BILL WILL DEVOLVE BOARD POWERS TO SUPERINTENDENT
Discussion was held in the K-12 subcommittee of the House Education Committee this afternoon on a bill that seeks to remove all the existing powers and responsibilities of the State Board of Education and re-assign these powers to the state Superintendent of Education. H3378, introduced by Rep. Herb Kirsh, would leave the state board impotent but still in existence.
Dale Stuckey, chief counsel for the Dept. of Education, told Rep. Bob Walker, Rep. Ronny Townsend and others that while the South Carolina Constitution establishes the entities of Superintendent of Education and State Board of Education, the document gives the legislature the power to develop and assign duties and responsibilities to those entities, or to change those duties and responsibilities.
Governor Mark Sanford has proposed making the Superintendent an appointed Cabinet post rather than elected Constitutional officer of the state. Walker and Townsend questioned Stuckey about the ramifications of this change and other potential changes if the legislature chose to disempower the state board.
Discussion led to several key conclusions: A constitutional change is required to make the Superintendent an elected office, and a constitutional change might be made at the same time to abolish the State Board of Education. If the Superintendent gains the board’s authority and responsibility, and later become an appointed Cabinet position, then the Governor effectively becomes the chief education administrator of the state, with all authority and responsibility to enact a variety of changes in education policies and regulations. Although the Superintendent might continue to act as head of the Department of Education, that department would become a de facto instrument of the Governor’s office.
One key responsibility of the state board is to hear and decide appeals of education professionals on certification and licensure issues. If the board is abolished, the legislature will have to devise an alternative hearing structure for these appeals.
LEXINGTON LAWMAKERS HEAR CONCERNS AT FORUM
Local representatives from Lexington County heard complaints from educators and other residents at a public forum in Irmo on Friday. The SCEA President Jan McCarthy attended the forum, at which about 80 residents voiced concerns about the recently-adopted House budget.
House Majority Leader Rick Quinn, Rep. Chip Huggins and Rep. Ted Pitts, all of whom voted for the House budget package, fielded angry questions from teachers, administrative staff and parents about cuts to public schools. Rep. Walt McLeod, who voted against measure, attended but was not questioned by the group, and Sen. Jake Knotts offered commentary although the Senate has not yet debated a budget of its own.
McCarthy blasted the panel with details of the $240 million in cuts to the public schools, $3 million in cuts to one Lexington district alone. Quinn, Huggins and Pitts voted twice to adopt the House plan, she noted.
“During the past three years, we’ve been cutting other government agencies, some by 20 percent, in order to fund education,” Quinn told the audience. “We’ve fired 5,000 people in state government. Our revenues are still declining. We’re looking for solutions but raising taxes isn’t one of them.”
“It’s unfair to point the finger at the General Assembly and to say that’s where all the responsibility lies,” Quinn added.
A French instructor at a Lexington elementary school chided Quinn and others for shirking responsibility for budget cuts. “You gave us accountability, now you must show accountability,” she said. “You cannot sacrifice us because you don’t want to raise taxes.”
“You are giving an answer that we cannot give the parents of our students when they come to conference with us,” she declared. “We have to deal with paperwork, with discipline, with testing. When someone has a problem, we don’t have the option to say, ‘This is not my fault’.”
Pitts noted that the House has acted to cap government growth, then weighed the effectiveness of state programs and cut budgets where necessary. But, referring to his colleagues Huggins and Quinn, Pitts explained, “We are all Republicans, and there’s a big anti-tax sentiment in this state. We’ll look at innovative ways to find revenues streams, like refinancing the tobacco bonds to make Medicaid solvent. But everybody’s feeling it.”
One resident, a national board certified teacher from a Lexington middle school, told lawmakers of hearing South Carolina’s schools berated at a recent national conference. “We’re being considered a third-world nation,” he said. “You’re setting these schools up for failure.”
While roughly half of the forum audience appeared opposed to any tax increases, one resident acknowledged that in recent years, “Higher taxes did make the scores go up.”
