DATELINE JANUARY 11, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
SENATE CHANGES RULES, CHARTER BILL CLEARS SUBCOMMITTEE
Handing Governor Mark Sanford his first pair of victories in the 2005 legislative session, the state's reputedly more-deliberative legislative body changed its rules for debate and filibuster, and a House subcommittee gave approval to Sanford's accountability-free statewide charter school proposal.
While the Senate's new rules don't give the governor the free hand he sought in an October press conference, they do reduce the minimum number of votes required to end a filibuster from 28 to 26, and they establish that amendments can only be made on a bill's second reading, no longer on its third reading.
One of Sanford's criticisms against old rules was that they invested too much power in a single Senator to block action, but today's new rules go that far in a strange new direction, giving the Senate Rules Committee chairman far-reaching powers to control the handling of controversial bills. These changes turn Larry Martin of Pickens County into an uber-Senator of sorts, a status that he acknowledged in his comments on the change. Martin pledged not to use the power unfairly.
Meanwhile, Rep. Bob Walker of Landrum marshaled his House K-12 Education Subcommittee to adopt Sanford's proposal of a new statewide charter school district and board of education, but not without some sharp disagreement with Rep. Mike Anthony of Union County, the only subcommittee member to vote against the measure.
Last week, The SCEA was the only organization to oppose the proposal outright in testimony before Walker's subcommittee, while other organizations did voice concerns, raise questions and suggest improvements. Put simply, the bill creates a system by which new charters may be granted through a statewide charter school board of education without the approval of a local board of education. This proposal subverts 33-year-old home-rule statutes which give locally-elected boards substantial authority to govern local districts and counties themselves.
Then and today, Anthony was the only subcommittee member to challenge the substance of Sanford's plan. Calling this a "foot-in-the-door" strategy to ultimately undermine traditional public schools, Anthony questioned the notion that opportunities and choice do not already exist in traditional public education.
"Sir, it's already there in the public schools," he said. "Everyone in here knows I'm a public school supporter. I'm concerned what effect this will have ten years down the road to public education. Let's lay everything on the table."
Walker advised Anthony that Sanford's charter school plan won the approval of this subcommittee, and the House Education Committee, and the full House in the 2004 session, but was never taken up in the Senate. Because 2005 begins a new legislative biennium, it was necessary to start the bill's journey from scratch again. Anthony did not serve on Walker's subcommittee in the last biennium.
"The diversion is what scares me," Anthony answered. "We're getting on a fast train and I want all of us to be comfortable with this before we take off. Right now, we have a choice."
Although they ultimately voted to approve the measure and send it to the House Education Committee, which meets tomorrow morning, Rep. Don Smith of Aiken County and Rep. Ken Clark of Lexington County acknowleged that the bill -- even with minor amendments adopted today -- raised serious questions. "We don't want to create another way to divert money from public schools," Clark agreed.
Before the vote was taken, Walker also sparred with Rep. Bessie Moody-Lawrence, a House Education Committee member who attended today's meeting to hear the debate. Anticipating discussion of the bill at tomorrow's full-committee meeting, Moody-Lawrence asked for data on the effectiveness of existing charter schools in South Carolina. When advised that the data was available on the Department of Education's website, Moody-Lawrence pressed to have a report compiled and presented to the committee, as is done in other cases. In ensuing dialogue, Walker parsed Moody-Lawrence's request such that ultimately there was no certainty that any formal report may be delivered to the committee.
Those subcommittee members voting for the Sanford charter school plan were Walker, Smith, Clark and Rep. Jesse Hines of Darlington, with Anthony voting against it.
Neither in last week's nor today's K-12 Education Subcommittee was there formal discussion of Sanford's proposal to raise the base student cost to $1,944 using "new" dollars, to to raise it to $2,213 by using "new" dollars and by diverting funds from the Education Improvement Act to the Education Finance Act. The source of "new" dollars is not clearly identified in Sanford's executive budget proposal, and many lawmakers are openly balking at the shell game of using earmarked EIA funds to artificially inflate the EFA's base student cost.
