The Voice for School Choice

Recently The Voice for School Choice exposed Jim Rex for fabricating numbers about per pupil spending in rural districts.

Using the SC Dept. of Education’s own numbers, we showed that many rural school districts are actually pulling in more funding than their more metropolitan counterparts. In some instances, rural districts have nearly twice as much per pupil money as other school districts.

Jasper County School District is a prime example of a rural school district with ample funding and nothing to show for it.

According to numbers published by the SC Dept of Education, the situation in Jasper School District is grim.

Since 2003 Jasper County School District has been graded as either “Unsatisfactory” or “Below Average” by the State Department of Education. Here is why:

2007 District PACT Scores:

English Language Arts: Only 14.4 % of students were proficient or advanced in reading and writing. Over 50% of students were Below Basic. Only one out of every 14 8th graders was proficient in ELA in 2007.

Mathematics: 11.3% of the students in Jasper were proficient or advanced in math. 55% of the students were Below Basic. 4.3% of 8th graders were proficient in Math in 2007.

Science: Only 8.9% of students were proficient or advanced in Science. Almost 70% tested Below Basic in the same subject. Only 1.9% of all 8th graders were proficient in Science in 2007.

Social Studies: 9.5% of students were proficient or advanced in Social Studies. 56% were Below Basic. In 2007, only 2% of 8th graders in the district were proficient in Social Studies.

2007 High School Exit Exam (HSAP) Scores:

English Language Arts: 66.8% of the test takers were basic or below basic. Only 33.2% were proficient or advanced.

Mathematics: 75.9% of test takers were basic or below basic. 24% of test takers were proficient or advanced.

In light of these test scores it is not surprising that the SC Department of Education admits that just 43.9% of all the classes in Jasper County are taught by teachers who are “not highly qualified.”

According to Rex, the problems stem from “underfunding” and “Third World schools.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Education expenditures in Jasper County have jumped by over 41 million dollars since 2000.

Unbelievably, the SC Office of Research and Statistics details Jasper County School District as spending $19,763.00 per student in 2006.

In 2006, administration expenses for Jasper County alone cost the taxpayers of South Carolina nearly $12 million.

Despite the equivalent of college tuition being spent on each student in Jasper, a pitifully low number of the students are able to perform on the most basic academic level.

Why are education bureaucrats are so eager to protect a system that produces results like this from real reform?

School districts like Jasper County are clearly serving someone other than the children who desperately need a quality education.The only ones profiting from a system performing this miserably are the people who leverage the shameful academic results into more money and power for themselves. It is time for parents to have the power to hold districts accountable for how they use tax dollars to educate their children. The answer is choice for all parents.

So Where Does it All Go?

(hint: SC Ranks 11th in administrative spending)

The US Census Bureau has released its latest Education Finance Report, comparing the K-12 spending of US states in the 2005-06 school year.

While the Census report uses numbers lower than those released by the SC Budget and Control Board (here), the report is useful for comparing South Carolina directly to other states using a singular methodology.

The report ranks combined local, state, and federal spending with adjustments for state personal income. South Carolina ranks 17th of the 50 states, with almost $56 in K-12 spending per $1,000 of personal income.

This ranking is based on a Census figure of $8,091 per pupil in spending for South Carolina. The actual figure released by the SC Budget and Control board for 2005-06 was $10,666. Lawmakers estimate that per-pupil spending will reach an astonishing $11,480 in 2009.

Still, politicians continue to clamor for more and more spending on public schools (rather than better spending on public education). The cry for more money is a ploy, intended to distract taxpayers from the sustained failure of public schools in South Carolina. The 47 percent high school completion rate and 49th place SAT scores will not be resolved through more money. In fact, by many measures performance at public schools is actually worsening as the spending continues to grow.

Policy makers need to be honest: more and more money for failing public schools and administrative waste will not help South Carolina’s children. Opening the schools to competition through school choice will. This means more money for public schools (since choice costs less), more accountability, and freedom for parents to choose what is best for their children.

Advanced Placement Test scores were announced. South Carolina students still take fewer AP tests than their national peers and earn lower scores. South Carolina’s neighbors, Georgia and North Carolina, continue to out-pace the national average.

Oconee Superintendent Mike Lucas ($138,881 in salary and benefits) endorses amendment to change the SC Constitution, avoids discussion of real educational reform and choices for parents.