McCARTHY COLUMN SUBMITTED TO THE STATE NEWSPAPER
The SCEA President Jan McCarthy has submitted a op-ed column on Governor Mark Sanford’s proposed education agenda to The State newspaper. The SCEA will notify members if it is published. The text of McCarthy’s column is copied below:
In recent days, a trio of bills has been promoted by Governor Mark Sanford’s office and the state chamber of commerce that appears to represent the extent of the governor’s education agenda in 2003. Sadly, they ignore the issue that looms largest on education’s horizon: compounded budget cuts and their impact on public schools.
One bill (H3608) requires school districts to build smaller schools, which the governor calls “neighborhood schools”, and to break existing larger schools into smaller units called “schools within schools”. A second bill (H3701) requires all of the state’s teachers to assign conduct grades to students on regular report cards.
Of the three proposals, these two are unnecessary, as districts already have the freedom to implement such measures if the district deems them important and devotes funding to them. In Irmo-Chapin, for instance, there already exists a school-within-a-school model, and many of the state’s schools would already qualify as “neighborhood schools” as the proposed bill defines them.
In districts – or even individual schools – where administrators believe conduct is an issue, report cards already include conduct assessments, without state mandate.
Ultimately, the first two bills represent solutions in search of a problem. The governor has crafted a “re-structuring” of public schools merely for the sake of re-structuring, which has never been an adequate reason for taking any action. Since his proposals include no new funding, he seeks to saddle school districts with yet another costly but unfunded mandate.
The third proposal (H3714) carries the title, “South Carolina Education and Economic Development Act,” and its chief focus may be to ensure that students graduating from South Carolina high schools are prepared to take minimum-wage jobs in the state’s service sector.
The bill proposes that the state reorganize its entire high school curriculum around future employment options rather than traditional academic achievement. It establishes a new “coordinating council” that will include the head of the state’s employment security commission, and “ten representatives of business and industry, one of whom the governor shall appoint as chairman”. In scope and reach, this council would exist parallel to the state’s Education Oversight Commission.
In essence, the “SCEED Act” proposes to turn the state’s schools into employment training facilities in which core subjects such as English and mathematics are regarded as job skills rather than traditional academic pursuits. Interestingly, the chamber of commerce, which drafted this language, proposes to make private schools and home schools exempt from this new focus on employment training.
Indeed, it is important that high school graduates who do not intend to pursue further studies are able to enter the workforce. That is precisely why South Carolina high schools already offer a vocational education curriculum, serving thousands of students annually. No additional bureaucracy, no additional oversight by business and industry, and no additional intervention by the governor, will improve those students’ skills – but adequate funding for their education might.
Taken as a whole, these proposals for education range from doing nothing to doing the wrong thing, but they do not include adequate funding for doing any of what we know to be the right things: reducing class size, improving teacher quality, and boosting student achievement.
To a narrow constituency of those outside public education, these bills may represent action. But to students, parents and the education community, mere action without good purpose – and action without adequate funding – undermines the mighty work that educators and students have accomplished together.
Funding is the issue; what has emerged from the administration and its allies to date amounts to window-dressing at best. If Governor Sanford and others seek to have a positive impact on public education in South Carolina, they might begin with setting a priority on fully funding our schools in order to maintain our progress of recent years.
DATELINE APRIL 2, 2003
TENENBAUM ASKS FOR RESTORATION OF $350M IN CUTS
Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum asked a Senate subcommittee this morning to restore approximately $350 million in funding that has been cut from public education during the past two fiscal years. Referring to charts reflecting the sharp decline in base student cost, Tenenbaum told Senators that the funding is necessary to maintain the state’s improvements in teacher quality and student achievement.
Three weeks ago, the House passed a budget that under-funded public education by $240 million. That sum took into account more than $165 million in cuts made during this fiscal year by the Budget and Control Board, and it effectively reduced the state’s base student cost from $2,033 to $1,643. This morning’s meeting by the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee for K-12 education was the beginning of the Senate’s budget-making process.
