message is so dangerous that to let it out of here is wrong."
Cobb-Hunter questioned Hinson on transportation funding (the proposal includes none), the criteria for voucher eligibility (lower- to middle-class students qualify for vouchers, wealthy parents qualify for tax credits) and the difference between the amount of a proposed voucher and the actual cost of private tuition. "It could be very close," Hinson replied. "Tuition will differ."
Hearing Hinson's responses, Cobb-Hunter sharpened her judgment to a fine point. "I'm concerned about all the cosmetics in this amendment; you're just trying to dress this thing up, and I'm hearing and feeling that. Regardless of what change we make, we're still talking about abandoning the public schools system."
Urging his colleagues to approve passage of the bill from committee, "then vote your conscience on the floor," Vaughn revealed that his public school experience ended when he dropped out of school as a sophomore and joined the military. He later earned a GED and used the G.I. bill to enroll briefly at Furman University. "The G.I. bill is a voucher," he declared. "Voucher is not a dirty word."
Taylor noted that Hinson's amendment would allow parents who received a voucher and/or tax credit one year would be eligible for the voucher and/or tax credit for the remainder of the student's years of K-12 education, even if their financial circumstances or location changed. He asked why.
"The idea is continuity," Hinson answered. "The child makes friendships, relationships, and you want them to have continuity."
Edge supported Hinson and noted that "adminstrators are generally for the status quo and oppose change."
Kennedy, an African-American legislator, cast his own interpretation of the voucher plan as a re-segregation plan.
"My nose bleeds for you, Mr. Vaughn, but I came up on another side of the street: separate but equal," he said. "The first time I saw a school bus was in 1954 after Mr. Delaine filed a lawsuit and joined the Brown v. Board of Education case. That was 50 years ago, and after all this, we're headed right back.
"All these people they brought from Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. -- they don't know what happened in South Carolina," Kennedy continued. "South Carolina has never lived up to its responsibility to public schools. In Williamsburg County, we graduate hundreds of students and they leave to teach in Greenville County, York County -- you know why? Because your economic base is greater. You can afford the best and the brightest. You had no problems in school; you didn't see what I saw."
"I hope we will send all these people from outside South Carolina -- come to sell us this voucher bill -- back home to get a real job," he declared. "This whole thing is a big farce. They talk about Milwaukee, but tell me this: Why didn't the whole state of Wisconsin take this voucher plan? Evidently, there's something they know that we don't. People from outside our state brough a bad bill and a bag of money down here. All this is is another move to resegregate schools."
Cobb-Hunter returned, in her questioning, to the issue of accountability and asked Hinson why the plan doesn't require private or parochial schools to administer the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT). Hinson replied, "We don't want to put additional responsibility on them to change what is obviously successful."
Concerned that the bill didn't require private and parochial schools to take all comers, as public schools do, Cobb-Hunter asked whether the bill allowed private schools a "right of refusal. They're very selective, shall we say, in who they admit."
"No, the school has the authority to approve or disapprove an applicant based on their own criteria," Hinson said. "I don't think we can force a private school to participate, but that's my opinion."
"I'm getting all warm and fuzzy about the concern I'm hearing around this table for poor people, " Cobb-Hunter went on. "But there's nothing in this amendment that's going to help poor people. Rhetoric and reality are two different things. You can talk about choice all night but we need to be clear that we're providing a benefit to people with means. It's not about black or white; the most important color in America is green -- it's about money. If you're poor, you catch hell no matter what color you are." Clyburn urged the committee to reject the message the bill sends to educators. "We have teachers, administrators who have given thousands of hours, working hard to improve, and all I hear is how they're failing. What do we say to our educators? And they're all against this bill."
Cotty moved to "continue" the amendment, which would postpone consideration of the amendment AND the bill to NEXT year's legislative session. On a roll call vote, the motion failed 11-10.
Cotty then moved to table the amendment, but that vote failed with an 11-11 tie. The vote to approve the amendment ALSO failed with an 11-11 tie.
Taylor's amendment to reduce Sanford's plan to a pilot program in two districts won by 13-9.
An amendment to cap contributions to voucher-granting organizations at $10,000 per person/corporation per year was approved on a voice vote, as did Rice's amendment to hold firefighters harmless from loss of revenue from the insurance premium tax credit, and Cobb-Hunter's amendment guaranteeing a credit against contributions to public schools.
Cobb-Hunter and Vaughn tangled twice more over amendments allowing the Department of Education to monitor the receipts of voucher-granting organizations (tabled by a vote of 14-7, though not a roll call vote) and requiring private and parochial schools to conform to the Education Accountability Act of 1998.
At Cobb-Hunter's explanation of this proposal, Vaughn immediately moved to table it. "I can't let you win this one," he told her aloud. "If you want to kill any change to school choice, you bring all these schools under regulation, and then you don't have a bill any more. Private schools aren't going to submit to regulation under state government."
"But it's okay to give them public dollars?" Cobb-Hunter asked him, without a response. "We're saying it's okay to have a double standard: One for public schools, for teacher we're busily badgering, but it's not okay for us to thinking, Heaven forbid, that a private school ought to be accountable for public dollars?"
That amendment and a final one -- requiring funding for transportation -- were each defeated 13-6, but without roll call votes.
DATELINE APRIL 27, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
VOUCHER BILL WILL MISS CRUCIAL CROSSOVER DEADLINE
A move by Rep. Jim Merrill of Daniel Island guaranteed early this evening that Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tuition-tax-credit proposal won't become law in 2005. Merrill, a co-sponsor of the bill, moved to adjourn debate on House Bill 3652 until next Tuesday, May 3. Under legislative rules, any bill that doesn't pass one chamber by May 1 is ineligible for consideration by the opposite chamber in a given year's session. Merrill's move -- precipitated in part by pressure on House leaders to avoid debate on the unpopular bill -- marks a significant victory for public education advocates, who have organized in unprecedented coalitions to defeat the Sanford plan.
The delay also punctuates another milestone in The SCEA's three-year campaign against vouchers, which was inaugurated with television advertisements in 2002 and has continued through ongoing billboard and radio advertisements. In the past month, more than 125 active and retired members of The SCEA have participated in a series of four lobby days at the Capitol; more than 50 members of The SCEA-Retired traveled to Columbia today to lobby against the bill and to witness the anticipated -- but delayed -- debate.
In addition, The SCEA members and others statewide have delivered thousands of emails and telephone calls to House members, and they gathered more than 3,000 signatures on anti-voucher petitions in February and March. The petitions were delivered to members of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Investment and Other Taxes, chaired by Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek, earlier this month but had little impact on Hinson, Rep. Chip Limehouse of Charleston and Rep. Jim McGee of Florence, who voted to approve the bill over educators' concerns.
But Merrill's delay isn't a permanent defeat for the bill. Depending on the scheduling of committee meetings on Tuesday, the House could begin to debate the Sanford plan on that day or on Wednesday. The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher continues to urge The SCEA members to contact their members of the House tonight and through the weekend, encouraging them to oppose the bill and all amendments to it, without exception.
The present version of the Sanford plan narrows the statewide voucher program to two districts, to be identified by the Department of Education using House-drafted criteria. But an amendment is circulating which would revise the bill further, transforming it into a straightforward voucher-without-tuition-tax-credits plan. A fiscal impact statement drafted by the Board of Economic Advisors has indicated that the amendment would carry a price tag of more than $500 million dollars, twice the amount of the original version of Sanford's plan.
March 2005
DATELINE MARCH 4, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
ANDERSON LEADERS SHRED SANFORD VOUCHER PLAN
Despite a hard sell from home-school advocate Kristin Maguire of Greenville, residents in Anderson County tore into Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan in a public forum on Thursday. Maguire, who still occupies a seat on the State Board of Education as Sanford's personal appointee, complained of a "disconnect" on the part of Anderson County questioners when she was unable to address some of their fundamental criticisms.
The forum, sponsored by the Anderson County Alliance for Local Leadership and attended by about 250 people, featured S.C. Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum and Maguire, who said she took the invitation when former Sanford advisor Barbara Nielsen wasn't available.
Maguire opened the program with twenty minutes of remarks in support of Sanford's voucher plan, explaining that the plan was needed "to provide the best for all children in South Carolina," and offering a litany of failures by public schools. "Just over half of our students are graduating, and only 10 percent of African-American eighth-graders are proficient readers," she said.
Reminding the audience of her position on the State Board, Maguire told them, "I'd like to say that we're making progress in closing the achievement gap but we're not. The best and the brightest in South Carolina are about 50 points behind the best and the brightest in the nation on SAT scores."
"It's about tax credits, about enabling children to go to schools of choice," she offered, finally turning to the bill. "It does it in a neat mechanism: the lesser of either 80 percent of tuition of half of what [a parent or guardian] spends on education each year. The second way is through SGOs [voucher-granting organizations]. You could write a check to an SGO and the SGO can write a check to a child to attend schools of choice."
"The details are too intricate to go through," Maguire said, although listeners had assembled to hear about the details of the bill. She used a packed lunch to offer a flawed example of public education funding, with a turkey sandwich representing state funding, a bag of carrots representing federal funds and a plum representing local dollars. She suggested that a child opting out of a public school only takes half the state funding away from the public school. "We end up with a lot left over," she beamed.
Unfortunately, public school funding is a more complex subject than this. Districts are allotted state funds based on student enrollment, and federal funding can be tied to percentage of a county's students in poverty, or student enrollment, or both. So when a student leaves public schools, the allotment of state dollars AND the matching federal funds are reduced by one student.
Further, Maguire's assertion that state funding "is the biggest portion" of education expenses was off-the-mark. According to provisos pending in the current budget proposal, because of the legislature's sustained under-funding of the Education Finance Act (EFA), the state's average share in 2005-06 is projected to be $4,296, the local district's obligation is $4,566 and the federal portion is $964. This assumes that the legislature will fully-fund the EFA in the 2005 -06 budget.
Witnessing -- and hearing -- disbelief from many in the audience, Maguire reversed course. "Technically, technically, there will be fewer dollars coming into the state," she admitted. "But we have an obligation to make sure that all children have an opportunity to get a good education, and while we have made gains, we are still so far behind."
In her own remarks, Superintendent Tenenbaum focused on the bill's details that Maguire avoided, and knocked down the charge that South Carolina's public schools have made no progress.
"This is a very serious proposal, every bit as important a debate as the Education Finance Act, the Education Improvement Act and the Education Accountability Act. This gives a tax credit to every parent or guardian who sends their kids to private and parochial schools, and it gives another credit to people and corporations who contribute to SGOs," she said.
"Proponents say it will save money, but the Board of Economic Advisors says it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars: $234 million in the last estimate," she added. Individuals and companies "could transfer their whole tax liability away from the General Fund by setting up an SGO and diverting their taxes to it. So it's unaffordable. There's no way South Carolina will save money, and there are no caps on any of it."
"We have accountability under No Child Left Behind, but there is little or no accountability in private schools," she explained. "Many are accredited by the Southern Association for Accreditation of Colleges and Schools, but religious schools are not required to have accreditation. In contrast, our public school system is wide-open: we have accreditation requirements, certification requirements and criminal background checks for our teachers."
The only accountability in Sanford's voucher plan is represented by "12-year study by the Department of Revenue and the Budget and Control Board comparing public schools to private and parochial schools, but no private or parochial schools has to participate in it; participation is voluntary. It's a secret study to see who's better. Does that sound fair to you?" Tenenbaum asked.
"This is a backdoor voucher plan. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a predator that will eat away at our public education system in South Carolina," she declared.
She referred to a series of charts demonstrating dramatic gains in South Carolina student achievement during the past four years compared to national gains during the same period, and reductions in the number of the state's low-performing schools . "I want to thank the teachers in the room who created these results," Tenenbaum said, drawing the loudest and longest sustained applause of the evening.
Finally, she quoted objective studies conducted by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, Stanford and Columbia universities and by the U.S. General Accounting Office demonstrating that voucher programs do not substantively improve student achievement.
Given five minutes to respond to Tenenbaum's presentation, Maguire attacked public schools again. "Foundationally, we want parents to be in charge, not superintendents assigning kids. We've got to be more aggressive about giving choice, and I know it's gonna improve the quality of education in all schools."
"To say it's a voucher plan is not true. To say it's unproven is misleading," Maguire continued, citing several European nations that sponsor voucher programs. "And the spectre of $2 billion going to SGOs is absolutely absurd."
In her own rebuttal, Tenenbaum quoted private school headmasters who, in public dialogue and in private conversation with the superintendent, have expressed opposition to the Sanford voucher plan. Said one headmaster, "'We will only take students on grade level without discipline problems'," Tenenbaum reported. Another told her, "'We're not a remedial school. We won't take failing students'."
"But public schools have our doors open to all students," she declared. "We don't say, 'Don't come if you're not on grade level or failing'."
In the forum's question-and-answer session, one Anderson County man observed that 40 years ago, when civil rights activists came to South Carolina to fight for voting rights, open housing and other rights, "They were called 'outside agitators.' Why are corporate interests from outside South Carolina suddenly so interested in us?"
