DATELINE FEBRUARY 3, 2004
COPE WILL SUPPORT RYBERG COLA BILL
Representatives of the South Carolina Coalition of Public Employees (COPE) expressed their support this morning for a proposal by Sen. Greg Ryberg to guarantee an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for retirees.
The SCEA is a member of COPE, which includes organizations of active and retired public employees. More than 375,000 South Carolinians are employed by, or retired from, state or municipal governments.
COPE Treasurer Sam Griswold told Ryberg today, "We're concerned that budget shortfalls are causing other entities to raid the retirement fund, and there appears to be few opportunities for recipients of retirement benefits to have any input whatsoever in decision-making"
Since the South Carolina Retirement System was founded, the system has afforded annual COLAs to retirees, but state statutes include a loophole that contemplates no payment of COLAs. Ryberg's bill eliminates that loophole, effectively guaranteeing an annual COLA under the law.
A guarantee of COLAs is one of COPE's three-part legislative agenda, which also includes a five-percent salary increase for all public employees in 2004-05, and restoration of health insurance coverage benefits as those benefits existed in 2002.
Ryberg's bill enjoys bipartisan co-sponsorship in the Senate, but he asked COPE members to seek aid from House members to draft a companion bill in that chamber. Passage of a COLA guarantee by the House, where the annual budget proposal originates, will improve the likelihood of similar passage in the Senate.
AT-WILL AMENDMENT STILL ON CALENDAR
The Senate did not address the new revision of at-will statutes still pending on its calendar.
New draft language circulated by Sen. Larry Martin includes an amendment won in last year's session by The SCEA and Sen. Kay Patterson, which guarantees the protection of published grievance rights for education support personnel. The SCEA thanks Martin and Patterson for their work to include this language in the new revision, and we will support their efforts to maintain those guarantees through the debate on this bill.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 4, 2004
DE LA HOWE PLEADS CASE, LAWMAKERS UNMOVED
Representatives of the John de la Howe School in McCormick pleaded with lawmakers this afternoon to reject Governor Mark Sanford's proposal to close the school, to no avail. In a meeting to hear input on the governor's proposals to restructure parts of state government, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education and Special Schools also heard opposition from administrators of the Wil Lou Gray Opportunity School, the S.C. School for the Deaf and Blind, and the Department of Education.
This input was offered too late to be effective, however, as the subcommittee has already voted to adopt many of the governor's recommendations for restructuring, including eliminating funding for the John de la Howe School. This made the afternoon's meeting a courtesy at best, as subcommittee members signaled throughout the dialogue that they intended to take no action to reconsider their decisions.
De la Howe Superintendent George Young and Director of Residential Services Cherry Brown made the case for the 217-year old school, which became a state agency in 1918. The school has a year-round capacity of 80 student-residents, ranging in age from 11 to 18, but the school served more than 130 from July through December 2003. The student-resident population includes truants, runaways and youths referred by counselors and therapists for behavioral or substance-related problems. The average stay for each student-resident ranges from nine to 12 months, Young explained.
Recommendations made by Sanford, based in part on a cursory visit by the governor's Management, Accountability and Performance (MAP) Commission members last summer, were premature, he added.
"We do a lot of things that aren't done by any other state agency," Young said. "[The Map Commission] did not study our missions that well. So the governor's proposal is not appropriate and was made without much study."
Director Brown reminded legislators that the school's student-residents come from almost all of South Carolina's 46 counties, with the majority referred from Richland, Charleston, Sumter, Aiken and Florence counties. The school's curriculum teaches social skills to ensure that students "will be able to function in society", Brown said.
In addition, John de la Howe provides individual counseling and support groups for anger management and drug interventions. Whole-family counseling is a large part of its program, Brown added.
"We are not a high-management facility, not a psychiatric facility, and not a drug rehabilitation facility," she explained.