The issue of budget flexibility was raised by the committee, referring to an act recently ratified to give local school districts complete flexibility in moving formerly-designated state funds from one local line item to another. Previously, districts were allowed only to move up to 20 percent of state funds from one line to another. Tenenbaum advocated for a return to the 20 percent flexibility level, saying that complete flexibility will lead to a block-grant model of funding wherein local districts can choose to wholly fund certain programs, while not funding others at all.
“If we pass what the House passed, aren’t we saying that we’ve not done our job in fully funding the needs in public education?” asked Sen. Nikki Setzler.
“If our budget is fully-funded,” Tenenbaum replied, “districts wouldn’t need 100 percent flexibility.”
Tenenbaum noted to lawmakers that public education was already suffering the impact of cuts. According to regular surveys of local administrators statewide, she explained, some have eliminated after-school and summer-school programs, tutoring programs, personnel positions, and a variety of academic programs including physical education, art and music – “essential parts of quality education in our state,” she said.
“They’ve used their fund balance and they’re very scared going into next year with requirements and mandates but no funds,” Tenenbaum said. “This past year was the first year without a net increase in funding from the state level.”
SANFORD CONDUCT BILL ASSAILED IN SENATE
A bill requiring conduct grades on report cards in all of South Carolina’s public schools drew fire in session this afternoon. S530, sponsored by Senate Education Chair Warren Giese and others, was drafted by Governor Mark Sanford’s office and is one of the planks in the governor’s “education agenda”.
Sen. Brad Hutto took issue with the bill, which he characterized as “pitiful”. Local districts that want to implement conduct grading already have that freedom, he said.
“We have to keep our eye on the ball here,” Hutto said. “This is akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burns. The people are looking to this Senate for leadership and merely passing a conduct bill won’t cut it. We’ve been trying to make a world-class system out of our schools, and that takes funding. If the first thing that comes from [the governor’s office] is a conduct bill, that’s pitiful.”
Hutto referred to a recent article in the Colleton County Post and Standard titled “Where is the money?” and noted that he’s received no telephone calls from constituents citing a need for a statewide uniform conduct bill. “This is not the problem that people are calling me about,” he said. “People are calling me about funding education, and if we don’t continue on the path of progress, they’re going to be disappointed.”
Several Senators engaged in the debate, noting that passage of the bill would require changes in computer software at the local and state level to accommodate changes to report cards.
KUHN: SENATE PAGE PROVES DEPT OF ED. A LIAR
Sen. John Kuhn took to the Senate floor briefly today to alert members that a Senate page has refuted the Department of Education’s position on the teaching of South Carolina history in middle grades.
Kuhn, who has sponsored a bill (S539) to require the teaching of South Carolina as part of the state’s eighth-grade curriculum, said that Department representatives advised him earlier this session that his bill was unnecessary, as state history is already taught in middle grades. Indeed, it is identified in curriculum documents as a subject taught in eighth grade.
But Kuhn told Senators that an unnamed Senate page “did some research” during the past weekend in her home county of Pickens. That page reportedly interviewed an eighth-grade teacher who said that South Carolina is included in the teaching of U.S. history in the eighth-grade curriculum, but that while U.S. history is PACT-tested, state history is not.
Even more damning, the page found a website run by the Pickens County teacher which stated that U.S. history books are issued to eighth graders but that South Carolina history books – though they would be studied and used in class – would not be issued to students.
“Imagine having to do South Carolina history homework when no South Carolina history textbooks are issued to students,” Kuhn exclaimed. “So this page proved what I’ve feared, that South Carolina history is not being taught to our students, despite what the Department of Education says.”
Kuhn did not indicate whether the unnamed page has investigated reports of cuts to public education funding.
DATELINE APRIL 8, 2003
THE SCEA CONTINUES ED REVENUE CAMPAIGN, WILL CO-HOST RALLY
The SCEA was joined today in its call for a two-cent increase in the state sales tax by the South Carolina School Boards Association, the South Carolina Association of School Administrators and others. The SCEA President Jan McCarthy and Executive Director Richard Miller distributed copies of the association’s “Our Two Cents” flyers and draft newspaper advertisements to members of the Friends of Education Coalition, which includes the leadership of several organizations of educators and other interested groups.