"If it can work here..." Maguire began, but turned to an example from the city of Clemson. "The Winn-Dixie store is dying in Clemson because the Bi-Lo store moved in," she said, without a hint of irony. "If local districts have a management problem, then they need to evaluate what they're doing."
Another questioner asked for Maguire's assessment of the impact that tax credits will have on the state's General Fund, and subsequently on all agencies and programs supplied by the General Fund. Amazingly, Maguire responded that there would be no impact on the General Fund or on state agencies.
Moderator Stuart Sprague restated the question for Maguire: What did she think would be the impact of tax credits on the General Fund -- which would lose revenues to tax credits -- and the impact to state agencies and programs -- whose budgets will be reduced because of lower revenues? But Maguire reiterated that there would be no impact, leading several in the audience to ask aloud if she had read the bill text.
Sprague invited Tenenbaum to respond instead. "First, if these people can win the voucher fight in South Carolina, they're going to take this plan to other states. That's why they've spent about $4 million to get it passed already," she said. "Second, of course this is going to negatively impact all the programs funded by the state."
Returning to the study commissioned last year by voucher proponents and authored by Cotton Lindsay of Clemson University, Tenenbaum said, "I'm really, really embarrassed for Clemson and I know many of you are too. You'd have to close a whole school to save any money under this voucher plan, and that's not how it's going to happen. When one or two children leave a public school, that school's overhead costs remain fixed. You still have the cost of the building, the utilities, the maintenance, the personnel and all the rest."
Another questioner, who identified herself as a teacher, suggested, "They call this 'Put Parents in Charge', but where I teach, parents are definitely in charge already. They come and talk to me a lot." She asked how many private schools provide transportation to their students and how low-achieving students would be expected "to get to these so-called better schools"?
In her response, Tenenbaum noted that few, if any, private schools provide transportation, and she suggested that this is part of private school administrators' opposition to the bill. "A lot of headmasters tell me they don't want to become less private, parochial schools don't want to become less parochial," she said. "I support really good private schools but this is bad policy for South Carolina when we have a plan and are making progress."
For her part, Maguire mentioned a friend who has five children "and just went through a really bad divorce, and now she has no school choice because she can't afford it." Sanford's voucher plan would help the woman, she said.
TEACHER 'SALARY INCREASE' RHETORIC MISLEADING
While budget writers on the House Ways and Means Committee have touted salary increases for teachers in the proposed 2005-06 budget, The SCEA has confirmed that the reality of these so-called increases may prove disappointing to educators.
As reported in The SCEA Dateline on February 23, the proposed budget includes across-the-board pay raises of up to 10 percent for State Law Enforcement Division agents and the Highway Patrol, and a four-percent across-the-board increase for state employees, but no across-the-board increase for educators.
But widely-reported comments by Ways and Means Committee and an email from Chairman Bobby Harrell on February 28 suggests that educators will find substantive increases in their base salaries beginning in July. Harrell's email "to the wonderful teachers of South Carolina" reads, in part, "I have good news to report to you... Funding was included to increase teacher salaries so that they are still at $300 above the Southeastern average."
Indeed, Proviso 1A.18 of the budget draft reads, "For the current school year the Southeastern average teacher salary is projected to be $42,437. It is the INTENT [emphasis added] of the General Assembly to exceed the Southeastern average teacher salary as projected by $300. The General Assembly REMAINS DESIROUS [emphasis added] of raising the average teacher salary in South Carolina through incremental increases over the next few years so as to make such equivalent to the national average teacher salary."
After combing through available data and consulting with the Department of Education's Finance and Operations Office, The SCEA has confirmed that the budget draft appears to increase each step on the standard salary scale by an average 1.6 percent, which represents a cost-of-living adjustment.
Educators on steps zero (first-year teachers) through twenty-one (twenty-second year teachers) move a step on the schedule each year. Because the schedule includes no steps above step 22, those educators with more than 22 years of experience receive no additional salary from step movement; educators with more than 22 years' experience only receive additional salary if the legislature (a) funds a cost-of-living adjustment to the top step of the salary schedule or (b) implements an across-the-board salary increase for educators.
This means that educators who move up a step will gain additional salary from the step movement and the additional 1.6 percent in cost-of-living adjustment. Educators already at the top step will receive only the 1.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment. If these educators receive any salary increase above the cost-of-living adjustment, it will come from local districts.
The SCEA continues to advocate for fair compensation for all educators and school district employees, including all certified and non-certified personnel. Additionally, we ask the legislature to report honestly the average base contract salary for educators in South Carolina, as many lawmakers are unaware that the calculation of this average teacher salary in South Carolina includes stipends paid to national board certified teachers and the bonuses paid to teacher specialists, not just the base contract salaries of all educators. The result of these inclusions is an artifically-inflated average.
Finally, The SCEA continues to define 'salary increase' as an across-the-board percentage of increase for all educators, including those on the standard salary schedule and those with more than 22 years' experience and are held at the last step on the schedule. The SCEA does not define a salary increase to include step movement, since step movement merely reflects a realignment of placement based on experience.
DATELINE MARCH 8, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
WALKER SUBCOMMITTEE HALTS UNIFORM PUNISHMENT BILL
A bill proposed by Rep. Ted Pitts of Lexington to mandate school uniforms in low-performing schools was blocked by the House K-12 Education Subcommittee today when subcommittee members and education advocates agreed it was punitive and usurped local board authority.
Subcommittee Chair Bob Walker of Landrum, who served for nine years on a school board in Spartanburg County before being elected to the House, advised, "I have a problem with us mandating things, even in failing schools." He read the conclusion of a study of schools where uniforms had been adopted, noting that "results remain anecdotal and unproven."
Pitts, a two-term representative, said he developed the idea while attending a National Guard training in San Antonio, Texas, last summer. Visiting a Wal-Mart there, he found parents buying school uniforms for the coming school year, he said. He subsequently researched the topic using the Google search engine on the Internet and found a study from Long Beach, California, among others, which touted school uniforms as an effective solution to discipline problems.
Under current law, local boards of education have the prerogative to adopt dress codes appropriate to their needs, including school uniforms. Mike Fanning, executive director of the Olde English Education Consortium in Rock Hill, and Scott Price of the S.C. School Boards Association told the subcommittee that many districts and schools have already adopted school uniforms voluntarily, in many cases at the behest of parents in their communities. But Pitts's bill would mandate uniforms in schools that scored 'below basic' or 'unsatisfactory' for two consecutive years, regardless of the local board's position on the issue.
Sandy Smith, the subcommittee's administrative staff assistant, reported that 134 schools would be affected: 49 elementary, 65 middle and 30 high schools. That number would represent more than 10 percent of the state's 1,100 public schools.
Only after the school has scored 'average' or better for two consecutive years could the local boards return to their own choice of dress code, under Pitts's proposal.
Rep. Ken Clark of Lexington, who said he supports the concept of school uniforms, asked, "If it's a really good idea, why not adopt it in all the school districts?" He also questioned the "stop and start" nature of the proposal.
"I want to focus on struggling schools," Pitts answered.
Rep. Mike Anthony of Union said he was open to the idea but needed to hear more input from stakeholders. "Once we mandate it from here, it opens up a whole can of worms," he said.
Price, of the School Boards Association, advised the committee that nothing stopped a board from exercising the option presently, but that Pitts's measure might cause some schools to rethink their choice to voluntarily adopt uniforms, and it would serve as a disincentive to those still considering it. Those schools might be tainted by the "stigma of failing schools," he suggested.
"I'm not worried about the way someone feels about how they're perceived," Pitts argued. "I'm trying to do something different and not protect the status quo."
In its testimony opposing the measure as a punitive mandate, The SCEA proposed that Pitts's bill be stripped and amended to require the Education Oversight Commission to report by December 31 its study of schools in South Carolina where uniforms have adopted voluntarily. That report would be made available to all local school boards, arming locally-elected leaders with the best in-state data on which to make the best choices for their schools and communities.
Walker approved of the suggestion and reiterated his positions against adopting unnecessary mandates, and against usurping the authority of local school boards. "Under your idea, they don't have an 'out'," he declared to Pitts.
"Yes, they do -- they can score average or better for two consecutive years," Pitts shot back.
"That's not an 'out'," Walker said.
Walker's dogged defense drew an admission from Pitts: "I agree that the state needs to get out of the business of mandating things it can't provide for. And I support our boards and want them to have all the authority they can have," he said. "This is one small thing that I think could make the difference."
Anthony moved to table the adjourn debate on Pitts's proposal until a future meeting, and the motion passed.
Both in its testimony and following the meeting, The SCEA expressed its appreciation to Walker for his support of local school boards and their authority in this matter, and for his opposition to punitive mandates of this sort. The association urges its members and others to express their appreciation personally to the chairman at REW@scstatehouse.net.
DATELINE MARCH 16, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HOUSE ADOPTS BUDGET
The House adopted its budget draft, which includes full funding of the Education Finance Act, yesterday with a unanimous vote on second reading, and again on third reading this morning.
The budget includes a base student cost of $2,290, as directed by the Board of Economic Advisors, and a cost of living adjustment of 1.6 percent for active educators. Those educators with fewer than 22 years' experience also won step movement on the salary schedule.
Rep. Ken Kennedy of Greeleyville sought an amendment guaranteeing a four percent across-the-board salary increase, but after lengthy and animated debate his amendment was tabled on a voice vote, rather than a recorded roll call vote, so there is no record of how members voted. Kennedy's amendment would have brought educators in line with other state employees, who received an across-the-board four percent increase in the budget. State Law Enforcement Division agents and State Highway Patrol officers received a 10 percent increase in salary.
Rep. Walt McLeod of Newberry sought to undo Governor Mark Sanford's "backpacking" of school resource officers, and to guarantee that the resource officer program is funded. But House Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell of Charleston led the effort to table McLeod's amendment. It was tabled by a voice vote rather than a recorded roll call vote, so there is no record of how members voted.
Rep. James Smith of Columbia sought two amendments that would restore a local district's obligation to contribute funds toward public education. Harrell led the effort to table the first amendment by a vote of 63-45, then blocked Smith's attempt to introduce the second amendment.
A late amendment by Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg will allow administrators "maximum flexibility" to use $315 million in EFA funds for teacher compensation. Merit pay and "special rewards" would be decided by principals, Doug Smith explained. His amendment was approved on a voice vote rather than a recorded roll call vote, so there is no record of how members voted.
TOWNSEND EXPOSES VOUCHER PLAN AS TAX BILL
Using a extensive and detailed PowerPoint presentation, Rep. Ronnie Townsend of Anderson advised constituents last Thursday that a trio of bills, each known as "Put Parents in Charge," are tax cut bills masquerading as education bills. The beneficiaries of the cuts would be South Carolina's wealthiest residents and corporate entities who would choose to support private and parochial education. But the plan would harm every state agency and institution supported by the state's treasury, since potential revenues would be diverted to ideological causes.
Townsend is chairman of the House Education Committee and has vocally opposed the tax-cut-and-voucher scheme promoted by Governor Mark Sanford and proposed by Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg. The SCEA appreciates Townsend's adamant opposition to the voucher schemes and urges members to communicate their support to him at HED@scstatehouse.net.
DATELINE MARCH 23, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
RETIRED EDUCATORS PARTICIPATE IN THE SCEA LOBBY DAY
Three former educators representing The SCEA-Retired met with their Senators today as part of The SCEA's first of three scheduled Lobby Days for the session. The SCEA-R Vice President Andrena Taylor of Columbia was joined by Janet Agnew and Catherine Dedmon of Spartanburg in attending a meeting of the Senate Education Committee this morning, then meeting privately with members of their counties' Senate delegations. High on their agenda were restoration of State Health Plan benefits to active and retired educators, and opposition to Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan.
During the afternoon's Senate session, the trio and The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher watched proceedings from the Senate gallery and were recognized by Sen. Kay Patterson of Columbia and Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence.
The SCEA has scheduled three Lobby Days to coincide with the spring breaks of school districts across the state. Some districts in the Upstate scheduled their break this week, but most will take breaks during the next two weeks. In addition to today's visit, educators have been invited to visit the Capitol on March 30 and April 6, when both chambers will be in session.
As the Senate convened this afternoon, a handful of African-American ministers organized by Sanford and South Carolinians for Responsible Government held a press conference to voice their support for Sanford's plan. Notably absent was the Reverend Joe Darby of Charleston, who was invited to participate in the organization but declined via a well-circulated letter outlining his opposition to the bill.
For the benefit of those regular The SCEA Dateline recipients unfamiliar with Darby, his letter to the organizers of Clergy for Educational Options is forwarded below:
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
ANDERSON LEADERS SHRED SANFORD VOUCHER PLAN
Despite a hard sell from home-school advocate Kristin Maguire of Greenville, residents in Anderson County tore into Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan in a public forum on Thursday. Maguire, who still occupies a seat on the State Board of Education as Sanford's personal appointee, complained of a "disconnect" on the part of Anderson County questioners when she was unable to address some of their fundamental criticisms.
The forum, sponsored by the Anderson County Alliance for Local Leadership and attended by about 250 people, featured S.C. Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum and Maguire, who said she took the invitation when former Sanford advisor Barbara Nielsen wasn't available.