The school maintains a vigorous outreach curriculum beyond its student-residence program. These outreach activities served 1,300 youths through a wilderness therapeutic program in 2003, and an additional 300 youths through its "City and Town" program. Because of the school's mission to treat families, including multi-part families (step-parents and step-siblings) as part of its counseling, Brown estimated that John de la Howe served 3,300 families last year.
"Without intervention, some of these kids would end up in the Department of Corrections," Young emphasized. "We're trying to provide services to these children and their families to prevent that from happening."
While initial findings of the MAP Commission mischaracterized per-pupil spending at John de la Howe at $70,000 per student-resident, Young said the budget yielded a figure closer to $40,000 per student-resident when all program, residential and curriculum costs were divided by 80 student-residents. This suggestion drew immediate fire from Rep. Shirley Hinson of Berkeley County.
"Don't you know that every school would like to have that much, or half of that, or a quarter of that, per student?" Hinson asked. "I've visited your campus. What you do isn't so unique that it can't be done elsewhere. The governor and MAP Commission have looked at this."
Young attempted to explain the difference between John de la Howe and traditional public schools: "We are a children's home with a campus school. We educate these kids AND provide them services while they're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year round, AND we work with their families."
"We're all going to have a philosophical difference about how the John de la Howe School is run," Hinson said. "The state just doesn't have the money to keep the program open. We just can't afford you."
Answering Hinson's assertion that the school's specialized services can be provided elsewhere, Young asked, "Who is establish to provide those children with those services? Is there another residential children's home financed by the state? I don't know of one."
Clipping the debate, Chairman Roland Smith of Aiken County suggested that the subcommittee members "find ourselves in a short revenue stream and it's obvious this General Assembly isn't going to raise revenue to fund programs at a greater level."
"Funding at this level would be an extreme luxury for an elementary school or a middle school," Smith added. "It's incumbent on us to fairly fund education across the board. It places a difficult burden on this subcommittee to debate this. It's incumbent on us to find ways to reduce costs on the taxpayers of South Carolina."
Rep. Bill Cotty of Richland County, who noted that his son "spent six months living apart from our family" as a teenager, said he understood the benefit of the school's services. "But the question is, can South Carolina afford to have a school for this? County mental health clinics provide similar services."
With that, Young and Brown were thanked and dismissed, and the subcommittee took no action to reconsider its votes to eliminate the school.
WIL LOU GRAY, SCSDB & DOE HEARD, DISMISSED
The governor's proposals to shift the administrations of the Wil Lou Gray Opportunity School and the S.C. School for the Deaf and Blind (SCSDB) to the Department of Education was also opposed by some school and DOE leaders, although an SCSDB administrator appeared more agreeable to the change.
"In many ways, we're already under the control of the Department of Education," said Sheila Breitwiser, SCSDB Director. "We follow all the rules of compliance for funding, and we've already been discussing our relationship with the DOE and its support for student transportation and information technology."
Contracting with 50 of the state's 86 school districts to provide services for student with special needs yielded income totaling $750,000 last year, saving those districts more than $2 million, Breitwiser said. "We really are different. We serve students 24-7, and ours is a unique population. It makes us a school but also an agency."
Sanford's proposal to shift the school's administration and cut its funding "will inhibit our ability to do good things for children all over South Carolina," Breitwiser added. "But one size does not fit all. It's not about us, it's about the children. We'll make it work for the children."
As in the case of John de la Howe, the subcommittee heard administrators' remarks but took no action to reconsider its earlier decisions.
John Cooley, DOE Director of Budget Development, spoke for the department and told lawmakers, "We don't really support restructuring partly because we don't understand what it means." He cited language in the Sanford budget proposal that leaves the department's role and responsibilities unclear in the department's potential administration of the state's special schools.
Other questions are yet unanswered, too, Cooley noted: What would happen to the schools' independent boards of trustees, and would the DOE assume the schools' personnel and their payroll responsibilities? "That would increase by about 50 percent the administrative responsibilities currently managed by the department," Cooley estimated.