SENATORS CHOOSE NEW COMMITTEE POSITIONS
Alongside the adoption of new rules, Senators also announced their preferences for committee assignments today. Memberships of corresponding committees in the House were determined in December and are available on the General Assembly's website, www.scstatehouse.net.
TOWN MEETINGS ON SCHOOL FUNDING CONTINUE JANUARY 19
The next in a series of town hall meetings on South Carolina's funding for public schools will be held January 19 at Guilliard Auditorium in Charleston. More details of the meeting and its speakers will be published by The SCEA Dateline as they are confirmed.
Meetings featuring Steve Morrison and Carl Epps, attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Abbeville v. South Carolina suit for school funding equity, as well as former Governor Dick Riley and Wofford College President Bernie Dunlap have already been held in Florence, Anderson, Columbia and Orangeburg. Additional town meetings are being coordinated in Greenwood, Spartanburg, Rock Hill and Beaufort.
The series is co-sponsored by a consortium of 88 organizations that first collaborated for the March for Education Equity in May, 2004. Each of the town hall meetings features the same format: a one-hour program of information regarding school funding, including a speaker and an attorney representing the plaintiffs in the ongoing school funding equity trial in Manning, and a one-hour small-group program wherein participants can discuss common questions related to school funding. Participants' responses and suggestions will be compiled, summarized and shared with others attending the town meetings as well as policy makers.
DATELINE JANUARY 18, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
STATEWIDE CHARTER BILL PASSES ED COMMITTEE
The House Education Committee gave Governor Mark Sanford his statewide charter school bill this afternoon, though the vote was far from unanimous. After dialogue between committee members and Rep. Bob Walker, chairman of the K-12 subcommittee, several committee members voted against the measure but a hand count was not taken. Sanford's plan, co-sponsored by House Speaker David Wilkins of Greenville and Rep. Doug Smith of Spartanburg, among others, establishes a new statewide charter school district with its own board, its own superintendent and its own price tag that includes more than half-million dollars in start-up costs and nearly $2 million of projected annual costs to the state treasury.
Sanford's charter plan has had a rocky history, weathering close scrutiny poorly but now offering some lawmakers a way to vote for "school choice" before they are forced to declare a position on Sanford's voucher/tuition tax credit proposal, the so-called "Put Parents in Charge Act." A version of the Sanford charter plan was approved by the House last year but wasn't taken up by the Senate.
Two weeks ago, The SCEA was the only organization to oppose the proposal outright in testimony before Walker's subcommittee, while other organizations did voice concerns, raise questions and suggest improvements. Specifically, the bill creates a system by which new charters may be granted through a statewide charter school board of education without the approval of a local board of education. This proposal subverts 33-year-old home-rule statutes which give locally-elected boards substantial authority to govern local districts and counties themselves.
Rep. Ken Clark of Lexington led the questioning of Walker today, wondering aloud whether the committee should include language in the bill requiring that appointees to Sanford's charter school board have experience in South Carolina's public schools system. "I worry about winding up with a board full of people, and having nobody that has any education background," he said.
Walker batted down Clark's concern. "I don't think that's an area that we want to address," he said. "I don't think we want to go that route."
Clark pressed, asking whether appointees to any state board or commission are subject to any criteria for service. Committee staff Sandy Smith read sources in state statutes indicating that any qualified elector under state law is qualified for appointment to these offices. Walker interpreted: "If you're qualified to vote, you're qualified to be appointed."
Rep. Joe Neal of Hopkins returned to a question posed last week by Rep. Vida Miller of Georgetown: "Why is this legislation being offered?"
"Best I can tell, it's to give parents a choice. States use different ways of doing it," Walker replied. Though he is a co-sponsor of the legislation, Walker appeared to distance himself from its origins, saying, "These recommendations came to us from people in the system."
"In what system?" Neal asked.
"The charter school system," Walker answered.