Maguire opened the program with twenty minutes of remarks in support of Sanford's voucher plan, explaining that the plan was needed "to provide the best for all children in South Carolina," and offering a litany of failures by public schools. "Just over half of our students are graduating, and only 10 percent of African-American eighth-graders are proficient readers," she said.
Reminding the audience of her position on the State Board, Maguire told them, "I'd like to say that we're making progress in closing the achievement gap but we're not. The best and the brightest in South Carolina are about 50 points behind the best and the brightest in the nation on SAT scores."
"It's about tax credits, about enabling children to go to schools of choice," she offered, finally turning to the bill. "It does it in a neat mechanism: the lesser of either 80 percent of tuition of half of what [a parent or guardian] spends on education each year. The second way is through SGOs [voucher-granting organizations]. You could write a check to an SGO and the SGO can write a check to a child to attend schools of choice."
"The details are too intricate to go through," Maguire said, although listeners had assembled to hear about the details of the bill. She used a packed lunch to offer a flawed example of public education funding, with a turkey sandwich representing state funding, a bag of carrots representing federal funds and a plum representing local dollars. She suggested that a child opting out of a public school only takes half the state funding away from the public school. "We end up with a lot left over," she beamed.
Unfortunately, public school funding is a more complex subject than this. Districts are allotted state funds based on student enrollment, and federal funding can be tied to percentage of a county's students in poverty, or student enrollment, or both. So when a student leaves public schools, the allotment of state dollars AND the matching federal funds are reduced by one student.
Further, Maguire's assertion that state funding "is the biggest portion" of education expenses was off-the-mark. According to provisos pending in the current budget proposal, because of the legislature's sustained under-funding of the Education Finance Act (EFA), the state's average share in 2005-06 is projected to be $4,296, the local district's obligation is $4,566 and the federal portion is $964. This assumes that the legislature will fully-fund the EFA in the 2005 -06 budget.
Witnessing -- and hearing -- disbelief from many in the audience, Maguire reversed course. "Technically, technically, there will be fewer dollars coming into the state," she admitted. "But we have an obligation to make sure that all children have an opportunity to get a good education, and while we have made gains, we are still so far behind."
In her own remarks, Superintendent Tenenbaum focused on the bill's details that Maguire avoided, and knocked down the charge that South Carolina's public schools have made no progress.
"This is a very serious proposal, every bit as important a debate as the Education Finance Act, the Education Improvement Act and the Education Accountability Act. This gives a tax credit to every parent or guardian who sends their kids to private and parochial schools, and it gives another credit to people and corporations who contribute to SGOs," she said.
"Proponents say it will save money, but the Board of Economic Advisors says it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars: $234 million in the last estimate," she added. Individuals and companies "could transfer their whole tax liability away from the General Fund by setting up an SGO and diverting their taxes to it. So it's unaffordable. There's no way South Carolina will save money, and there are no caps on any of it."
"We have accountability under No Child Left Behind, but there is little or no accountability in private schools," she explained. "Many are accredited by the Southern Association for Accreditation of Colleges and Schools, but religious schools are not required to have accreditation. In contrast, our public school system is wide-open: we have accreditation requirements, certification requirements and criminal background checks for our teachers."
The only accountability in Sanford's voucher plan is represented by "12-year study by the Department of Revenue and the Budget and Control Board comparing public schools to private and parochial schools, but no private or parochial schools has to participate in it; participation is voluntary. It's a secret study to see who's better. Does that sound fair to you?" Tenenbaum asked.
"This is a backdoor voucher plan. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a predator that will eat away at our public education system in South Carolina," she declared.
She referred to a series of charts demonstrating dramatic gains in South Carolina student achievement during the past four years compared to national gains during the same period, and reductions in the number of the state's low-performing schools . "I want to thank the teachers in the room who created these results," Tenenbaum said, drawing the loudest and longest sustained applause of the evening.
Finally, she quoted objective studies conducted by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, Stanford and Columbia universities and by the U.S. General Accounting Office demonstrating that voucher programs do not substantively improve student achievement.
Given five minutes to respond to Tenenbaum's presentation, Maguire attacked public schools again. "Foundationally, we want parents to be in charge, not superintendents assigning kids. We've got to be more aggressive about giving choice, and I know it's gonna improve the quality of education in all schools."
"To say it's a voucher plan is not true. To say it's unproven is misleading," Maguire continued, citing several European nations that sponsor voucher programs. "And the spectre of $2 billion going to SGOs is absolutely absurd."
In her own rebuttal, Tenenbaum quoted private school headmasters who, in public dialogue and in private conversation with the superintendent, have expressed opposition to the Sanford voucher plan. Said one headmaster, "'We will only take students on grade level without discipline problems'," Tenenbaum reported. Another told her, "'We're not a remedial school. We won't take failing students'."
"But public schools have our doors open to all students," she declared. "We don't say, 'Don't come if you're not on grade level or failing'."
In the forum's question-and-answer session, one Anderson County man observed that 40 years ago, when civil rights activists came to South Carolina to fight for voting rights, open housing and other rights, "They were called 'outside agitators.' Why are corporate interests from outside South Carolina suddenly so interested in us?"
"If it can work here..." Maguire began, but turned to an example from the city of Clemson. "The Winn-Dixie store is dying in Clemson because the Bi-Lo store moved in," she said, without a hint of irony. "If local districts have a management problem, then they need to evaluate what they're doing."
Another questioner asked for Maguire's assessment of the impact that tax credits will have on the state's General Fund, and subsequently on all agencies and programs supplied by the General Fund. Amazingly, Maguire responded that there would be no impact on the General Fund or on state agencies.
Moderator Stuart Sprague restated the question for Maguire: What did she think would be the impact of tax credits on the General Fund -- which would lose revenues to tax credits -- and the impact to state agencies and programs -- whose budgets will be reduced because of lower revenues? But Maguire reiterated that there would be no impact, leading several in the audience to ask aloud if she had read the bill text.
Sprague invited Tenenbaum to respond instead. "First, if these people can win the voucher fight in South Carolina, they're going to take this plan to other states. That's why they've spent about $4 million to get it passed already," she said. "Second, of course this is going to negatively impact all the programs funded by the state."
Returning to the study commissioned last year by voucher proponents and authored by Cotton Lindsay of Clemson University, Tenenbaum said, "I'm really, really embarrassed for Clemson and I know many of you are too. You'd have to close a whole school to save any money under this voucher plan, and that's not how it's going to happen. When one or two children leave a public school, that school's overhead costs remain fixed. You still have the cost of the building, the utilities, the maintenance, the personnel and all the rest."
Another questioner, who identified herself as a teacher, suggested, "They call this 'Put Parents in Charge', but where I teach, parents are definitely in charge already. They come and talk to me a lot." She asked how many private schools provide transportation to their students and how low-achieving students would be expected "to get to these so-called better schools"?
In her response, Tenenbaum noted that few, if any, private schools provide transportation, and she suggested that this is part of private school administrators' opposition to the bill. "A lot of headmasters tell me they don't want to become less private, parochial schools don't want to become less parochial," she said. "I support really good private schools but this is bad policy for South Carolina when we have a plan and are making progress."
For her part, Maguire mentioned a friend who has five children "and just went through a really bad divorce, and now she has no school choice because she can't afford it." Sanford's voucher plan would help the woman, she said.
TEACHER 'SALARY INCREASE' RHETORIC MISLEADING
While budget writers on the House Ways and Means Committee have touted salary increases for teachers in the proposed 2005-06 budget, The SCEA has confirmed that the reality of these so-called increases may prove disappointing to educators.
As reported in The SCEA Dateline on February 23, the proposed budget includes across-the-board pay raises of up to 10 percent for State Law Enforcement Division agents and the Highway Patrol, and a four-percent across-the-board increase for state employees, but no across-the-board increase for educators.
But widely-reported comments by Ways and Means Committee and an email from Chairman Bobby Harrell on February 28 suggests that educators will find substantive increases in their base salaries beginning in July. Harrell's email "to the wonderful teachers of South Carolina" reads, in part, "I have good news to report to you... Funding was included to increase teacher salaries so that they are still at $300 above the Southeastern average."
Indeed, Proviso 1A.18 of the budget draft reads, "For the current school year the Southeastern average teacher salary is projected to be $42,437. It is the INTENT [emphasis added] of the General Assembly to exceed the Southeastern average teacher salary as projected by $300. The General Assembly REMAINS DESIROUS [emphasis added] of raising the average teacher salary in South Carolina through incremental increases over the next few years so as to make such equivalent to the national average teacher salary."
After combing through available data and consulting with the Department of Education's Finance and Operations Office, The SCEA has confirmed that the budget draft appears to increase each step on the standard salary scale by an average 1.6 percent, which represents a cost-of-living adjustment.
Educators on steps zero (first-year teachers) through twenty-one (twenty-second year teachers) move a step on the schedule each year. Because the schedule includes no steps above step 22, those educators with more than 22 years of experience receive no additional salary from step movement; educators with more than 22 years' experience only receive additional salary if the legislature (a) funds a cost-of-living adjustment to the top step of the salary schedule or (b) implements an across-the-board salary increase for educators.
This means that educators who move up a step will gain additional salary from the step movement and the additional 1.6 percent in cost-of-living adjustment. Educators already at the top step will receive only the 1.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment. If these educators receive any salary increase above the cost-of-living adjustment, it will come from local districts.
The SCEA continues to advocate for fair compensation for all educators and school district employees, including all certified and non-certified personnel. Additionally, we ask the legislature to report honestly the average base contract salary for educators in South Carolina, as many lawmakers are unaware that the calculation of this average teacher salary in South Carolina includes stipends paid to national board certified teachers and the bonuses paid to teacher specialists, not just the base contract salaries of all educators. The result of these inclusions is an artifically-inflated average.
Finally, The SCEA continues to define 'salary increase' as an across-the-board percentage of increase for all educators, including those on the standard salary schedule and those with more than 22 years' experience and are held at the last step on the schedule. The SCEA does not define a salary increase to include step movement, since step movement merely reflects a realignment of placement based on experience.
DATELINE MARCH 8, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
WALKER SUBCOMMITTEE HALTS UNIFORM PUNISHMENT BILL
A bill proposed by Rep. Ted Pitts of Lexington to mandate school uniforms in low-performing schools was blocked by the House K-12 Education Subcommittee today when subcommittee members and education advocates agreed it was punitive and usurped local board authority.
Subcommittee Chair Bob Walker of Landrum, who served for nine years on a school board in Spartanburg County before being elected to the House, advised, "I have a problem with us mandating things, even in failing schools." He read the conclusion of a study of schools where uniforms had been adopted, noting that "results remain anecdotal and unproven."
Pitts, a two-term representative, said he developed the idea while attending a National Guard training in San Antonio, Texas, last summer. Visiting a Wal-Mart there, he found parents buying school uniforms for the coming school year, he said. He subsequently researched the topic using the Google search engine on the Internet and found a study from Long Beach, California, among others, which touted school uniforms as an effective solution to discipline problems.
Under current law, local boards of education have the prerogative to adopt dress codes appropriate to their needs, including school uniforms. Mike Fanning, executive director of the Olde English Education Consortium in Rock Hill, and Scott Price of the S.C. School Boards Association told the subcommittee that many districts and schools have already adopted school uniforms voluntarily, in many cases at the behest of parents in their communities. But Pitts's bill would mandate uniforms in schools that scored 'below basic' or 'unsatisfactory' for two consecutive years, regardless of the local board's position on the issue.
Sandy Smith, the subcommittee's administrative staff assistant, reported that 134 schools would be affected: 49 elementary, 65 middle and 30 high schools. That number would represent more than 10 percent of the state's 1,100 public schools.
Only after the school has scored 'average' or better for two consecutive years could the local boards return to their own choice of dress code, under Pitts's proposal.
Rep. Ken Clark of Lexington, who said he supports the concept of school uniforms, asked, "If it's a really good idea, why not adopt it in all the school districts?" He also questioned the "stop and start" nature of the proposal.
"I want to focus on struggling schools," Pitts answered.
Rep. Mike Anthony of Union said he was open to the idea but needed to hear more input from stakeholders. "Once we mandate it from here, it opens up a whole can of worms," he said.
Price, of the School Boards Association, advised the committee that nothing stopped a board from exercising the option presently, but that Pitts's measure might cause some schools to rethink their choice to voluntarily adopt uniforms, and it would serve as a disincentive to those still considering it. Those schools might be tainted by the "stigma of failing schools," he suggested.
"I'm not worried about the way someone feels about how they're perceived," Pitts argued. "I'm trying to do something different and not protect the status quo."
In its testimony opposing the measure as a punitive mandate, The SCEA proposed that Pitts's bill be stripped and amended to require the Education Oversight Commission to report by December 31 its study of schools in South Carolina where uniforms have adopted voluntarily. That report would be made available to all local school boards, arming locally-elected leaders with the best in-state data on which to make the best choices for their schools and communities.
Walker approved of the suggestion and reiterated his positions against adopting unnecessary mandates, and against usurping the authority of local school boards. "Under your idea, they don't have an 'out'," he declared to Pitts.