"If any of this comes to pass, I'm sure it will all be spelled out," Hinson suggested. "Change is difficult for all of us and these are changing times. We have to have an attitude of willingness to work together."
Molly Spearman, DOE Government Affairs Liaison, reminded the subcommittee of cuts it has already adopted to the department's administrative budget. "We would need money and personnel to be able to handle all these changes," she said.
Hinson noted that most of the cuts adopted by the subcommittee have not resulted in "that great of a cost savings, just shifting of funds and responsibilities".
AT-WILL AMENDMENT STILL ON CALENDAR
The Senate did not address the new revision of at-will statutes still pending on its calendar.
New draft language circulated by Sen. Larry Martin includes an amendment won in last year's session by The SCEA and Sen. Kay Patterson, which guarantees the protection of published grievance rights for education support personnel. The SCEA thanks Martin and Patterson for their work to include this language in the new revision, and we will support their efforts to maintain those guarantees through the debate on this bill.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 10, 2004
VOUCHERS, RESTRUCTURING ON LEGISLATORS' AGENDA
Debates on issues that "you may not want to talk about" are anticipated by leaders of the legislative education committees for the 2004 session, including a "healthy debate" on vouchers that will divert public funds to private schools.
Rep. Ronnie Townsend of Anderson County, chairman of the House Education Committee, and Sen. Warren Giese of Richland County, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, offered their perspectives to members of the informal Friends of Education this morning on how public education and educators will fare in the 2004 session. The Friends include The SCEA, the S.C. School Boards Association, the S.C. Association of School Administrators, the League of Women Voters, the state School Improvement Council, the S.C. Association of Black School Administrators, and directors of various district consortia.
In his opening remarks, Townsend said this session will include "debates about issues that public educators will just have to face up to, that they rather would not, including a healthy debate about vouchers."
Townsend noted that he and Rep. Bob Walker of Spartanburg County, chairman of the subcommittee on K-12 education, "have tried to steer that more to a choice issue than a voucher issue because of the cost involved." In recent years, voucher proposals that have been referred to Townsend's committee haven't been scheduled for debate, so a proposal by Rep. Lewis Vaughn of Greenville has been referred this session to the House Ways and Means Committee instead.
Concern about tax reassessments by local governments will likely inspire passage of some version of restructuring of education funding, he added. Since 2000, the legislature has cut, or appropriated fewer funds for, the state contribution to public education. In response, local governments seeking to maintain the same level of education quality have been forced to raise property taxes or millage rates.
The debate to restructure education funding will include the question of the annual base student cost, Townsend said. The base student cost is the figure determined by a funding formula in the Education Finance Act of 1977.
"I don't know whether we can continually band-aid the EFA because it's been so distorted, and I don't think it's fair to use a 'base student cost' anymore," he explained. "The base student cost is really not what it should be."
An alternative to the base student cost, Townsend suggested, was to adopt a model of "weighted pupil units" that appropriated funds according to cost factors such as special needs.
Townsend also discussed the "fiscal autonomy" of some local school districts. Districts with fiscal autonomy have the authority to raise revenues locally to fund education programs. In order to have "true fiscal autonomy", however, Townsend suggested that districts should have the authority to reduce or eliminate its programs and expenditures, too.
"I know the dedication of public educators and it's commendable, but there's got to be some method by which, if you have fiscal autonomy, you can go up and go down. You can't have true fiscal autonomy unless you can have reductions and do away with some programs," he said.
If Townsend's remarks were blunt, some perspectives offered by Giese were shocking. Giese tutored the education leaders and lobbyists on the legislative process -- tracking a bill through introduction, referral to committees and subcommittees -- then launched into a description of a bill proposed by the S.C. Chamber of Commerce, the S.C. Education and Economic Development (SCEED) Act.