The SCEA announced last week that it would begin a public awareness campaign designed to educate South Carolinians about the impact of budget cuts to public schools, and the options of raising revenues to meet public education needs. The rally and the public awareness campaign is timed to coincide with the state Senate’s deliberations for its 2003-04 budget.
Flyers outlining a list of revenue options have been distributed to The SCEA leaders and members via email, with encouragement to copy and post the flyer where it is allowed. It has been re-drafted as a newspaper advertisement that will run in various state newspapers before the rally on April 16.
The “Our Two Cents” flyer identifies how much revenue will be generated by an additional two-cent levy on a variety of consumables, and by eliminating the sales tax cap on motor vehicles, including boats and airplanes. Please organize those who are affected by public education in your communities – including parents, students and community leaders – to send a “two-cents” message to Senators during the next two weeks.
Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, who outlined $350 million in unfunded public school needs to a Senate subcommittee last week, is scheduled to participate in the rally on April 16.
DATELINE APRIL 8, 2003 Addendum
WAYS & MEANS PROHIBITS PAYROLL DEDUCTION BY EDUCATORS
The SCEA was joined today in its call for a two-cent increase in the state sales tax by the South Carolina School Boards Association, the South Carolina Association of School Administrators and others. The SCEA President Jan McCarthy and Executive Director Richard Miller distributed copies of the association’s “Our Two Cents” flyers and draft newspaper advertisements to members of the Friends of Education Coalition, which includes the leadership of several organizations of educators and other interested groups.
The SCEA announced last week that it would begin a public awareness campaign designed to educate South Carolinians about the impact of budget cuts to public schools, and the options of raising revenues to meet public education needs. The rally and the public awareness campaign is timed to coincide with the state Senate’s deliberations for its 2003-04 budget.
Flyers outlining a list of revenue options have been distributed to The SCEA leaders and members via email, with encouragement to copy and post the flyer where it is allowed. It has been re-drafted as a newspaper advertisement that will run in various state newspapers before the rally on April 16.
The “Our Two Cents” flyer identifies how much revenue will be generated by an additional two-cent levy on a variety of consumables, and by eliminating the sales tax cap on motor vehicles, including boats and airplanes. Please organize those who are affected by public education in your communities – including parents, students and community leaders – to send a “two-cents” message to Senators during the next two weeks.
Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, who outlined $350 million in unfunded public school needs to a Senate subcommittee last week, is scheduled to participate in the rally on April 16.
DATELINE APRIL 9, 2003 Addendum
SUPPORT LEAN FOR PAYROLL DEDUCTION AMENDMENT
While the House and Senate focused on non-education-related issues today, The SCEA focused on building support for a floor amendment extending payroll deduction privileges to educators and public school employees. An amendment was tabled by the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, but amendments may be offered on the House floor when the appropriate bill is calendared for consideration by the chamber. So far, support is lean.
Payroll deduction privileges are extended in state law only to state employees who join the State Troopers Association and the State Employees Association. Rep. Bobby Harrell has introduced legislation that would extend the privilege to employees choosing to join the Wildlife Law Enforcement Officers Association. In seeking support yesterday and today for our amendment, The SCEA is presenting this as an issue of fairness; privileges extended to one class or category of state employees should extend to all state employees who choose to join their professional associations.
The SCEA will update members when the appropriate bill is scheduled for debate. In the meantime, The SCEA President Jan McCarthy urges members to contact their House members and encourage them to demonstrate fairness by supporting payroll deduction for educators and public school employees.
ED COALITION DEVELOPS RALLY PLANS
Representatives of several organizations in the education community met this afternoon to continue planning for the “Our Two Cents” rally at the State House at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16. A short program of speakers is planned, but this rally will include a different feature from the March 22 rally sponsored by The SCEA: a number of attendees will be invited to air their local concerns during an “open mike” portion of the rally.