"Yes, they do -- they can score average or better for two consecutive years," Pitts shot back.
"That's not an 'out'," Walker said.
Walker's dogged defense drew an admission from Pitts: "I agree that the state needs to get out of the business of mandating things it can't provide for. And I support our boards and want them to have all the authority they can have," he said. "This is one small thing that I think could make the difference."
Anthony moved to table the adjourn debate on Pitts's proposal until a future meeting, and the motion passed.
Both in its testimony and following the meeting, The SCEA expressed its appreciation to Walker for his support of local school boards and their authority in this matter, and for his opposition to punitive mandates of this sort. The association urges its members and others to express their appreciation personally to the chairman at REW@scstatehouse.net.
DATELINE MARCH 16, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HOUSE ADOPTS BUDGET
The House adopted its budget draft, which includes full funding of the Education Finance Act, yesterday with a unanimous vote on second reading, and again on third reading this morning.
The budget includes a base student cost of $2,290, as directed by the Board of Economic Advisors, and a cost of living adjustment of 1.6 percent for active educators. Those educators with fewer than 22 years' experience also won step movement on the salary schedule.
Rep. Ken Kennedy of Greeleyville sought an amendment guaranteeing a four percent across-the-board salary increase, but after lengthy and animated debate his amendment was tabled on a voice vote, rather than a recorded roll call vote, so there is no record of how members voted. Kennedy's amendment would have brought educators in line with other state employees, who received an across-the-board four percent increase in the budget. State Law Enforcement Division agents and State Highway Patrol officers received a 10 percent increase in salary.
Rep. Walt McLeod of Newberry sought to undo Governor Mark Sanford's "backpacking" of school resource officers, and to guarantee that the resource officer program is funded. But House Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell of Charleston led the effort to table McLeod's amendment. It was tabled by a voice vote rather than a recorded roll call vote, so there is no record of how members voted.
Rep. James Smith of Columbia sought two amendments that would restore a local district's obligation to contribute funds toward public education. Harrell led the effort to table the first amendment by a vote of 63-45, then blocked Smith's attempt to introduce the second amendment.
A late amendment by Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg will allow administrators "maximum flexibility" to use $315 million in EFA funds for teacher compensation. Merit pay and "special rewards" would be decided by principals, Doug Smith explained. His amendment was approved on a voice vote rather than a recorded roll call vote, so there is no record of how members voted.
TOWNSEND EXPOSES VOUCHER PLAN AS TAX BILL
Using a extensive and detailed PowerPoint presentation, Rep. Ronnie Townsend of Anderson advised constituents last Thursday that a trio of bills, each known as "Put Parents in Charge," are tax cut bills masquerading as education bills. The beneficiaries of the cuts would be South Carolina's wealthiest residents and corporate entities who would choose to support private and parochial education. But the plan would harm every state agency and institution supported by the state's treasury, since potential revenues would be diverted to ideological causes.
Townsend is chairman of the House Education Committee and has vocally opposed the tax-cut-and-voucher scheme promoted by Governor Mark Sanford and proposed by Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg. The SCEA appreciates Townsend's adamant opposition to the voucher schemes and urges members to communicate their support to him at HED@scstatehouse.net.
DATELINE MARCH 23, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
RETIRED EDUCATORS PARTICIPATE IN THE SCEA LOBBY DAY
Three former educators representing The SCEA-Retired met with their Senators today as part of The SCEA's first of three scheduled Lobby Days for the session. The SCEA-R Vice President Andrena Taylor of Columbia was joined by Janet Agnew and Catherine Dedmon of Spartanburg in attending a meeting of the Senate Education Committee this morning, then meeting privately with members of their counties' Senate delegations. High on their agenda were restoration of State Health Plan benefits to active and retired educators, and opposition to Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit plan.
During the afternoon's Senate session, the trio and The SCEA President Sheila C. Gallagher watched proceedings from the Senate gallery and were recognized by Sen. Kay Patterson of Columbia and Sen. Hugh Leatherman of Florence.
The SCEA has scheduled three Lobby Days to coincide with the spring breaks of school districts across the state. Some districts in the Upstate scheduled their break this week, but most will take breaks during the next two weeks. In addition to today's visit, educators have been invited to visit the Capitol on March 30 and April 6, when both chambers will be in session.
As the Senate convened this afternoon, a handful of African-American ministers organized by Sanford and South Carolinians for Responsible Government held a press conference to voice their support for Sanford's plan. Notably absent was the Reverend Joe Darby of Charleston, who was invited to participate in the organization but declined via a well-circulated letter outlining his opposition to the bill.
For the benefit of those regular The SCEA Dateline recipients unfamiliar with Darby, his letter to the organizers of Clergy for Educational Options is forwarded below:
"Dear Reverend Davis, "Thank you for your e-mail and for the invitation to join you for lunch and to meet with the Governor. I won't make the lunch because I have a noon Bible Study on Thursdays (at my church in Charleston). I've also already had ample opportunity to sit with, dine with, chat with and share e-mails with Governor Mark. We share little political common ground, but I still consider him to be a friend, and he knows my views on education. "I did take the time to review your very well done brochure, and I regret to say that I don't think that we share common ground on the issue of education. Your brochure says, 'While CEO does not believe that school choice is the one and only answer to the African American educational crisis, we do believe that equal education opportunity is a necessary ingredient to empowering parents and children within the system of public education.'
"That broad and carefully benign statement, coupled with your appeal to pastors who have a school or after school program or would like to start one, and your apparent access to the present 'legislative leadership,' which has a poor track record of outreach to or respect for the African-American community, bothers me. It leaves me with the impression that your organization may be designed to solicit African-American clergy support for the 'Putting Parents in Charge' legislation. If I'm wrong, then I'd appreciate your telling me so. If I'm right, then allow me, as Ephesians 4:14,15 says, to 'speak the truth in love.'
"I regard efforts to provide tuition tax credits and scholarships to parents of modest means to finance either home schooling their children or putting them in private schools to be the worst idea to come along in South Carolina for a very long time for a number of reasons:
1. The tax credits are 'after the fact,' and many poor parents would not be able to pay the tuition up front and then wait for the refund.
2. Most private schools require more than tuition for the proper adjustment of students, and many students going into those schools are labeled before they hit the doorstep.
3. Business and individuals allowed to offer 'tuition scholarships' will be allowed to write them off on their state taxes. Coupled with the tax credits, that seriously erodes funding for already underfunded public schools.
4. Unlike public schools, private schools can pick and choose who they will and will not accept, opening the door for the 'best and brightest' to be pulled away from public schools and to create poorer schools filled with ill prepared and supported students - the equivalent of 'educational ghettos.'
5. Private schools are unregulated and do not have to meet the same state standards of accountability as public schools, so we would have no way of knowing objectively if our children are really learning or being treated fairly.
6. In many poor and small counties, parents would be left with the choice of a single private school or a single public school. In one of those counties, black children attending the private school, which was established to fight desegregation, would still have to walk past a waving Confederate Flag to go to school.
7. South Carolina has never equitably funded public schools in our state, and is presently fighting a court battle to keep from doing so. Many who support 'Putting Parents in Charge' talk about how much money has been poured into public education. A lot of that money was poured into correcting the inequities of a 'separate but equal' school system, and a lot of what is still spent goes to that same purpose. I refuse to write off schools that have never been given the chance to compete on a level playing field, and find it hypocritical that those who have refused to equitably fund our schools decide to try 'something new' and blithely calling it 'Putting Parents in Charge' to disguise a legislative 'wolf in sheep's clothing.'
"Let me also offer a few thoughts that don't fit into numbered points easily. 'Putting Parents in Charge' means giving parents a real choice between good public and private schools, and the present legislative initiative doesn't do that. A mother who has to leave Jasper County at dawn to clean hotel rooms for minimum wage in Hilton Head because there are no jobs locally and who returns home too late to help her child with homework is not 'In Charge.' Our state should be about the business of developing her community and her public schools so that she can truly be 'in charge' and have a true 'choice.'
"I'm also bothered that the present initiative sounds chillingly like something from the sixties. When South Carolina made its last-ditch effort to block school desegregation, it employed two strategies. One of those was called 'freedom of choice,' which allowed parents to send their children to any public school that they pleased to slow down desegregation. The other, which was ultimately outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowed parents to have tax credits and scholarships to send their children to all white private schools created with the expressed purpose of maintaining segregation. Those private schools, many of which now chase the dollars that the present legislation would offer, served to set public education back by decades in South Carolina, and our Governor now wants to abandon those public schools instead of fixing them.
"I'm also bothered by the vague nature of your appeal to black clergy who 'either have a school or after school program or would like to start one.' It leaves the implication, given the rest of what's stated in your brochure, that those who might be willing to either embrace 'Put Parents in Charge' or look the other way while it's pressed might get a few governmental bucks to start their own schools.
"We're still reeling from a national election when some African-American clergy got so caught up in chasing politicians who railed against same-sex marriage that they forgot Jesus' mandate to love others as we love ourselves and elected politicians whose public policies harm the poor and people of color. Many of those clergy were also, coincidentally, the recipients of federal 'faith based' governmental funds. I'm sure that you would agree with me that the church and its clergy should never be 'for sale to the highest bidder.' We badly need to recover the 'self help' model that enabled our ancestors in the faith to speak truth to power without reservation or financial concern, and we cannot sell out our congregations and communities for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver.
"We also need to be careful not to set ourselves up for failure by operating 'on a shoestring.' The Charleston School District approved one charter school for predominately black children that went belly up because they tried to operate on a shoestring with minimal planning, and the principal is now under indictment for embezzlement for trying to use public fund to fill in gaps that should not have existed. I still believe that the primary benefactors of 'Put Parents in Charge' will be affluent parents and schools that were established to maintain segregation.
"I hope that your meeting has the right motives, hope that I've misread your efforts, and hope that you and other black clergy of like mind will ultimately consider and follow the model of churches like Reid Chapel AME in Columbia. Reid Chapel operates a Day Care, Kindergarten and Elementary School, all of which have waiting lists. My sons went to the V.V. Reid Day Care and Kindergarten, as did the children of those ranging from doctors to janitors, who 'chose' to pay the tuition. Reid Chapel has built up a reputation for success without taking one red cent of state or federal money. I consider that to be evidence of the Grace of God. When we go beyond political games and rely on that Grace, as our ancestors did in times of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, then we won't need to curry favor with the Governor or the legislative leadership. We can do the work ourselves, and say with John Newton, 'Grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me on.'
"Thanks again for your invitation and for the opportunity for dialogue. Please be aware that I'm forwarding your invitation and my response to other clergy and concerned citizens on my e-mail list - and asking that they forward it as they see fit - to further the dialogue."
"Be blessed,
Joe Darby
Morris Brown AME Church
Charleston, SC
ED FIRST TOWN MEETING AT LANDER UNIVERSITY TONIGHT
S.C. Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum will offer keynote remarks this evening at the Cultural Center Auditorium at Lander University in Greenwood at 6:30 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by the Western Piedmont Education Consortium, a collaboration of six school districts in Abbeville, Clinton, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Newberry, Ninety Six, Saluda and Ware Shoals, and Education First, a statewide coalition of 85 local, state and national organizations.
The purpose of the meeting is to inform the public on the need for adequacy and equity in education funding, said Ray Wilson, executive director of the Western Piedmont Education Consortium. "We will present facts about how state funding of public education has diminished in recent years for all our schools and how even worse, this impacts our poorest school districts. It will also point to what citizens can do to change things."
The evening's program will include a presentation by one of the plaintiffs' attorneys in Abbeville v. South Carolina, the suit brought by rural school districts on the issue of funding equity in poor schools.
"Our purpose is to educate the public about what we need to do to restore public education as top priority in our state budget and how funding for our poorer districts must be improved," Wilson said. "After all, we are truly one state. How well all of our schools are doing is in everyone's interest."
DATELINE MARCH 29, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HINSON SUBCMTE HEARS SANFORD VOUCHERS WEDNESDAY
The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Improvement and Other Taxes, chaired by Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek, will convene on Wednesday to consider H 3652, the third version of the voucher bill promoted by Governor Mark Sanford and sponsored by Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg. Since the Hinson subcommittee does not intend to take public testimony on the bill on Wednesday, the meeting likely will serve as a promotional event for the bill, offering Smith a lengthy opportunity to characterize his bill without opposition.
According to the notice of the meeting, the Hinson subcommittee will schedule a public hearing on the bill at a later date.
The bill's placement in Hinson's subcommittee is odd from one perspective: The proposal's cornerstone is a credit against state income taxes, suggesting that its natural home would be the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Sales and Income Tax, chaired by Rep. Lanny Littlejohn of Pacolet.
But viewed from a different angle, it makes perfect sense: Sending the bill to the Hinson subcommittee almost guarantees its safe passage, since Hinson is a co-sponsor of H 3652. Also, although testimony against the bill was offered during last year's public hearing on the bill by two of her Berkeley County constituents, including a member of the local school board, it was Hinson who moved to adopt the Sanford voucher plan [H 4908, The SCEA Dateline, April 20, 2004].