Giese criticized public attention to the state's contribution to public education, asserting that fluctuations in state appropriations per child were "miniscule".
"The average cost of education in this state is up to $10,000 per student," Giese said. "So the quality of education in a school district is governed by that school district. It's much more a local issue than a state issue. The issue boils down to what the people in that school district want, but the state gets all the flack if it goes up or down by one- or two-hundred dollars."
Giese praised the SCEED Act for its focus on employment counseling, beginning in elementary grades, and said it reminded him of his boyhood desire to be a streetcar conductor, "when I was still riding streetcars, when they still had streetcars in Milwaukee."
The act's provision for career counselors for students would especially benefit low-performing students, Giese said. "Those youngsters with a C average in school aren't the ones who should be encouraged to become doctors and lawyers. The evidence is there that they shouldn't."
He also commended the working relationship between the business community and school districts. "There's a better collaboration now between business and schools, and those are steps in the right direction. Sometimes the business people are vilified because they enter into our work too much, but they don't enter it enough," Giese said.
The Senate chairman's remarks prompted some Friends members to seek clarification. Lemuel Stephens of the S.C. Association of Black School Administrators asked whether Giese was suggesting that impoverished school districts should be consigned to inferiority because their communities could not afford to raise additional local revenues.
"The base student cost is being interpreted," Giese started. "We apply the same base student cost to 661,000 students across the state, the same amount to everyone."
Stephens asked whether Giese believed the current appropriation of $1,777 per child as the state's base student cost was sufficient to provide the court-described "minimally adequate education".
"You can't expect a small rural community to have the same capacity for education," Giese answered, noting that smaller schools and districts have fewer students and fewer educators. Giese even suggested that students in small and rural districts were not held to the same standards as others but he was roundly corrected by the group.
Giese was asked whether he believed the state bore any responsibility to appropriate additional funds for non-English-speaking students. Jean Norman, executive director of the S.C. School Improvement Council, estimated that 10,000 students in K-12 public schools qualified for aid in English as a second language (ESL). Giese calculated that figure to represent 1.5 percent of the total student population.
"When you come to a member of the Education Oversight Commission or a member of the Senate or the House, you have to give us a problem that we have some potential of solving," Giese answered.
Stephens challenged Giese's perspective on low-performing students. "This country is run by C students," he said. "You only have to look at our president. A lot of us were C students and if not for the encouragement of our teachers, we wouldn't occupy the positions we hold now."
Asked whether he believed the legislature was likely to adopt serious tax restructuring this session, Rep. Townsend said he did. "Tax restructuring has a good chance to pass. Tax increases have no chance of passing. Raising taxes ain't gonna happen," he said.
Townsend said that he has heard no consensus view on Governor Mark Sanford's proposal to eliminate incentives for certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Instead, he has heard widely divergent opinions from educators in his district.
"When you asked whether it's worth the $7,500 that we're paying, you get some saying it is but you have others saying 'I see a teacher less qualified than I am getting NBC and I'm not'," he explained. "So you're going to get a mixed debate."
Asked whether educators should take seriously the governor's budget proposal, Townsend replied, "Yes, I'd take it seriously, more seriously than I'd take any other, because it's thicker. In that thickness, there's a lot of detail, and that means some will get more funding and some will get less. It's an election year, and all of these issues will play into the budget. The thickness of that budget is a serious situation."
"We're faced this year with things you may not want to talk about but they're out there now and they'll have to be talked about," Townsend said.
AT-WILL AMENDMENT STILL ON CALENDAR
The Senate did not address the new revision of at-will statutes still pending on its calendar.