Greenville News considers attempts to retain public school teachers in rural districts, defends use of housing subsidies, ignores merit pay.

Despite an average of $11,480 in per pupil spending and only 48 percent reading proficiency among high school students, education bureaucrats continue spending money on laptops rather than basic instruction.

A public school teacher in Mrytle Beach was suspending for leaving a gun on the hood of her truck and a former public school teacher’s aid in North Charleston was sentenced for sexual improprieties with a student.

Research at Heritage describes a possible connection between middle income housing troubles and lack of access to quality K-12 education.

The Washington Post argues that school choice is the best tool for students and public schools in DC.

Last Monday, we explained how three heartless lawmakers ( Neilson, Kirsh and White) on a House education subcommittee killed a bill offering scholarships to special needs and disabled children in South Carolina public schools.

Similar to existing laws in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Ohio, and Florida, HB 3101 would give parents a greater voice in the development of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) for their special needs students. Many special needs children already attend private schools in South Carolina through their state-developed IEP, but HB 3101 would allow parents to help make that decision, rather than school employees and district bureaucrats.

Leading the fight to deny choice to parents was the South Carolina Education Association (SCEA). This taxpayer-financed public sector union has a colorful history of high dollar lobbying in South Carolina. Screen shots of their website and newsletter show how SCEA worked to rally members against HB 3101.

Comprised of public school teachers and school officials, the SCEA should be the nonpartisan voice of educational improvement and access for all children. But working with politicians and bureaucrats at the South Carolina School Boards Association (SCSBA) and the South Carolina Association of School Administrators (SCASA), the SCEA aggressively uses taxpayer money and out-of-state special interest support to block all substantive reform to South Carolina’s worst-in-the-nation public school system. In 2005 alone, the SCEA took in over $125,000 from national teacher unions to fight against school choice.

How much are these public employees and officials willing to spend to defend the status quo?

A lot. Based on lobbying disclosure reports filled at the South Carolina Ethics Commission for 2005, 2006, and 2007 we can begin to see how SCSBA, SCASA and SCEA use taxpayer-financed membership dues to purchase political influence. In the case of the SCASA and SCSBA most members have their dues paid directly by the county of district that hires them! These numbers only represent money paid to lobbyists, not the additional money used for political action committees, maintaining websites, advertising, robocalls, email chains, and other attempts to manipulate public opinion.

School Boards Association
SCSBA: $176,811 in lobbying since 2005

Association of School Administrators
SCASA: $287,505 in lobbying since 2005

Education Association
SCEA: $50,000 in lobbying since 2005

Wasting a half million dollars in taxpayer money to politicize education reform and defend failing schools is shameful. Denying special needs children access to the best possible schools is heartless. These so-called “education” groups lack credibility. Their narrow concern with shielding a failing public school system shows how little regard they have for South Carolina’s children.

The SC Department of Education is intent on portraying the achievement gap in South Carolina public schools as narrowing.

Sadly, it isn’t.

Two school districts in Clarendon County provide a clear snapshot of the shameful social, economic and racially correlated performance gaps that plague South Carolina public schools.

According to SC Dept. of Education reports, Clarendon District 1 enrollment is over 90 percent African American, while neighboring Clarendon District 3 is 60% white. The SC Statistical Abstract shows Clarendon County as having 29.8% of families with children below poverty. A comparison of PACT scores between black students in Clarendon 1 and white students in Clarendon 3, reveals a horrifying disparity in academic performance. Take a look at these scores for reading and math:

More than half the white students in Clarendon 3 meet the state performance standards in Math and Reading, while just one-in-five of their black peers in Clarendon 1 performed as well.

The intra-district achievement gap is just as horrifying. The numbers below indicate that fewer than one in four African American students are proficient in reading, writing or math.

Are test scores like this indicative of a progressive and effective education system? Certainly not.

These districts are just two of many - and not the worst. When parents lack the means to transfer their children out of schools (either by moving, or enrolling them in a private school) the schools work to perpetuate existing social-economic divisions. Low-income students remain trapped in virtually segregated, gerrymandered, underperforming districts. The only people who profit from this ineffective and confusing morass of waste are the bureaucrats.

In 2006, Clarendon 1 spent over $10,577 per student in state and local money ( incidentally $2,943 more per pupil than neighboring Clarendon 3), plus thousands more in federal money. Of that money, a pitiful $4,732 per student will go to actual classroom instruction.