Hinson is no stranger to educators, in many respects. In the 2004 legislative session, she killed a proposal to study the state's ability and willingness to pay salaries at the southeastern average, declaring that such a study's results would only incense educators when there are "enough problems".
"We know we're not paying the southeastern average and we haven't got any money to give any raises," Hinson said [The SCEA Dateline, January 15, 2004].
Just last month, she attempted to attach an amendment to the House budget bill that would block educators' ability to communicate with lawmakers via email about pending legislation. Specifically, Hinson's amendment would require school boards to adopt new policies curtailing the spread of information on pending legislation and local referenda and "preventing educators from using computers to communicate with politicians from school," she explained [The SCEA Dateline, February 24, 2005].
Rounding out the Hinson subcommittee are Rep. Chip Limehouse of Charleston, Rep. Jim McGee of Florence, Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg and Rep. Alex Harvin of Manning.
The Hinson subcommittee will convene at 3 p.m. in Blatt 521.
DATELINE MARCH 30, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HINSON GRANTS 90-MINUTE COMMERCIAL TO VOUCHER PLAN
A meeting of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Improvement and Other Taxes that was not intended to be a public hearing turned into a 90-minute promotion of Governor Mark Sanford's voucher plan, featuring an out-of-state consultant who has pushed voucher plans in several other states.
In other "work sessions" of subcommittees, the chief sponsors or committee staff offer a section-by-section explanation of proposed legislation. But for today's non-public-hearing, subcommittee staff was quiet while Chair Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek allowed Eric O'Keefe, president of the Legislative Education Active Drive (LEAD) of Glenview, Illinois, and Larry Marchant of South Carolinians for Responsible Government to walk the subcommittee through the bill. Co-sponsor Lewis Vaughn of Greenville offered only opening remarks, and the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg, attended for only part of the meeting and offered closing remarks at its end.
More than 50 members of The SCEA participated in the second of three lobby days sponsored by The SCEA at the State House, and many of them witnessed Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg lead the critical questioning of O'Keefe and Marchant. But even Rep. Jim McGee of Florence, Rep. Chip Limehouse of Charleston and Rep. Alex Harvin of Manning offered questions or comments, with Hinson herself giving suggestions for improvement to the bill.
In his opening remarks, Vaughn was pleased that the bill was finally scheduled for consideration. "I've been a supporter of school choice my entire career here. When I came here in 1988, most people wouldn't listen to me -- they'd run the other way," he said.
Then Marchant introduced O'Keefe, president of LEAD, the national pro-voucher organization based near Chicago. O'Keefe has also served in leadership roles in organizations called U.S. Term Limits and Americans for Limited Terms, and has authored studies for the right-wing Cato Institute of Washington, D.C., including some promoted by the Heartland Institute of Chicago. Under questioning from Cobb-Hunter, O'Keefe explained that he is a business consultant who serves as president of LEAD, a four-year-old organization that has pursued various forms of voucher proposals in "a half-dozen" other states.
O'Keefe said the bill's purpose is to promote parental control in education. "Parental control of education correlates to higher student performance," he said. Without identifying a particular source, he said, "Research has shown that when parents have more choices, student performance improves and public schools tend to treat parents more as customers."
In promoting vouchers and tax credits as the solution to perceived problems in public education, O'Keefe said, "Are folks [in education] focusing more on getting money from the state legislature or does their money come from pleasing parents?"
Noting that the plan promoted by Sanford and sponsored by Smith is "frankly imitated from Arizona, Florida and Virginia," O'Keefe said it contained the best practices of each state's programs, while skirting the legal and ethical questions uncovered by those states' programs. "What Doug ended up crafting here is very cautious to the finances of the state," he suggested. To offer one example, he said, students currently enrolled in private and parochial schools "are eligible only after the first two years of the program."
But O'Keefe took a brand-new approach in selling the bill as a "self-funding" proposal, a pitch that hasn't been heard before at the legislature. "It will reduce revenue coming into the state," O'Keefe admitted, "but it will reduce expenditure on public schools more. Doug and Governor Sanford wanted to design a program that's self-funding."
Opening a line of sharp questioning from Cobb-Hunter, O'Keefe said that a study of the proposal's cost savings "involved thousands of hours of work by Clemson's economics department."
"Did Clemson do the study or was it commissioned by a private entity?" Cobb-Hunter asked, noting that television commercials now airing feature former Sanford advisor Barbara Nielsen referring to a "Clemson study."
"The study went through the formal process at Clemson," O'Keefe answered. "It was privately contracted by the South Carolina Policy Council and LEAD."
When O'Keefe continued to use Clemson's name later in his presentation, rather than the name of the study's author, Cotton Lindsey, Cobb-Hunter dug deeper, asking O'Keefe to call it the "Policy Council study." O'Keefe advised the representative, "We signed an agreement with Clemson University and paid a premium to get a Clemson University study."
Hinson briefly called on Dr. Bill Gillespie, the state's chief economist, to describe progress being made on a "cost-savings" statement being drafted by his office. Gillespie was hesitant to offer details. "The numbers are very controversial and we cannot ever be sure," he said.
Gillespie then revealed that state resources and personnel are being used at the request of voucher proponents in the legislature to conduct research intended to support the bill. The Board of Economic Advisors is "required to tell you the state's revenue impact, and we're also required to give you an estimate of the local revenue impact. But we're not required in the code to give you a cost-savings impact," he said. "We're doing it at the request of the subcommittee."
His report -- which has taken "about six months" of time by his personnel -- is nearly finished. "We will show you how you can reduce appropriations and what we reasonably expect school districts to save," he added.
Returning to the podium, O'Keefe again admitted that "the credit will be a new reduction in revenue," since about 50,000 students who are currently educated in private or parochial schools aren't supported with state dollars and do not cost the General Fund presently through an income tax credit. Once those students' parents begin taking the credit, the General Fund balance will shrink.
Cobb-Hunter asked O'Keefe to identify the role of the State Department of Education in administering the new program, since the voucher plan is being touted as a means of improving public education in South Carolina. She found no reference to the department, she said.
"The Department of Education isn't referenced and is given no new authority in this bill," O'Keefe told her.
"But if this is about education, surely there will be a role for the Department of Education?" she asked again.
"This bill is a tax bill that offers a deal to taxpayers," O'Keefe began, but Cobb-Hunter interrupted. "You've answered my question then. This is being sold as an education bill, but it's a bill about taxes, not education," she said.
"It can be a tax credit bill that's about education," O'Keefe countered.
Cobb-Hunter asked whether the Department of Revenue -- the agency that will administer the voucher-and-tax-credit plan -- would have any additional costs associated with its administration. "Will they need to hire additional staff? Someone's got to create these forms, these receipts -- are those hidden costs?"
O'Keefe said administrators have advised him the bill wouldn't cause "substantial" problems.
"But did you ask them whether they could handle this with their existing personnel?" Cobb-Hunter pressed.
"We did not ask your specific question," O'Keefe answered.
Moving specifically to the topic of vouchers, O'Keefe used the word 'scholarships,' which is also used in the bill to refer to vouchers. Vouchers will be given by "scholarship-granting organizations," or SGOs, which don't yet exist under South Carolina law. "But any 501-c(3) can set one up quickly by doing some paperwork," O'Keefe suggested.
Hinson asked whether any analysis had been conducted of SGOs currently existing in other states. O'Keefe told her that Florida has four, Arizona has 48 and Pennsylvania has more than 150. "I think we'd see hundreds [in South Carolina] because a church could set one up, a community could set one up," he said.
Wading into the discussion admittedly on behalf of wealthier constituents in Charleston, Limehouse asked O'Keefe why there was an income cap in the bill. O'Keefe responded, "Our objective was to come out of this will universal school choice."
Setting the income cap for tax-credit and voucher eligibility at $75,000 excluded only about four and a half percent of the state's taxpayers, O'Keefe argued. Limehouse opined that those few taxpayers must live in his district, since the majority of calls and emails to his office were coming from taxpayers angry at being excluded.
"It seems patently unfair to exclude a parent who makes $76,000," Limehouse said.
"Fairness to taxpayers can be argued," O'Keefe agreed. "But the tax code isn't designed to be fair to everyone; it's designed to raise revenue."
Moving now to studies of "school choice" effectiveness, O'Keefe noted that the best data came from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, school system since it was more concentrated, with 15,000 students receiving vouchers and 100,000 students attending public schools. Florida has more voucher recipients -- about 40,000 receiving vouchers through three choice programs -- but its recipients are evenly distributed across the state, he explained.
As O'Keefe glossed over the perceived effectiveness of the voucher programs, Limehouse stopped him and asked for concrete data: "Give me a test score, an SAT score, something I can use," Limehouse said.
O'Keefe offered one: Students receiving vouchers graduate at a 25 percent higher rate than those attending public schools.
But McGee asked whether the Milwaukee program was a tax credit program or a voucher program. "It's a voucher program," O'Keefe said.
"Then why are we talking about tax credits and not vouchers," McGee asked.
"This could get into a..." O'Keefe began, but then shifted gears. "Well, a tax credit has a cleaner legal history in South Carolina. The court record holds that tax credit money isn't government money because it never passes through state hands. A voucher is a single-payer system; the state provides it. But SGOs can compete. And voucher are vulnerable to scamming. This program isn't vulnerable to that. I suppose it would happen once or twice, but it's not plausible."
"But you could have fraud -- that's possible, right?" McGee asked.
"It is, but putting bonding in the bill will address that," O'Keefe suggested.
Cobb-Hunter seized on the issue of widespread, well-documented fraud in Florida's voucher programs but focused her questions on donations to SGOs. "Is there no limit on how much a donor can give to an SGO? Nothing in the bill that sets a dollar limit?"
"No, but an SGO has to spend its money within a year or it reverts to the state," O'Keefe said.
As a member of the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Cobb-Hunter said she was "very concerned" about the bill's impact on the General Fund. She used the example of BMW, a major corporation with a location in Spartanburg County, to illustrate her concern. "If BMW wanted to donate $200,000 to an SGO and take a credit against its taxes, nothing prevents it. But that's $200,000 that the General Fund will be short, isn't that right?"
While Cobb-Hunter sought a yes-or-no answer, O'Keefe dodged it. "The donation to an SGO triggers a transaction that saves the state money," he said. "Upfront, the state doesn't get $200,000 that it would have. People can claim that the state will continue to spend the same amount of money, but it doesn't seem plausible."
"What about this: If we have 46 SGOs, will we have 46 different sets of criteria?" Cobb-Hunter asked.
"The eligibility of students for the tax credit is the same," he answered. "It's like with college aid, the definition of eligibility follows the student. But SGOs can issue their own criteria for giving scholarships."
"Are you comfortable that the language for SGOs is enough for fiscal accountability? Will it eliminate abuses?" she asked.
"Yes, the bonding section does that," he answered.
Then Hinson added an unexpected twist: "Well, there may be an amendment to cap corporate donations so they can't give their entire tax liability to SGOs," she said. "That would hurt the state."
The stunning admission from Hinson -- who has demonstrated support for Sanford's voucher plan to date -- grew gasps.
Marchant returned briefly to the podium to advise Hinson and others, helpfully, "We are entertaining amendments."
Hinson asked O'Keefe what might happen if an SGO was not available to poor children in some areas of the state.
"I hope we'll see some community action to form SGOs throughout the state" during the phase-in period over the next few years, he said. "It isn't mandated but it is permitted."
"But we can't wait two years," Hinson lamented. "I think the public would crucify us if that happened." She suggested amending the bill to create a statewide SGO, "to ensure that there was at least one for poor communities."
O'Keefe suggested adding another incentive to businesses who contribute to SGOs serving poorer communities. Marchant picked up on the idea, suggesting "more tax credit for those corporations who create SGOs for critical needs areas."
"The non-poor don't need an SGO," O'Keefe agreed. "The very purpose of the bill is to help the poor."
The exchange was too much for Cobb-Hunter to bear. She declared, "Madame Chair, here's a radical idea: What if we gave this same kind of tax credit to corporations who gave this same money to public schools?" Her idea drew loud and sustained applause from the more than 150 people gathered in the room, the only instance of applause during the meeting.
Attempting to nail down a straight answer on how school districts would save money because of the voucher plan, Cobb-Hunter tried again but failed. "Tell me how a school district is going to save money when students leave their schools when they still have utilities to pay, the textbooks that they buy in bulk, all those fixed costs?"
"The Clemson economics department was very creative in looking at fixed costs," O'Keefe began, but Cobb-Hunter interrupted to clarify again the relationship between Clemson University and the study commissioned by the S.C. Policy Council and LEAD. O'Keefe never delivered the straight answer she sought.
Cobb-Hunter asked a final question: How does the bill help poor children in districts or counties where there is only one school? She used the example of a single mother of three in Allendale County who travels in early mornings by bus to Hilton Head "to clean motel rooms. The local private academies don't want my kids. How does this help me?"
And this -- after spending 90 minutes promoting a bill that he said alternately was designed to help the poor, to improve student performance, or to increase parental control in education -- was O'Keefe's answer.
"Worst case, nothing changes. But the potential to compete has an impact, so at least you have the potential. So in the worst case scenario, that parent isn't worse off, and the district isn't worse off."