New draft language circulated by Sen. Larry Martin includes an amendment won in last year's session by The SCEA and Sen. Kay Patterson, which guarantees the protection of published grievance rights for education support personnel. The SCEA thanks Martin and Patterson for their work to include this language in the new revision, and we will support their efforts to maintain those guarantees through the debate on this bill.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 17, 2004
SENATE KILLS ESP GRIEVANCE PROTECTIONS
The state Chamber of Commerce won a significant victory this afternoon, as the Senate stripped language guaranteeing grievance procedures for thousands of public and private employees from a proposed revision of the state's at-will statutes. The change affects all classified (non-certified) employees at every level of public education and all employees in the state's private sector.
On February 3, the Senate gave approval on second reading to an amendment, drafted by Sen. Larry Martin of Pickens County, which included language won in last year's session by The SCEA and Sen. Kay Patterson of Richland County. That language guaranteed the protection of published grievance rights for education support personnel. Since then, Martin has assured The SCEA that any final consideration of the at-will revisions would continue to include the protections for ESPs and others.
But in anticipation of third reading on today's calendar, Martin and Sen. Brad Hutto of Orangeburg announced that they, on behalf of their respective party caucuses, had reached a "consensus" amendment: a one-paragraph version that would strip and replace the series of changes won throughout the 2003 session. The new language would absolve employers of any responsibility implied or stated in an employee handbook so long as the handbook carried a clearly-visible disclaimer on its cover, stating that the handbook was not a contract and could not be construed as a contract for purposes of litigation.
Martin explained and defended his compromise language, calling it "the best that we could do at this time, on this day, this year". He explained that the consensus agreement addressed the nature of an employee handbook rather than contemplate exceptions to, and conditions of, at-will employment. Hutto also spoke in favor of the new agreement.
But President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell of Charleston opposed the Martin-Hutto amendment, explaining how, in his opinion, the amendments crafted over the past year comprised a superior accomplishment on the Senate's part. McConnell noted that the previously-adopted amendments exempted public employees from some at-will conditions, protected employees from punishment for exercising their constitutional rights, and established the expectation that employers would be legally bound to promises represented by their employment handbooks.
Martin explained that employees may believe that provisions in a handbook were contractual guarantees when they are not. He offered one example: While a handbook might promise paid leave for Presidents Day, an employer may legally require that employees work that day, offer no substitute benefit, and suffer no harm if the employee brings suit for lost benefits. Because the handbook is not a contract, the employer should not be bound to it as he would be bound to a contract obligation.
"We don't want to litigate every little disagreement between an employer and his employees," Martin said.
Last year, Sen. Jake Knotts of Lexington filibustered to win an amendment guaranteeing that employees would not be punished for refusing to follow an employer's orders when those orders violated the employee's conscience. Today, he was irate to learn that his efforts would be voided by the Martin-Hutto amendment.
"How does this help the little man?" Knotts challenged Martin.
"It helps the little man know where he stands," Martin replied.
Knotts interpreted and re-stated Martin's answer: "You're putting the average worker in South Carolina at the mercy of his employer and telling him to be happy he has a job."
A revision strengthening the state's at-will employment statutes has been identified as the top priority of the state Chamber of Commerce, which publishes an annual report card through its political action committee, the Business and Industry Political Education Committee (BIPEC). Knotts acknowledged that his vote would be recorded by the chamber and declared, "If I'm going to be graded, I want to be graded on the side of the employees of this state. They're the ones who make this state."
In voting against the Martin-Hutto amendment, McConnell and Knotts were joined by only eight other Senators: Maggie Glover of Florence, Clementa Pinckney of Jasper County, Bill Mescher of Berkeley County; Arthur Ravenel, John Kuhn and Robert Ford of Charleston; Glenn Reese of Spartanburg and Bob Waldrep of Anderson. After the vote was tallied, however, Kuhn changed his vote to favor the amendment.
Knotts returned to the podium to urge Senators to defeat the amended bill, now subject to approval on third reading. "I've heard comments that this vote was a vote against BIPEC. It seems that you're more worried about looking out for the business community than you are looking out for the people on the street," he said.
But the amended bill was immediately approved on a voice vote. It will likely be forwarded tomorrow to a conference committee to resolve differences with the original House version.