Then Neal addressed the concern that the Sanford plan undermines 33-year-old home rule statutes. "Has anyone looked at this legislation in the context of home rule -- that is, leaving a community's decisions to the local government of that community? My concern is why we would suspend local control," he said.
House Education Chairman Ronnie Townsend told Neal that the General Assembly has the right to conduct some business without regard to local government, given that some rights were reserved by the state in home-rule statutes and withheld from local governments. But Neal remained dissatisfied.
"Have we heard from experts in the public education community as to whether this legislation is necessary?" he asked.
"I would question whether a lot of legislation is necessary," Townsend replied. "To tell you why it's necessary, I couldn't do that."
Neal drew attention to the original charter school statute adopted three years ago. "Did we not say that the local school board would be the final arbiter to say whether the charter was workable, or whether it fit the needs of the community? What troubles me is, Why would we not trust them? Why would we go around them?"
But Walker spun Neal's question around: "If the local school board has the best interests of the child, why would they block a way to educate their children?"
"I think a community ought to make that judgment itself," Neal concluded. "It seems to me that 'Big Brother' is stepping in for the local community to make these decisions."
Walker shot back again. "I don't know why we have reservations about these people's ideas for educating their children, if we say we're for educating children."
"Local communities ought to have the ability to say 'yes' or 'no' to a charter school," Neal declared.
Townsend interjected, "Local boards will still have a voice," referring to an appeal provision in the statute.
"What they will have is an appeal, and a limited appeal," Neal noted.
Rep. Gene Pinson of Greenwood, who has previously questioned the need to add a new bureaucracy and increase the size of government, observed to Walker, "This really removes the public school system, the local school board, from the charter process." Walker acknowledged it.
Rep. Jesse Hines of Darlington wondered how the legislation would "eventually affect public schools."
Sidestepping a fiscal impact statement offered by the Board of Economic Advisors, Walker suggested, "I don't think it's that big an impact. We've got 53,000 students that are private school students. I don't see it impacting the traditional school system. I think it's going to make some public schools stronger."
Rep. Bessie Moody-Lawrence charged that South Carolina's children would not have equal access to public education under the legislation because of transportation inequity. Citing the example of a single mother working two jobs, with one shift starting before school and the second ending well after the school day's end, Moody-Lawrence declared, "Without transportation, there's not equal access."
Walker retorted that since no charter school's transportation was funded by the legislature, "Every child will have equal access."
"That's a cute way to put it but some parents can drive their children and some cannot. That's not equal access," Moody-Lawrence said. "If transportation is NOT important, then why do we provide it in public schools?"
Rep. Vida Miller observed incongruity in the governor's support for this proposal and his opposition to a local bill proposed by the Georgetown and Charleston county delegations in last year's session. A tax-credit bill designed to protect jobs in a particular industry in her district was adopted by the House and Senate but vetoed by the governor in 2004. In his veto letter, Sanford expressed a "philosophical problem" with supporting legislation that benefited a "carved-out group of people," Miller explained.
After confirmation from Rita Allison, Sanford's education advisor, that he did support the charter school measure, Miller addressed the inconsistency head-on. "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it's a duck. This bill looks like it was carved out for a certain group; it affects only a small group of people. I'm confused about this change in philosophy," she said. "Why do we need this legislation when we have a system in place and when it's going to cost us a half-million dollars in operations?"
With questions exhausted and no more substantive answers forthcoming, a voice vote was called and the measure passed.
A fiscal impact statement issued only today by the Board of Economic Advisors projects that the cost of setting up the new board will top $566,050 in the first year alone, including new staff and their salaries, office space, supplies and equipment. "Costs would likely increase as the number of applicants for charter school sponsorship increases," the statement reads.
Further, the state treasury will be charged an additional $1,860,400 in 2005-06 and in subsequent years under conservative charter school enrollment projections. Once the Sanford charter plan is implemented, the legislature will be responsible for underwriting the entire base student cost for these students, including the 30 percent of costs now borne by local school districts for students in public schools.
