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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
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'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.