This situation, and others like it, are either being swept under the rug or ignored outright by the people who should be addressing it. Jim Rex issues press releases about nutrition and lower mortgage rates for teachers, but remains silent about students being failed in Clarendon County. His public school transfer program will obviously do nothing to give the students in Clarendon what they need to succeed.

The real solution is clear: Replace bureaucratic graft with accountability to parents. Empower families to choose the school that best meets their child’s needs through school choice.

Higher literacy in Eritrea than Allendale, McCormick, Williamsburg, Clarendon and Lee Counties, South Carolina. Total state spending on K-12 education in South Carolina equal to entire GDP of Eritrea.

Politician Jim Rex is always looking to showboat. Only by calling for more and more money can he hope to drive attention away from systematic failures -like the widening achievements gap between students- that define South Carolina’s public schools as the nation’s worst.

Speaking to the Rotary Club in Columbia on Monday, Superintendent Rex likened rural public school districts to the Third World. Hard-hitting reporters from the State Newspaper were there, and filed the following account:

Jim is right. According to the Budget and Control Board, South Carolina will spend $3.2 billion in state money on K-12 education in 2009. This makes state spending on South Carolina’s public school system equivalent to the entire economy of Eritrea, a country in northeastern Africa with a GDP of $3.2 billion. Eritrea beat its long time rivals the Central African Republic ($2.9 billion), Lesotho ($2.8 billion), and Burundi ($2.7 billion) to win this distinction, despite the fact that it has only existed as a sovereign nation since 1991, when it broke from Ethiopia after thirty years of bloody civil war.

Eritrea is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. Eritrea is home to 5 million people with an average life expectancy of 60 years each and a per-capita income of $1,000. South Carolina’s public schools are home to 694,642 students, with per-pupil spending averaging $11,480.

While students in Eritrean schools receive an average of five years of classroom instruction, the adult literacy rate is 58.6 percent - or roughly the same as the adult literacy in Allendale, McCormick, Williamsburg, Clarendon and Lee Counties. That’s because in South Carolina’s public high schools, only 52.2 percent of students are proficient in reading. (we can only guess what the literacy level is among the 53 percent who dropout of high school).

Rex may lack any educational credibility, but he is right to describe his public schools as similar to those in pre-industrialized nations. The graft and waste that drain 54 cents per dollar away from classroom instruction are an excellent example of third-world style corruption.

Editors Note: Were we to consider all spending in South Carolina’s public schools (federal and local as well as the $3.2 billion in state funding), the total would approach $8 billion, or comfortably above the $7.4 billion GDP of Mongolia, which has an astounding 98.7 percent adult literacy.

The State Newspaper ran an article on Monday with the heart-wrenching title: Teachers take 2nd jobs to help make ends meet. The story primarily focuses on one young teacher (she works at the restaurant her husband owns!) and invites readers to imagine many other dedicated young teachers also struggling to get by.

But a closer look at the data shows that teachers in South Carolina, even at entry level, earn more than most of their regional peers in the Southeast. Further, they make more money than the average South Carolinian and even more than the median family income in the state.

According to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) the average salary of a public school teacher in South Carolina was $42,189 in 2005 (the most recent year they have analyzed). This was 88 percent of the national average; $47,602. South Carolina was ranked 28th among the 50 states, ahead of six southeastern states (TN, AR, TX, LA, MS, and AL).

Teachers worked an average of 36.5 hours per week, not including their generous summer vacation. The Manhattan Institute, also looking at 2005 data, found that teachers on the North Carolina / South Carolina border averaged $28.18 in hourly income, $3.80 more than their similarly educated white collar peers working in non-sales jobs. In Greenville it was $30.96 per hour, and in Aiken and North Augusta it was $30.55.

That same year, 2005, the median family income in South Carolina was $39,316 and the per capita income was $28,212. South Carolina’s median family income ranking was 40th nationally, and per capita income ranking was 44th. As a reference point for cost of living; a single family home in South Carolina cost 86 percent of the national average price in 2005.

These numbers paint a much clearer picture than the “case studies” in the State Newspaper. While South Carolina ranks in the bottom fifth for personal and family income, the state is middle of the nation for teacher salaries. Just at important, the low cost of living in the state gives these teachers greater purchasing power than similarly salaried peers in the west and northeast. Were the AFT to adjust its state rankings to account for cost of living South Carolina would rank even higher.