In addition, The SCEA and others are continuing to urge association members, parents, administrators and community leaders to organize groups to attend the rally. In support for the event, The SCEA will publish an “Our Two Cents” advertisement in the state’s 16 daily newspapers this Sunday.
DATELINE APRIL 17, 2003
SENATE FINANCE CMTE ADOPTS REVENUE INCREASES
After two weeks of subcommittee meetings and three days of consideration by the full Senate Finance Committee, a plan was adopted this afternoon that funds the Education Finance Act at a higher rate than the House proposal, but still not at levels appropriated in 2002 before deep budget cuts.
The plan protects funding for national board certification application fees and stipends, teacher supplies and a host of smaller funding priorities. But its funding total leaves the base student cost (BSC) at slightly more than $1,900, more than $100 per student less than 2001-02 levels and $300 per student less than was recommended by the Board of Economic Advisors and requested by the Department of Education in 2002.
The Executive Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee met in mid-afternoon to take up one of the most contentious issues of the week’s deliberations: new revenue sources. On the heels of a successful rally at the State House by educators promoting a two-cent sales tax increase, the Executive Subcommittee approved modifications to current sales-tax exemptions but stopped short of considering a statewide sales-tax increase.
Sen. Hugh Leatherman, Sen. Harvey Peeler, Sen. Verne Smith, Sen. Warren Giese and Sen. David Thomas agreed to eliminate the tax exemption on manufacturing equipment – yielding new revenues of approximately $53 million – and to raise the sales-tax cap on motor vehicles from $300 per purchase to $2,500 per purchase. The change is expected to net $93 million. The new revenues – totaling more than $146 million – would be routed through the state’s General Fund to benefit the Education Finance Act.
Later, in full committee, Sen. Greg Ryberg proposed to eliminate the sales tax exemption for South Carolinians aged 85 or more. Currently, those senior citizens take advantage of a one-cent sales tax reduction statewide. Elimination of the exemption yielded a little more than $5 million for the Education Finance Act – “like a raindrop in Lake Murray”, as Sen. Nikki Setzler suggested.
While the Senate funding package sets the BSC at about $1,900, or more than $250 per student above the funding package approved by the House three weeks ago, it still falls short of restoring the amount of cuts suffered by public education during the 2001-03 fiscal years. Those cuts totaled more than $350 million over the past two years.
SUBCOMMITTEE FIRST APPROVED NO-REVENUE PACKAGE
Earlier in the day, the Senate Finance Subcommittee for Education debated a funding plan that largely reflected the House proposal, without the benefit of any new revenues. At that meeting, Setzler and Sen. John Land questioned the wisdom of the House spending proposal, with Land asking, “So education has not been saved by the Senate?”
Hearing little dissent from subcommittee colleagues, Setzler answered Land, “Not only has the Senate not saved education, but the Senate didn’t make much effort.”
Of the five Senators on the subcommittee, Setzler and Land opposed the stripped-bare proposal, while Peeler, Sen. Larry Grooms and Sen. Robert Hayes supported it.
EFA FULL FUNDING MOTION TABLED
Apart from the approval of new revenues to restore education funding, the afternoon’s other highlight came early in the debate by the full committee. Charging that the committee was adopting a package that continued to under-fund education, Setzler attempted a maneuver to short-circuit the committee’s wrangling over various line-item cuts in public education. He moved to devote a full $1.3 billion – the estimated cost of fully funding the Education Finance Act – for that purpose before considering any other sections of the budget.
If adopted, the EFA would enjoy full funding at levels requested by the Department of Education, and legislative committees would have to prioritize the state’s other services and institutions, deciding then whether or not to raise revenues.
Sen. Verne Smith moved immediately to table Setzler’s motion. Chairman Leatherman questioned Setzler’s intent for the motion.
The pertinent question, Setzler answered, was “Is educating our children the number-one priority in this state?” If the answer was yes, he said, that commitment would be represented with full funding before the committee considered any subsequent priorities.