TOWN MEETINGS ON SCHOOL FUNDING CONTINUE JANUARY 19
The next in a series of town hall meetings on South Carolina's funding for public schools will be held January 19 at Guilliard Auditorium in Charleston. Plaintiffs attorney Steve Morrison is scheduled to address attendees.
Meetings featuring Morrison and Carl Epps, attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Abbeville v. South Carolina suit for school funding equity, as well as former Governor Dick Riley and Wofford College President Bernie Dunlap have already been held in Florence, Anderson, Columbia and Orangeburg. Additional town meetings are being coordinated in Greenwood, Spartanburg, Rock Hill and Beaufort.
The series is co-sponsored by a consortium of 88 organizations that first collaborated for the March for Education Equity in May, 2004. Each of the town hall meetings features the same format: a one-hour program of information regarding school funding, including a speaker and an attorney representing the plaintiffs in the ongoing school funding equity trial in Manning, and a one-hour small-group program wherein participants can discuss common questions related to school funding. Participants' responses and suggestions will be compiled, summarized and shared with others attending the town meetings as well as policy makers.
DATELINE JANUARY 26, 2005
For other education-related legislative news from The SCEA, visit www.thescea.org.
HOUSE APPROVES NEW STATEWIDE CHARTER BILL
Less than two hours before Governor Mark Sanford was scheduled to address a joint session of the legislature, the House delivered him a gift today in the form of H 3010, the statewide charter school bill. Debate on the bill lasted more than two hours and was vigorous but one-sided; aside from responses by Rep. Ronnie Townsend of Abbeville and Rep. Bob Walker of Landrum, chairs of the House Education Committee and K-12 Subcommittee, respectively, no one rose to argue on behalf of the bill, including its 20 co-sponsors. That left charges of school re-segregation, an unnecessary and costly expansion of government, a usurpation of local elected officials' authority, a lack of commitment to public schools and even less honorable motivations unanswered.
It was clear early in the debate that the bill would win passage, as a handful of common-sense amendments were turned back by consistent votes of 60-something to 40-something. Roll call votes on the afternoon's motions, amendments and the bill will be included in The SCEA Legislative Report Card for this session.
Beginning the discussion, Walker advised the chamber that H 3010 was little different from the statewide charter school bill approved by the House in the 2004 session.
Rep. Jackie Hayes of Dillon, a long-time educator in public schools, noted that the bill creates an appointed 11-member board and that the fiscal impact of the new act cannot be determined because the potential number of charter school enrollments can't be predicted. Though a fiscal impact statement by the Board of Economic Advisors placed the first-year costs at nearly $2.5 million to the state treasury, the cost could go much higher.
Of the 23 existing charter schools in South Carolina, Hayes cited data that more than half of those which report their information to the Department of Education are currently rated unsatisfactory. Although statutes require the reporting of data of the DOE, there is no consequence for schools which make no report, and six of the existing 23 charter schools have made no report. Hayes asked Walker if the chairman had any evidence that charter schools performed better than traditional public schools.
"They have to meet the same standards," Walker answered. "As far as being better or worse, that's the choice the parent makes."
Rep. Bill Clyburn of Aiken asked for clarification of a local school board's role under the new plan. Walker explained that the local board would have no role, as the newly-established state charter board "will control all those schools." Clyburn asked where the proposal came from, and Walker told him that "charter groups" wanted to establish an agency to qualify to receive federal funding. In a surreal moment, Walker declared that the education community testified before his subcommittee for two days and, he reported, "Some commented for it, some commented against it, but the vast majority were for it."
Indeed, The SCEA was the only organization to oppose the proposal outright before Walker's subcommittee, but representatives of other organizations, including the S.C. School Boards Association, the S.C. PTA and others, voiced concerns, raised questions and suggested improvements to the bill. According to notes of the testimonies, offered in a two-hour meeting on January 5 and an additional hour on January 11, the only entity which testified in favor of the bill without reservation was the governor's office.