Details of the roll call vote on the Martin-Hutto amendment will be included in the The SCEA's 2004 Legislative Report Card. The SCEA supported the language approved by the Senate on February 3 for its specific guarantee of grievance procedure protections for education support personnel. The association opposed the amendment offered and adopted today.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 24, 2004
SCEED ACT STALLS IN HOUSE COMMITTEE
After a vote by the full House sent the South Carolina Education and Economic Development (SCEED) Act back to committee last week, the bill was amended this morning. But it won't be sent back to the House for debate until a funding guarantee is secured from Governor Mark Sanford, says House Education Committee Chairman Ronnie Townsend.
SCEED, which has been supported by Sanford, the state Chamber of Commerce and the state Department of Education, met with unexpected resistance last Thursday on the House floor. Representatives asked questions about, among other things, the proposed funding source for the bill's $6 million price tag. In recent weeks, sponsors have referred to a commitment by Sanford to provide more than $5 million in federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funds to the program. But Townsend reported this morning that he sought a letter from Sanford's office guaranteeing that commitment of funds, and Sanford's staff hesitated.
"At this time, they're unsure of the governor's ability to deliver those funds," Townsend said. "I understand the education community is concerned about where the funding is coming from, and we've not been able to give them an answer that satisfies them." "So I just don't think that now is the right time to take [the bill] back to the floor," he said.
News of this uncertainty from Sanford's office drew criticism from Rep. Joel Lourie, who has given the bill his support, contingent upon its full funding.
"We've been hung out to dry in the past few weeks," Lourie said. "We've been operating since the summer and fall under the assumption that the governor would make these funds available. My question is, Has the commitment changed, or was that commitment made before all the research was done?"
WIA is a federal program funded by Congress. As governor, Sanford has discretion to spend up to 15 percent of the total WIA funds delivered to South Carolina, within the program's guidelines to promote workforce education.
Townsend said that Sanford had not "backed off from his commitment. This is an important bill but he realizes we're walking out with a faith-based assumption".
Funding wasn't the only point of contention during the two-hour debate. Rep. Bob Walker answered questions from committee members about the bill's proposal to hire "career specialists" to assist guidance counselors and coordinate implementation of a new employment-focused curriculum overhaul in high schools. Hiring these specialists would ultimately reduce the student-counselor ratio to 300-to-1, but career specialists would not be considered equal to guidance counselors in job description or salary.
"They'll be on a lower level," Walker explained. "They're not going to be in the same category as guidance counselors."
Walker also addressed concerns from Rep. Philip Owens that a student would have time to change a "major" in mid-stream, after pursuing an earlier choice of academic goals.
"I can see if a child wanted to go into the blue-collar market but changes their mind and wanted to go to college, they would be affected," Walker acknowledged. "But if they make that change before the twelfth grade, they'll have time to take those foreign language classes and others they need. Here again, I can't give a hundred-percent answer."
Owens and Rep. Bessie Moody-Lawrence questioned the bill's provision for all high schools to offer at least three career "clusters" in their re-aligned curricula. Schools in rural districts with limited resources will not be able to offer as many or as varied opportunities for their students, Moody-Lawrence noted.
"You're always going to have differences, I don't want to say inequities, depending on what that school can offer, depending on the abilities of the teachers in that school to teach," Walker suggested.
Moody-Lawrence asked whether the state would provide distance-learning opportunities for students in rural and impoverished areas and Walker said it would. Moody-Lawrence followed up, asking whether such high schools were already equipped for distance learning. "That has been discussed and budgeted, but every school may not be wired and equipped," Walker replied.
DATELINE FEBRUARY 26, 2004
SANFORD PROPOSES BACK-END VOUCHER PLAN
Facing an uphill battle to win traditional vouchers for private school tuition, Governor Mark Sanford proposed a "universal tax credit" for private school tuition this morning. Sanford and a handful of the bill's co-sponsors took pains not to use the word "voucher" to describe the proposal, and to emphasize that the credit would be targeted to low- and moderate-income parents.