Perturbed, Leatherman called for a vote on Smith’s motion to table, which passed by a vote of 12-10. By a show of hands, Smith’s motion was supported by Leatherman, Smith, Peeler, Giese, Thomas, Hayes, Sen. Greg Ryberg, Sen. Yancey McGill, Sen. William Odell, Sen. Arthur Ravenel, Sen. Bill Branton and Sen. Thomas Alexander.
Smith’s motion was opposed – and Setzler’s motion was supported – by Setzler, Land, Sen. John Courson, Sen. Larry Grooms, Sen. Phil Leventis, Sen. Clementa Pinckney, Sen. Linda Short, Sen. Glenn Reese, Sen. John Matthews and Sen. John Drummond.
At day’s end, the full committee voted 10-6 to approve its budget proposal, which will be taken up by the Senate following the Easter break.
RALLY GARNERS FRONT-PAGE COVERAGE
The State House rally co-hosted by The SCEA as part of the Friends of Education Coalition on Wednesday garnered coverage in many of the state’s daily newspapers today, including a front-page article in The State. The item is accompanied by a top-of-the-front color photograph of Little Mountain Elementary School students waving The SCEA’s yellow “Keep the Promises” posters.
On Wednesday night’s network news broadcasts, comments by The SCEA President Jan McCarthy were aired prominently alongside those of Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum and McCarthy have led the education community in calling for increased revenues to save public education in South Carolina.
HOUSE REPORT CARDS ON FURLOUGH, BUDGET VOTES PUBLISHED
The SCEA puts campaign rhetoric and slogans to the test in a report card of lawmakers, featured in the upcoming issue of The SCEA Emphasis. Fourteen separate votes by House members are identified – largely on the furlough issue and budget amendments to fund education – and the members are scored in the association’s first published report card.
Of the House’s 124 members, 17 have earned a score of 100 percent, voting in support of The SCEA’s positions on education issues in each of the 14 roll-call votes. At the opposite end of the spectrum, 30 members earned a score of zero.
DATELINE APRIL 29, 2003
SCHOOL FUNDING ATTACKED BY ANTI-PUBLIC SCHOOL GROUP
Calls for additional school funding and recent rallies sponsored and co-sponsored by The SCEA were lambasted today by a group called the South Carolina Policy Council. The group held a press conference in the State House this morning, criticizing Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum and The SCEA by name.
Among its chief assertions was an erroneous claim that South Carolina spends $6 billion on public education – the figure has never been greater than $2.1 billion in any year – and that only 48.6 percent of appropriated funds are actually spent on classroom instruction.
“For weeks, we have seen headlines claiming that there is not enough money to pay for critical education needs,” said Ed McMullen, the group’s leader. “The Department of Education and the South Carolina Education Association are telling parents and children that their teachers will have to be fired and many of their classes eliminated.”
[In fact, more than 1,500 educators and public school employees have already been notified that their positions will not be funded in 2003-04. McMullen’s printed remarks included no reference to these laid-off educators and employees.]
When delving into the group’s data, the fractured logic leading to their conclusions is revealed. To determine that only 48.6 percent of school funding is spent in the classroom, the group specifically excluded funding for guidance and counseling, library and media, extracurricular activities, student health and services, therapists, psychologists, evaluators, personal attendants for special needs students, school social workers, transportation and school bus drivers, food service and food service workers, school safety workers, building upkeep and maintenance, data processing, business operations, school management, district management and senior administrators, among others.
Press packets distributed by McMullen’s group included statements of support from House Speaker David Wilkins, Lt. Governor Andre Bauer and Governor Mark Sanford.
The SCEA President Jan McCarthy questioned the group’s attacks on public school employees and services to children.
“If they and Governor Sanford expect classroom teachers to be their own administrators, plus their own media coordinators, plus guidance counselors for students, plus bus drivers and lunch ladies, then we double our call for increased school funding – just to pay for the tremendous increase in teacher salaries,” McCarthy said. “Just how many hats can you expect a teacher to wear?”
The group’s website includes a position paper outlining “10 Ways to Improve Public Education.” Included in the list is encouragement of home schooling and charter schools, contracting with private schools, hiring teachers through “private practice”, and locating schools in shopping malls and office buildings.