Expressing his incredulity at Walker's news, Clyburn pressed for clarification. Did "majority" mean a majority of the state's teachers, superintendents, assistant superintendents, local school board members? Without being more specific, Walker told him, "There was not vocal disagreement from the vast majority."
An amendment offered by Rep. Joe Neal of Columbia and supported by The SCEA, would have required direct election, rather than appointment, of the proposed new charter school board.
Each congressional district would elect two members, and one member would be elected at-large statewide. "If this is truly a statewide board, and it truly represents all the people of the state, then all citizens should have a voice in choosing that board. This will be direct election by voters because if we're not careful, we could end up with a bureaucracy where local communities have no influence," he said.
Neal added, "There are those who believe the public is not bright enough to vote in their best interests. I have seen efforts to limit the public's ability to govern itself. But an elected board would be directly accountable. This is a way to keep politics out of education, as these races would be non-partisan. Education is too sacred to be burdened with political shenanigans."
Townsend moved to table Neal's amendment, and the amendment was tabled 70-43.
Rep. Mike Anthony of Union offered an amendment to ensure that certified educators in charter schools were paid on the state's salary schedule for certified educators, and have full fringe benefits. Anthony characterized the bill as a "disguise" for a pro-voucher ideology and was unapologetic in his full-throated support for public schools.
"I believe in our traditional public schools," he exclaimed. "I'd like to have the money in our public schools that's being spent on television for vouchers. They're beating up our teachers." Further, Anthony charged, "I said it in committee and I'll say it here: This bill is going to create re-segregation. If you want that, then stand up on the floor and say that, and don't push it some other way."
Walker moved to table Anthony's amendment, and it was tabled 66-48.
An amendment by Rep. Vida Miller of Georgetown passed on a voice vote and wasn't recorded by roll call. It requires charter sponsors to conduct annual evaluations of the schools and use this evaluations in the determination to renew or revoke a charter.
But an amendment by Rep. Bessie Moody-Lawrence of Rock Hill requiring the state to provide transportation to charter schools was tabled. Charter schools are public schools, Moody-Lawrence observed, and "this allows equal access to all of our schools." Townsend moved to table her amendment, and it was tabled 67-37.
Rep. Laurie Slade Funderburk of Camden offered an amendment requiring the state Board of Education to develop consequences for charter schools that do not report required data to the SDOE, and her amendment passed on a voice vote.
But two final amendments were tabled, one by Rep. Paul Agnew of Due West to establish term limits for appointed charter board members, and one by Miller and Rep. James Smith of Columbia to allow legislative delegations, rather than the governor and others, to appoint charter board members. A vote of 64-43 approved Townsend's motion to table Agnew's amendment, and Walker won a 60-37 vote to table the Miller-Smith amendment.
Arguing against the bill, Smith feared that the legislature "may be institutionalizing a division that need not be present. Charter schools can be a successful part of our public school environment, but we need to ensure that we don't resegregate our schools," he said.
Neal amplified Smith's concerns. "Here we are, about to vote on a measure that will fracture the education system in South Carolina. Our state, unfortunately, has been down that road before," he said. "The proposed system is independent of the voters; the people will have no direct voice. The measure has the potential to grow and siphon off needed funding from our traditional public schools. It will separate our children from one another."
He continued, "There are those of us who suspect the goal is to turn back the clock, to make it difficult for public schools to be successful. Whether it's the Carolina Charter School District or the 'Put Parents in Charge Act', they all pull money from the public school system, already in deep, deep trouble. We don't adequately fund it, we know that's a fact. To me, it doesn't make sense: There is a need for us to first do our jobs, to fund public education as needed. The logic in this action is lacking."
Others argued briefly against the bill. Rep. Lonnie Hosey of Barnwell chided members, "Don't hug me and call me 'Brother', then cut my throat. That's just what you're doing." But Rep. Jim Merrill of Daniel Island called for and won cloture (73-38) to end debate and force a vote on the bill.
H 3010 was approved by a vote of 66-45 on second reading.