Under Sanford's proposal, parents who chose to send a child to private or parochial schools would pay the full tuition bill themselves. At the end of the tax year, those parents who itemize their tax filing could claim a credit totaling $3,200 per child in private kindergarten, $4,000 per child in private first through eighth grade, and $4,600 per child in private high school, grades nine through twelve.
Sanford said he supported public schools but that public schools were not serving all of the state's children. "We have all the formulas for success: great teachers, great principals and great administrators. So either we have an inferior gene pool in South Carolina... or there's something wrong that holds us back structurally," he explained.
Though protesting the characterization of this plan as a voucher, Sanford held up two examples -- Florida and Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- as successful tests of school choice. Both "choice" models included vouchers.
"This administration has made a consistent commitment to improving our competitiveness as a state," Sanford said. "Education freedom through choice has been shown across the country to improve education."
The governor compared schools to hospitals, auto mechanic shops and grocery stores, saying, "If it's not meeting your needs, you make a different choice."
House Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith, chief sponsor of the act in the House, praised various co-sponsors and Barbara Neilson, now the governor's education advisor, for their aid in drafting the bill.
"Our goal is to improve public education, not to dismantle public education," Smith said. Anticipating a negative response from the public education community to the bill and its co-sponsors, Smith defended them and their records on education funding. Smith was joined behind the podium by Rep. Roland Smith, Rep. Garry Smith, Rep. Catherine Ceips and Sen. Mike Fair, among others.
"It can't be said that these men and women don't support public education," Smith said. "It's wrong to write it, it's wrong to suggest it."
Rep. Lewis Vaughn told observers he has supported school choice since 1957. "I went to a school that didn't do very well by us kids," Vaughn said.
"This is a red-letter day for South Carolina," Vaughn continued. "This is not about public schools and private schools, it's about education kids."
Going farthest to characterize the bill as something other than a voucher, Vaughn suggested, "It's a tax credit plan without the entanglement of the voucher system."
Returning to the podium to take questions, Sanford offered a new reason to support the tax credit scheme: "If one or two students leave this classroom to attend a private school, the teacher-student ratio would get better in that public school, and the per-pupil funding would go up."
Sanford did not explain in greater detail how per-pupil funding would increase, as state funding to a school district is contingent upon the number of students enrolled in the district's schools.
Asked whether the private and parochial schools would be held to the state's standards and accountability model, Sanford and Smith punted.
"Charitable organizations are as closely watched as public schools," Smith said.
"The parent is the ultimate tool of accountability," Sanford offered.
The SCEA opposes any voucher plan -- including "opportunity scholarships," "education passports" or tax credits -- that effectively drains public funds from public schools. Data demonstrates that funded programs perform well, and South Carolina's legislatures have fully funded the Education Finance Act of 1977 in only five of the past 27 years (1988, 1989, 1990, 1998 and 1999). Further evidence of this principle can be found in the state's national ranking in teacher quality and national leadership in improving standardized test scores.
The tax scheme is unconstitutional, as Article 11, Section 4 of the South Carolina Constitution prohibits the use of public funds for aid to private and parochial schools.
The scheme also neglects the state's responsibility to the 665,000 children who attend South Carolina's public schools. The proposal offers nothing to strengthen, enhance or improve the quality of education for those students who remain in public schools, for whom the state bears a constitutional responsibility.
Vouchers, whether in the form of coupons or tax credits, punishes public schoolchildren, because they diminish the quality of education afforded to them by draining public funds from their schools.
Finally, the present proposal crassly offers to fund a credit averaging $4,000 per child who attends private or parochial school, while the governor's own budget proposal seeks to fund only $1,810 per child attending public schools through the Education Finance Act.