.
Drawing closure to her meeting, Hinson asked finally, "What's in place in the bill to provide accountability in private schools?
"There's no evidence that independent [a euphemism for private, parochial or home schools] schools need the helping hand of the legislature to satisfy parents," O'Keefe said. "Some schools put religion or character-building ahead of academics, and you get into thorny issues if you infringe on their ability to satisfy parents."
Hinson said the subcommittee will schedule a public hearing, perhaps as early as next week. Although today's meeting constituted a feature-length commercial for the bill, the public hearing won't allow for equal time. Proponents and opponents of the voucher plan who sign up will likely be given five minutes each to speak on the bill, Hinson said.
"This legislation is shaping the future of our state and we want to hear from everyone," she announced. "It's a long time coming."
DATELINE MARCH 31, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
PUBLIC HEARING ON VOUCHERS SET, ALREADY BOOKED
Notice of a public hearing on Governor Mark Sanford's voucher proposal was given late this morning, and by early afternoon, all of the slots allowed by Rep. Shirley Hinson to proponents and opponents of the bill were filled. The hearing is scheduled Wednesday, April 6 at 3 p.m. in the Blatt Building.
Hinson, chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Economic Development, Capital Improvement and Other Taxes gave proponents from South Carolinians for Responsible Government and the Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD) of Chicago a 90-minute opportunity to sell the plan on Wednesday. But representatives of organizations that oppose the bill will only have five minutes each.
Sixteen five-minute slots have been allowed for opponents, and proponents will have another sixteen five-minute slots.
[For those keeping count, this will total almost three hours of time (2:50) allotted to proponents of the bill, and only 80 minutes of time for opponents, cumulatively.]
Hinson has allotted 20 minutes to the Board of Economic Advisors at the public hearing, in hopes that the BEA's study on "cost savings" will be ready by that date. Dr. Bill Gillespie, the state's chief economist, revealed yesterday that state resources and personnel are being used by Hinson and other pro-voucher members of the subcommittee to conduct research specifically designed to support the bill. Gillespie said his staff has worked on this research for the past six months, at pro-voucher legislators' request.
In case Gillespie's report is not finished by Wednesday, according to Ways and Means staff, the additional time will be divided between proponents and opponents.
Hinson has determined that the public hearing on April 6 will not last longer than three hours, but Hinson can choose to open a second hearing at a later date. Those who would like for voucher opponents to have equal time to speak against the Sanford plan can contact Hinson at 803-734-2951 (legislative office in Columbia) or 843-572-1722 (home), or email her at HinsonS@scstatehouse.net and ask for equal time.
February 2005
DATELINE FEBRUARY 8, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
STUDY FINDS VOUCHER ECONOMICS FLAWED
A study commissioned by the S.C. School Boards Association and S.C. Association of School Administrators, and conducted by respected economist Harry Miley, finds that data supporting Governor Mark Sanford's voucher scheme was deeply flawed. The scheme will not yield cost savings to South Carolina, Miley said, but will ultimately cost the state millions of dollars in General Fund revenues.
Miley was hired to examine a report issued during the 2004 legislative session by the right-wing S.C. Policy Council, whose leaders and staff continue to assert in public statements and opinion-editorials that Sanford's voucher plan will save money. The report was authored by Clemson University researcher Cotton Lindsay.
But Miley told a press conference this morning that Lindsay's research and the Policy Council's conclusions were based on faulty assumptions and not on "real world school finances". The Council's recommendations rested on "large margins of error," Miley said.
Miley's report can be found online at www.scsba.org.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 9, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HOUSE APPROVES 'SMOKE-AND-MIRRORS' PLAN
A majority of House members voted today to pass their responsibility for priority-setting in the education budget along to local district administrators, thereby avoiding blame for under-funding the Education Finance Act and other state education mandates. Through sometimes-testy exchanges with lawmakers who criticized the plan as "smoke and mirrors," Rep. Bill Cotty pushed Governor Mark Sanford's "SMART Funding" proposal to House approval by a vote of 83-31.
Sanford's plan shifts responsibility for priority-setting among public education programs from the legislature to local school administrators. More specifically, the bill collapses the dozens of line items in the education portion of the annual budget document into six general categories, then directs district superintendents to allocate funding among those general categories according to each district's own spending priorities.
Rep. Jackie Hayes of Dillon, Rep. James Smith of Columbia, Rep. Walt McLeod of Little Mountain and Rep. Harry Ott of St. Matthews questioned the bill's motivations and potential consequences. They charged that the plan represented an abrogation of legislative responsibility, since the education budget represents the collective wisdom of the General Assembly over time. Priorities adopted by the legislative majority are included and funded in the document, they said, and to collapse those line items into six categories minimizes the legislative intent regarding each program or service the document addresses.
But Cotty characterized the bill as merely an accountability tool. For the past three years, legislators have approved temporary provisos allowing administrators to move funds among the budget's line items. "I think what we found is, flexibility is good," Cotty said.
Smith asked Cotty whether money earmarked for particular purposes under the current state budget process could be shifted away from those priorities under the new SMART funding process. "Can they take money for resource officers and spend it for something else? Or a foreign language program? Or school lunches?"
"If it's general money, not tagged to anything, they can move 20 percent of that money over to the classroom and lower the student-teacher ratio," Cotty said.
Smith asked why the flexibility was needed. "Absolute accountability," Cotty replied. "We need to be able to see where they're spending their money. We had no flexibility before, and that was wrong, it was too rigid. That's a bad mindset."
But Smith cut to the core question. "Don't you think it might be the best of all possible world if we fully funded the EFA? Wouldn't that take care of the problem?"
"That's a different debate," Cotty charged. "That's not what this bill is about."
"But I think the two points are connected, aren't they? This is the proverbial canary in the coalmine, isn't it?" Smith asked. "Isn't flexibility a euphemism for something else?"
"No, it's not, I disagree," Cotty replied. "You’re trying to make something out of what's there that's not there."
Smith went further. "By providing this flexibility, does that absolve us of making decisions about how money should be spent?" he asked. "If we give local control for spending priorities, does that absolve us of our responsibility for public education?"
"No, but it doesn't settle the Middle East, either," Cotty shot back.
Ott took a factual approach around Cotty's characterization of the bill. "If we funded, like we should, every line item in the education budget, would we need SMART funding?" Ott asked.
"Yes, because it would tell us where the money came from and where it's spent," Cotty said.
"Do you believe we have an obligation to set education priorities?" Ott asked. Cotty answered, "Yes."
"If we set priorities and don't fund them, what's the consequence of that?" Ott pressed.
"The same as if we don't have accountability," Cotty replied. "Some of these programs are worth keeping, some may not be. Some have become part of the system and aren't innovative anymore. That argument needs to be had on every program, and I agree with the Governor that every education program ought to be scrutinized."
Ott wondered, "Doesn't passage of this bill give [the governor and his staff] the smoke they need to cover what they're doing through backpacking?"
"No, no, this is just making reports available in a more timely manner," Cotty said.
Ott sought to nail down specific examples of guarantees that legislative priorities would be honored by districts, given the flexibility allowed by Sanford's plan. "If we mandate summer school programs, then pass SMART funding and roll summer school money into something else and the summer school program doesn't happen in a district, is it fair to go to the school board and say why didn't you provide this summer school opportunity?"
"The board can say, We decided to do something else with that money," Cotty acknowledged. "It's a good question but it has nothing to do with this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is misunderstanding."
Ott allowed, "I guess it's like looking at a glass of water; one says it's half-empty and another says it's half-full."
"You're a lot farther from the glass than I am," Cotty declared.
McLeod followed Ott's train of thought, worrying aloud that the bill represented a "Trojan horse" and asking Cotty how districts should identify which programs are legislative mandates and which are not. "Is the teacher salary supplement a state mandate?" he asked.
But Speaker David Wilkins ruled that Cotty's time had expired for explanation of the bill, and McLeod's question went unanswered.
A minute later, Cotty returned to seek adoption of a new amendment that would create a SMART funding study committee, with appointees by the governor and others, to draft a report on the result of the new funding system. Smith marveled that Cotty and the governor wanted to "create a whole new committee and expand government."
"How many committees have we got overseeing public education now?" Smith asked.
"I have no idea, Mr. Smith," Cotty stated. "This is not some other layer of government, it just gets a question answered. In my view, you get a better product when you have more people involved from the onset."
The amendment was adopted in a rapid voice vote.
Facing an up-or-down vote on the SMART funding bill, Ott took the podium to urge lawmakers to oppose it.
"What we are doing is trying to give ourselves some cover for not funding what are our responsibilities in the education budget," Ott explained. "We're laying the groundwork today so that when we vote on the budget in three weeks, we can say to our districts, We sent you the money and now you spend it how you see fit."
"Our responsibility is to set priorities for the state and then fund them. When we say we want homework centers, or resource officers, we should step up and pay for the priorities that we adopt," he continued. "If we don't want to have them, then let's all 124 of us vote on taking them out of the budget. At least when we do that, the monkey's on our backs and we have to go home and say, We did this."
"Let's not do a smoke-and-mirror dance called SMART funding. I believe that if we pass this bill, that's all we're doing. We're dodging the bullet and passing the buck to the people back at home."
DATELINE FEBRUARY 14, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
'THE STATE': SANFORD IS 'DESTRUCTIVE' TO SCHOOLS
The lead editorial published in Monday's edition of The State draws attention to Governor Mark Sanford's "hostile words" toward public education and educators. Echoing The SCEA's longtime concerns about Sanford's propensity to attack public schools -- and their instructors and students -- rather than to offer encouragement and meaningful support, The State's editors suggest that Sanford's bias against the public education community is "disturbing" and should not exist in a state's chief executive office.
The editorial is reprinted below:
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
STUDY FINDS VOUCHER ECONOMICS FLAWED
A study commissioned by the S.C. School Boards Association and S.C. Association of School Administrators, and conducted by respected economist Harry Miley, finds that data supporting Governor Mark Sanford's voucher scheme was deeply flawed. The scheme will not yield cost savings to South Carolina, Miley said, but will ultimately cost the state millions of dollars in General Fund revenues.
Miley was hired to examine a report issued during the 2004 legislative session by the right-wing S.C. Policy Council, whose leaders and staff continue to assert in public statements and opinion-editorials that Sanford's voucher plan will save money. The report was authored by Clemson University researcher Cotton Lindsay.
But Miley told a press conference this morning that Lindsay's research and the Policy Council's conclusions were based on faulty assumptions and not on "real world school finances". The Council's recommendations rested on "large margins of error," Miley said.
Miley's report can be found online at www.scsba.org.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 9, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HOUSE APPROVES 'SMOKE-AND-MIRRORS' PLAN
A majority of House members voted today to pass their responsibility for priority-setting in the education budget along to local district administrators, thereby avoiding blame for under-funding the Education Finance Act and other state education mandates. Through sometimes-testy exchanges with lawmakers who criticized the plan as "smoke and mirrors," Rep. Bill Cotty pushed Governor Mark Sanford's "SMART Funding" proposal to House approval by a vote of 83-31.
Sanford's plan shifts responsibility for priority-setting among public education programs from the legislature to local school administrators. More specifically, the bill collapses the dozens of line items in the education portion of the annual budget document into six general categories, then directs district superintendents to allocate funding among those general categories according to each district's own spending priorities.
Rep. Jackie Hayes of Dillon, Rep. James Smith of Columbia, Rep. Walt McLeod of Little Mountain and Rep. Harry Ott of St. Matthews questioned the bill's motivations and potential consequences. They charged that the plan represented an abrogation of legislative responsibility, since the education budget represents the collective wisdom of the General Assembly over time. Priorities adopted by the legislative majority are included and funded in the document, they said, and to collapse those line items into six categories minimizes the legislative intent regarding each program or service the document addresses.
But Cotty characterized the bill as merely an accountability tool. For the past three years, legislators have approved temporary provisos allowing administrators to move funds among the budget's line items. "I think what we found is, flexibility is good," Cotty said.
Smith asked Cotty whether money earmarked for particular purposes under the current state budget process could be shifted away from those priorities under the new SMART funding process. "Can they take money for resource officers and spend it for something else? Or a foreign language program? Or school lunches?"
"If it's general money, not tagged to anything, they can move 20 percent of that money over to the classroom and lower the student-teacher ratio," Cotty said.
Smith asked why the flexibility was needed. "Absolute accountability," Cotty replied. "We need to be able to see where they're spending their money. We had no flexibility before, and that was wrong, it was too rigid. That's a bad mindset."
But Smith cut to the core question. "Don't you think it might be the best of all possible world if we fully funded the EFA? Wouldn't that take care of the problem?"
"That's a different debate," Cotty charged. "That's not what this bill is about."
"But I think the two points are connected, aren't they? This is the proverbial canary in the coalmine, isn't it?" Smith asked. "Isn't flexibility a euphemism for something else?"
"No, it's not, I disagree," Cotty replied. "You’re trying to make something out of what's there that's not there."
Smith went further. "By providing this flexibility, does that absolve us of making decisions about how money should be spent?" he asked. "If we give local control for spending priorities, does that absolve us of our responsibility for public education?"
"No, but it doesn't settle the Middle East, either," Cotty shot back.
Ott took a factual approach around Cotty's characterization of the bill. "If we funded, like we should, every line item in the education budget, would we need SMART funding?" Ott asked.
"Yes, because it would tell us where the money came from and where it's spent," Cotty said.
"Do you believe we have an obligation to set education priorities?" Ott asked. Cotty answered, "Yes."
"If we set priorities and don't fund them, what's the consequence of that?" Ott pressed.
"The same as if we don't have accountability," Cotty replied. "Some of these programs are worth keeping, some may not be. Some have become part of the system and aren't innovative anymore. That argument needs to be had on every program, and I agree with the Governor that every education program ought to be scrutinized."
Ott wondered, "Doesn't passage of this bill give [the governor and his staff] the smoke they need to cover what they're doing through backpacking?"
"No, no, this is just making reports available in a more timely manner," Cotty said.
Ott sought to nail down specific examples of guarantees that legislative priorities would be honored by districts, given the flexibility allowed by Sanford's plan. "If we mandate summer school programs, then pass SMART funding and roll summer school money into something else and the summer school program doesn't happen in a district, is it fair to go to the school board and say why didn't you provide this summer school opportunity?"
"The board can say, We decided to do something else with that money," Cotty acknowledged. "It's a good question but it has nothing to do with this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is misunderstanding."
Ott allowed, "I guess it's like looking at a glass of water; one says it's half-empty and another says it's half-full."
"You're a lot farther from the glass than I am," Cotty declared.
McLeod followed Ott's train of thought, worrying aloud that the bill represented a "Trojan horse" and asking Cotty how districts should identify which programs are legislative mandates and which are not. "Is the teacher salary supplement a state mandate?" he asked.
But Speaker David Wilkins ruled that Cotty's time had expired for explanation of the bill, and McLeod's question went unanswered.
A minute later, Cotty returned to seek adoption of a new amendment that would create a SMART funding study committee, with appointees by the governor and others, to draft a report on the result of the new funding system. Smith marveled that Cotty and the governor wanted to "create a whole new committee and expand government."
"How many committees have we got overseeing public education now?" Smith asked.
"I have no idea, Mr. Smith," Cotty stated. "This is not some other layer of government, it just gets a question answered. In my view, you get a better product when you have more people involved from the onset."
The amendment was adopted in a rapid voice vote.
Facing an up-or-down vote on the SMART funding bill, Ott took the podium to urge lawmakers to oppose it.
"What we are doing is trying to give ourselves some cover for not funding what are our responsibilities in the education budget," Ott explained. "We're laying the groundwork today so that when we vote on the budget in three weeks, we can say to our districts, We sent you the money and now you spend it how you see fit."
"Our responsibility is to set priorities for the state and then fund them. When we say we want homework centers, or resource officers, we should step up and pay for the priorities that we adopt," he continued. "If we don't want to have them, then let's all 124 of us vote on taking them out of the budget. At least when we do that, the monkey's on our backs and we have to go home and say, We did this."
"Let's not do a smoke-and-mirror dance called SMART funding. I believe that if we pass this bill, that's all we're doing. We're dodging the bullet and passing the buck to the people back at home."
DATELINE FEBRUARY 14, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
'THE STATE': SANFORD IS 'DESTRUCTIVE' TO SCHOOLS
The lead editorial published in Monday's edition of The State draws attention to Governor Mark Sanford's "hostile words" toward public education and educators. Echoing The SCEA's longtime concerns about Sanford's propensity to attack public schools -- and their instructors and students -- rather than to offer encouragement and meaningful support, The State's editors suggest that Sanford's bias against the public education community is "disturbing" and should not exist in a state's chief executive office.
The editorial is reprinted below:
"Gov. Mark Sanford's rhetoric on public education has long been clueless and reckless. In recent days, however, the statements on this issue from his office have taken on a sinister and destructive tone.
"In praising a Milwaukee voucher program, Gov. Sanford went out of his way to belittle two South Carolina communities, asking, "Can you imagine tears (of joy) being shed because you got into the public school in Allendale or Marion?"
"Yes, we can, in places like Marion District 7, where a new high school is the pride of the community. In Marion 1, they're just as proud of their National Blue Ribbon primary school. In Allendale, there were tears and cheers in 2004 when the district's strides at improving student performance were enough for an "Excellent" grade on that measure from the state.
"The rhetoric from the governor's office got worse last week, when spokesman Will Folks offered this doozy in support of a plan to shift public money to private schools:
"We've got a great deal for the current education bureaucracy," Mr. Folks said. "It can keep over two-thirds of the $9,800 it currently spends attempting to educate each individual child, and we'll give parents access to the marketplace with the other third to make sure someone is actually educating that child."
If the state's teachers and principals were asleep on this issue, we have a feeling that snotty remark woke them up. What an insult to the hard-working and underappreciated public servants who teach our children to read, who help them find their calling in life and help shape a brighter future for this state each and every day.
"If anyone had any idea left that Gov. Sanford was simply interested in letting a few parents choose a different route for their children's education, they can abandon that notion now. We are clearly witnessing an assault on the very concept of public education, and from our state's chief executive no less. His may be a high-profile and powerful post, but the good folks from all around the state who know the folly of the governor's approach must ensure it does not prevail."
DATELINE FEBRUARY 18, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
GREENVILLE BUSINESS LEADERS LAMBAST SANFORD VOUCHERS
Arguments for Governor Mark Sanford's voucher-and-tax-credit scheme took a beating Thursday in a forum sponsored by the Greater Greenville Forum, a group of about 100 business and community leaders, at the Westin Poinsett Hotel. Following remarks by Barbara Nielsen, Sanford's third K-12 education advisor, and Sen. Joel Lourie of Columbia, business leaders unleashed a barrage of questions critical of the bill, critical of disinformation tactics by out-of-state voucher advocates, and critical of lawmakers' constant attacks on public schools and educators.
Unfortunately, the meeting was closed to the press.
The forum was not styled as a debate between Nielsen, a voucher-and-tax-credit proponent, and Lourie, a supporter of public schools. But after remarks from the two speakers, a question-and-answer session led to vigorous exchanges between the two, and between Nielsen and several questioners.
Nielsen appeared to have been unaware that the forum was intended to discuss H 3204, the Sanford voucher-and-tax-credit bill. After prefacing her remarks by saying that voucher-and-tax-credit advocates were not attacking the progress made by public schools, their students, parents and educators, she embarked on a 15-minute attack on the progress made by public schools, their students, parents and educators.
"South Carolina has always been playing catch-up," Nielsen declared. "What is at stake? Nothing less than the quality of life for the people of our state and nation. And it's a natural phenomenon for the 'system' to push back."
Following adoption and implementation of the Sanford plan, she suggested, "Most parents are going to choose to send their children to public schools. But some children don't learn well there, and their parents want something better for them. Many see the need for an openly competitive system, and I'm one of those."
"I applaud the incremental gains we have made, but I'm a realist. We're nowhere near where we need to be, and when you consider the entry of third-world nations into the new economy, we're losing due to knowledge creep. This is the reality of where we are," she said.
While emphasizing that majorities of eighth graders don't achieve highest marks on NAEP tests, Nielsen made no mention that lawmakers have consistently underfunded the Education Finance Act's base student cost since 2000 -- and have adopted mid-year cuts that drained more than $200 million from that line item since 2002 -- and she likewise neglected to mention that South Carolina's students have outpaced every other state in the rate of improvement on standardized test scores for three consecutive years.
Instead, Nielsen stated that Sanford's plan "allows parents to spend some of their education dollars in the schools they choose."
"Politically, the conversation about commitment to public education has always been about money," she lamented. "We often hear, If we just had more money, we could do better. But I think honesty is needed in talking about the total dollars spent on educating every child."
Nielsen alluded to The SCEA's "Keep the Promise" campaign and its billboards sponsored by the association in and around the capital city, billboards that point out lawmakers' failure to fund the base student cost identified by the Education Finance Act. In fact, while the EFA base student cost for 2004-05 was calculated at $2,234 per child, lawmakers only appropriated $1,857 per child, a fact documented in the 2004-05 budget bill, which can be found at http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess115_2003-2004/appropriations2004/ta04ndx.htm.
Nielsen opined, "Some say school choice undermines the American dream, but it's lack of knowledge and skills that prevents many children from getting their piece of the American pie. Is it right to have children trapped in schools that aren't meeting their needs?"
In his own remarks, Lourie addressed Nielsen's diatribe but said he came prepared to discuss the evening's stated topic, the nuts and bolts of Sanford's plan. "I'm not here to defend the status quo," he said. "If we want to talk about how schools are being funded, I'll be happy to, but that's a topic for another discussion. We're here to talk about this bill, and this bill is not the magic potion to solve our schools' problems. It's unproven, unaccountable and unaffordable."
Public tax revenues, Lourie said, "are not user fees. At the end of the calendar year, you don't get to choose whether you want to support law enforcement in your community, or the local library. These are services that are important to all of our society. And public education has to be one of the most important of those services, along with health care."
"Let me say this clearly, after having read this bill several times: There's nothing in the bill about improving public education," he declared. "Do we really want to gamble on something that's never been proven to work on a state level? This isn't a pilot program in one district or county. This is a statewide initiative."
Responding to Nielsen's emphasis on the success of the voucher system offered as an alternative to Milwaukee public schools, Lourie answered, "I don't need to go to Milwaukee to see great public schools. We have great public schools here in South Carolina where educators and students and parents are working hard together."
Sanford's bill "makes a mockery of President Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' and the Education Accountabilty Act of 1998, because we have tough standards and this bill undermines those standards," he said. Noting that the audience represented Greenville's business community, Lourie added, "You wouldn't invest millions of dollars in a new program or product unless you had a way to measure the benefit of that investment. This bill uses up those dollars but includes no accountability."
A study commissioned by the S.C. School Boards Association and the S.C. Association of School Administrators, conducted by economist Harry Miley of Columbia, projected that after five years of implementation, Sanford's plan would cost the General Fund upwards of $354 million annually, he said. When funding is cut from public schools at that level, Lourie said, "Either principals will have to increase class size by laying off teachers, or superintendents will have to ask county councils to raise property taxes."
"I'll tell you, this bill is the beginning of the end for public education in South Carolina. It's the worst idea I've seen come to the State House. I can't think of a worse idea," he said. "I recognize that we must do better. But how is taking $354 million out of our public schools going to improve them? This bill is unproven, unaccountable and unaffordable."
Following their remarks, only one questioner prodded Lourie to acknowledge that the depletion of funding would make public schools more competitive with private, parochial and home schools. But Lourie batted away that canard: "If I'm unsatisfied with sales in my department store, so I tell all my salesmen I'm going to cut their commission but give them more work, is that going to make them more competitive?"
With that, the rest of the evening's questioners tilted at Nielsen. One was aggravated at the barrage of direct mail ("They're a little on the slick side," he said.) and advertising from out-of-state voucher advocates. If the program was so beneficial to South Carolina, he asked, why was so much money pouring in from outside the state to support its passage? Nielsen argued that a new state-based organization -- Citizens for Responsible Government, she called it -- was a group of South Carolinians, and that donations from out-of-state sources were no different from NEA's donations "to buy billboards."
But Lourie explained that the analogy wasn't accurate, as the pro-voucher campaign's chief financiers, the Michigan-based All Children Matter, spent more than $150,000 to mischaracterize Lourie's support for public education in his campaign for S.C. Senate in 2004. "I've probably been victimized by these people more than any other one person," he said.
Other questioners stuck to the bill's contents. While Nielsen avoided indepth conversation of its specific provisions, Lourie pointed out that corporate or individual taxpayers would be, under some circumstances, allowed to divert their entire tax liability from the state's General Fund. This diversion would have a devastating effect on every service and institution funded by the General Fund, he said, from prisons to highways to law enforcement to social services, to health care and environmental programs. To emphasize his point, Lourie urged attendees to "read the bill for yourself."
Alex Martin, who has served on the S.C. Education Oversight Commission, asked Nielsen why the bill contained no accountability for private and parochial schools that would benefit from this plan. Nielsen answered, "Shouldn't parents have the choice to make the best decisions for their child's education?"
Another asked, if the education and business community agree on so many different aspects of standards, accountability and improvement to education quality, why have Sanford and lawmakers chosen to focus all of their time and resources on one issue that causes deep division among citizens? Sanford believes in giving all parents the choices that are available "to those of us in this room," Nielsen said. But Lourie noted that the state's poorest parents would never benefit from "choice" because they don't owe taxes sufficient to use the credit, and because they have no access to private and parochial schools. "What are kids and parents in Dillon County going to do with a tax credit or a voucher?" he asked. "Are we going to bus them to Greenville County to Christchurch School? I don't think so. Are we going to bus them to Heathwood Hall in Columbia? I don't think so."
Another questioner stated loudly, "I've been with Governor Sanford on most issues -- but not this one. All my children attended public schools and graduated from schools like Wake Forest and Auburn, even Carolina and Clemson. And 10 of my 14 grandchildren attended public schools, and the other four attend Christchurch. That's a choice their parents made, and they pay for that. That's fine."
"But public education is what sets America apart from every other nation in the world, and it's why we've become the nation we are: We provide education for everyone," he said. "This idea runs in the opposite direction, and it gives us two South Carolinas. We don't need two South Carolinas, we need one."
The evening's final questioner sought clarity, he said. Some groups promote Sanford's voucher plan, others oppose it. The Board of Economic Advisors says it will cost the state millions of dollars, but the governor says it will save the state millions of dollars. One economist says it will save schools money and improve the quality of education, another economic says it will cost schools money and hurt the quality of education. So where do you find the truth?
After a moment, Lourie told him and others to read closely the reports published by the Associated Press and other objective media, and to read the bill itself. "Those who are publishing all these reports and ads are people who have an interest in public education, one way or another. I'd tell you to read the Greenville News, The State, the Charleston paper. And read the bill for yourself, and then listen to your own gut instinct. Ask yourself, Does this make sense?"
DATELINE FEBRUARY 23, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
COMMITTEE APPROVES EFA FULL FUNDING
Thousands of calls and emails from The SCEA members in recent weeks -- and yesterday's announcement that South Carolina will collect more than $300 million in revenues more than economists earlier projected -- resulted in a feeding frenzy today among the subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee. Defying Governor Mark Sanford's call to use the windfall for general operations, House budget writers quickly drafted and adopted proposals to fully fund the Education Finance Act and hundreds of other line items and programs in the state budget.
The committee discussed and informally approved -- but will wait until tomorrow to vote to approve -- the draft package. Apparently without smoke-and-mirrors accounting and subterfuge, the plan funds the EFA's base student cost at $2,290 in the 2005-06 school year -- the first time the EFA will have been fully funded since 2000. About a dozen line items that have been funded (or under-funded) through the EFA in recent years have been moved to a segment of the budget reserved for the Education Improvement Act of 1984, but are fully-funded there.
As was published on the cover of the February edition of The SCEA Emphasis (visit www.thescea.org to review the issue), full funding of the EFA has been the association's first priority for the past two years. Today's development marks a tremendous victory for the association's members if the package is approved by the House with its EFA and EIA appropriations intact.
The single apparent slight in the new budget package is in the proposal of salary increase for a variety of state workers. The draft includes pay raises of up to 10 percent for State Law Enforcement Division agents and the Highway Patrol, and a four-percent increase for state employees, but none for educators. Full funding of the EFA will allow step movement on the state salary schedule, but The SCEA does not define a salary increase to include step movement, since veteran educators (those with more than 22 years' experience) do not receive a salary increase.
While the package does provide an additional $32 million to the State Health Plan, as request by plan administrators to maintain its present premiums-and-benefits levels, the proposal doesn't attempt to restore benefits cut, or lower premiums raised, by the Budget and Control Board in June 2003 and June 2004. Restoration of these benefits and premiums to their 2002 levels is also on the association's agenda.
Sanford's input wasn't wholly ignored in the process. Lawmakers used his executive budget proposal as the starting point for their drafting and re-drafting, and today's package includes more than 170 specific budget cuts proposed by the governor across all state agencies.
UNIVERSITY WOMEN HEAR, REJECT VOUCHER ARGUMENTS
Sen. John Matthews of Orangeburg and Will Folks, press secretary to Governor Mark Sanford, discussed H 3204, known as the Put Parents in Charge Act or the Education Abandonment Act, in a forum sponsored by the South Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Women and the S.C. League of Women Voters in Columbia. Having already heard presentations from Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter and Steve Morrison, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Abbeville v. South Carolina, attendees listened respectfully to Folks and Matthews make the case for and against the governor's voucher proposal.
But demonstrating their own study of the bill's contents, participants grilled Folks on his thin case for vouchers, then shouted him down twice when he returned to the example of Milwaukee's voucher plan and avoided answering questions directly.
Folks began his remarks with an attempt to establish common ground, noting that his uncle has served on the Lancaster County Board of Education and his father is a veteran educator at the University of South Carolina. Though he attended public schools for 11 years, he graduated from a private school and might make a different decision today, he suggested.
The impetus for Sanford's proposal of a voucher plan, Folks explained, is competition. "The Internet is here to stay. Globalization is here to stay. We're now competing in a changing world," he said. Additional investment in public schools "in many cases hasn't translated into the results we need to be competitive. We simply don't think that's acceptable."
"Rich white people and rich black people already have school choice," he continued, and he cited a litany of statistics suggesting that poor black students are more likely to under-perform against their peers. "These numbers are simply unacceptable."
Folks then shared his experience of traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconson, with Sanford and others to review that city's voucher system. His comments praising the program drew groans from forum attendees but he continued, arguing that the voucher proposal is "about improvement. In Milwaukee, dropout rates are down and scores are up. Choice has worked in Wisconsin and Florida. Choice works because the market works."
Pre-empting the argument that Sanford's voucher plan will result in re-segregated schools, Folks declared, "The school system in Bishopville has done a pretty good job of segregating their children on their own, because white parents who can take their children out of public schools have done so."
"This is about helping children who are trapped in failing schools," Folks concluded.
Not expectedly, Matthews used his remarks to disagree with Folks's conclusions and to outline the harmful aspects of H 3204. "Figures don't lie but liars figure," he began.
"Politicians are good at saying one thing and doing something else," Matthews said. "This bill is a voucher program using taxpayer dollars to promote private schools. This is the Enron of public schools; it may as well have been written by Ken Lay. It's an attempt to dismantle our public schools in South Carolina."
"Public education is about doing public good. This voucher plan doesn't help our competitiveness, it hurts our competitiveness," he charged. "We're a poor state compared to our sister states, and we don't have the money to pay for more tax credits."
While North Carolina's per capita income is 93 percent of the national average, South Carolina's per capita income stands at 82 percent of the average, he noted. "Education is the difference. Earning capacity is higher for those who go to college," he said. But rather than fulfilling obligations to meet the state's educational needs, Matthews continued, "we're creating a dual school system, something we got rid of 40 years ago."
Since Folks paid quick tribute to Matthews in his remarks, noting that he was one year old when Matthews began his service in the legislature in 1975, Matthews turned Folks's observation around. "In the year I was born, the state was paying $62 to educate every white child in my school district but only $7.98 to educate every black child. That has come back to haunt us," he said.
Declaring that the argument for school choice is meaningless to the children of poor parents in rural districts, Matthews advised Folks, "There are no choices in Allendale. They've got to go where their resources take them."
"Poor people cannot pay up-front $3,500 or $4,000 in tuition. They can't compete because they have no tax liability," he said. "This bill would do nothing for me if I wanted to send my kids to Heathwood Hall, where the tuition is $15,000 per student." [Governor Sanford has stated publicly that his children attend Heathwood Hall in Columbia.]
Matthews also chastised House sponsors of the proposal for their announced, but unseen, re-drafts of the voucher plan. "They're re-writing this bill because what was on the table will not work, and each time, they tell us how great the bill is."
Matthews, a veteran member of the Senate Education Committee and a witness in the Abbeville v. South Carolina school funding trial last year, drew the issue to a fine point. "We've got to decide which we will do: Educate our children or give tax cuts to the rich. Governor Sanford wants to use tax cuts to attract more retirees to South Carolina, but we're already number one in attracting retirees with assets of more than a million dollars but incomes of less than $100,000. And that's distorting our per capita income, but we're good at it."
"Where we're failing is this: Seventeen percent of our people have college degrees, but it's 23 percent in North Carolina, and 24 percent in Georgia," he said. "Other governments invest and sustain their investment, and they get different results. For every dollar that we invest in our First Steps program, North Carolina invests ten. Look at the difference."
Despite the contrast, Matthews observed, Sanford is "the first governor since 1954 to propose cutting public education."
Opening a question-and-answer session, moderator Betty Bayless asked Folks to specifically address the bill's provision for so-called scholarship-granting organizations, which provide a dollar-for-dollar tax credit incentive for individuals and corporations to fund private school tuition. But rather than address the question, Folks cited five-year-old quotes from State Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum on the issue of Allendale's school system, then to attack the progress made by educators and students there. He continued only briefly until the audience erupted, some standing, in shouting at Folks to answer the question.
"Yes, any individual or corporation can register to open a scholarship-granting organization, then provide a 'scholarship' to poor children," Folks said. "We're not going to leave the neediest children behind."
But Matthews disagreed. "There's no accountability in this bill, no residency requirements, none of that," he clarified. "Look, nobody's going to give sustained amounts of money to children in Allendale. Corporations are going to give to children in the community in which they live. This is a feel-good thing."
A questioner asked Folks what choices existed for poor minorities in Lee County, where the only private school is segregated.
Folks began, "It's amazing to see the schools in Milwaukee," but again, attendees shouted at him to answer the specific question, some declaring variously -- and loudly -- that this bill affected children and families in South Carolina, not Milwaukee. When Folks could continue, he said, "School choice in Bishopville and other parts of the state isn't going to happen overnight. That's why I started to mention Milwaukee. Now, I know Milwaukee is a bad word in some circles because it's worked." The audience stirred for a third time and the questioner asked plainly for Folks to address her question. "Ma'am, I put it to you that this works," Folks said.
"The solution the Senator talked about, I guess, was more money. I was talking to another legislator recently who said, 'You know, you Sanford people just want to pick up your money and go home because you're got a leak in the roof'," Folks said. "Well, if you had a leak in your roof for 40 years, you have to go or you're going to drown. This bill is about fulfilling the promise of accountability."
Matthews reminded Folks that the voucher advocate who began the program in Milwaukee in the 1980s is opposed to the program today. "As for accountability, there is no accountability in this bill whatsoever. They're leaving it up to these private schools to decide their reporting."
"We're very good at doing things in this state that don't cost money," Matthews continued. "If it costs money, we fail at it. Money is not everything, but it's damn sure the best thing I know of. If you know something better, let me know."
DATELINE FEBRUARY 24, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
EFA PLAN PASSES; HINSON AMENDMENT FAILS
As expected, the House Ways and Means adopted a budget package that fully funds the Education Finance Act for the first time since 2000, including a base student cost of $2,290. Chairman Bobby Harrell noted that it was the first time a budget package won passage with a unanimous vote during his tenure. Passage means that the budget package could be ready for presentation in the full House as early as next week.
But unexpectedly, Rep. Shirley Hinson of Goose Creek introduced an amendment that would block educators' ability to communicate with lawmakers via email about pending legislation. Specifically, Hinson's amendment would require school boards to adopt new policies curtailing the spread of information on pending legislation and local referenda and "preventing educators from using computers to communicate with politicians from school," she explained.
Her strategy is understandable. During the 2004 session, Hinson served on a subcommittee that approved the voucher bill promoted by Governor Mark Sanford, and she supported and voted for the bill despite heavy opposition to it. When her public comments were reported via The SCEA Dateline, angry educators bombarded her office with calls and emails. Hinson commented aloud in a subsequent subcommittee meeting that she had to be careful choosing her words in the public meeting.
This year, Hinson has co-sponsored two of the three versions of Sanford's new voucher proposal, House Bill 3204 and H 3652.
Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg took issue with Hinson's amendment, asking whether this would prohibit her local school district administrators from sending their monthly legislative updates to district employees through emailed newsletters. Hinson said that as long as the newsletters contained only objective information and "not giving opinions," they would be unaffected.
"You'll be able to tell whether it's an opinion," Hinson explained. "The intent is not to limit public schools from doing anything to communicate to parents. If there's a question about that, they can ask the State Ethics Commission for an opinion on it."
Cobb-Hunter said the amendment represented "clearly a violation of teachers' First Amendment rights. We shouldn't give this burden to school boards. This shouldn't even be in the budget." Cobb-Hunter asked Harrell to rule on the amendment's germaneness, determining whether or not it conformed to committee rules governing amendments to the budget bill.
Rep. Annette Young of Summerville argued in support of Hinson's amendment, declaring that since the state legislature appropriates funds to buy computers in the school workplace, and the legislature governs teachers' working hours and salaries, the amendment should be ruled germane and allowed to pass. "Shouldn't they be teaching when they're emailing us?" Young asked.
Cobb-Hunter declared that it was "a stretch" that the legislature's influence over employees' working hours and the purchase of workplace computers in general made the amendment germane to the budget bill. She noted that budget amendments must be specifically tied to one or more line items in the pending budget bill, but Hinson's amendment represented instead a change in permanent law rather than a budget provision. "I don't think this passes the smell test," she said.
But Rep. Roland Smith of Langley, chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on K-12 Education, supported Hinson's and Young's arguments. "If they're using government equipment to attempt to influence an election or legislation or a referendum to raise revenues, it could be tied back to a line," he said.
But after conferring with the committee's counsel, Harrell finally ruled that Hinson's amendment was not germane to the budget bill, since it directed school districts to implement a policy, not to spend (or not spend) appropriated funds.
It is expected that Hinson will introduce the same or a similar amendment during the House budget debate, in a manner that conforms to House rules. Failing there, Hinson has sponsored a separate bill, H 3477, which makes the same proposal. That bill rests in the House Education Committee and has not been scheduled for debate in any subcommittee.
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