But the REAL story is not how much (or little) these teachers are salaried. The heart of the issue, which the State ignores, is that a mere 44 cents per educational dollar reaches the classroom in the form of instructional spending (a category that includes teacher salaries). This means that taxpayers already provide the funds for better teacher salaries, but the entrenched bureaucratic administration chooses not to allocate it to them.

Entrenched Bureaucrats and Political Insiders Finalize Details of Rex’s “Quality Schools” Plan in a Plush Rutledge Building Conference Room.

Last weekend, Randy Page, president of South Carolinians for Responsible Government (SCRG) authored an opinion article in the State Newspaper dealing with the sustained failure of public schools in South Carolina.

Criticizing the political posturing of School Board Association President Paul Krohne, Page advocated for real reform in order to provide all students access to high quality schools:

Despite per-pupil spending that will top $11,480 in 2009, South Carolina is home to the nation’s lowest high school graduation rate and tied for last place in SAT scores. The Education Oversight Committee recently announced that wealth and race-correlated performance gaps are growing, and last week’s national reading scores showed South Carolina is stagnant while children in other Southern states continue to improve.

Krohne’s political posturing is offensive and deceptive. His status quo public schools are the foundation of S.C. social and economic troubles. They foster lowered expectations and deepen social divisions. Changing one phrase of the constitution is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. If Krohne had any real interest in educational performance and equality, he ought to be using his taxpayer-financed lobbyists to argue for school choice, not for more unaccountable spending.

Jim Rex and his high-rolling education bureaucrats seemed to have received the message. Late Thursday Rex announced a shocking and innovative new policy position: he too favors “high quality schools.”

This political u-turn is unprecedented. Based on the 47 percent graduation rate, 49th ranked SAT scores, growing race and poverty performance gaps, and declining reading scores, seasoned political observers long assumed Rex favored failing schools for all children.

But taking a page from Page’s SCRG play book, Rex now advocates for “high quality.” The only problem: Rex thinks that more political posturing (in this case changing the wording of the state constitution) is the solution. But, if $11,480 per student cant fix public schools, neither can constitutional semantics. Thats because the failing public school system is itself the source of these problems.

Jim must not have read Page’s full editorial. Only school choice, where all parents can choose among high quality schools, will provide children throughout South Carolina with access to the competitive education they deserve. Such choices already exist for the wealthy; now it is time to expand that access through a policy of school choice.

Richland District 2 releases a pork filled $192 million budget for 2009 ($13,000+ per child). Not be outdone, Richland 1 proposes an outrageous $254 million ($15,000+ per child).

Callous administrators in Sumter fight for their new multi-million dollar administrative building, despite the looming consolidation of school districts in that county.

Bob Walker wants South Carolina teacher salaries to directly finance union dues, while national teacher unions organize massive strikes.

A public school teacher’s aid in Myrtle Beach confesses to improprieties with a student.

Implementation of a uniform national measure for determining high school graduation rates will force South Carolina bureaucrats to get honest about the 53 percent dropout rate.

In Dillion 2, where the District Superintendent is salaried at $133,000, junior high band members are forced to fundraise for their own (reconditioned) instruments.

Twenty-five years after the publication of “Nation at Risk,” George Will argues the situation in our public schools has worsened.

Wednesday, The Voice for School Choice’s exposed how education bureaucrats spend your tax dollars on their own creature comforts in the form of plush hotel rooms. Today we offer our readers’ an expanded travel report. Seeing these luxurious accommodations will help taxpayers understand how a mere 44 cent on the educational dollar reaches the children in public school classrooms.

Hopefully readers will also gain a new understanding of what status quo apologists are really worried about when they falsely claim that education reform via school choice will “take money from public schools.” Our rankings are based primarily on the quality of hotels, not necessarily room prices or length of stay.

The Educrat Hotel Review: Top 5 places to stay on the taxpayer dime:

5. Marriott at Renaissance Park, Spartanburg- $3,630 unaccountable dollars

Centrally located in downtown Spartanburg South Carolina this stunning, new Spartanburg hotel is located within walking distance of restaurants, entertainment, quaint shops, and historic Spartanburg walking tours.”

More stunning than the hotel itself is the amount of money forked over by the SC Dept. of Education. Did they put up the entire population of Spartanburg for the evening? This is another example of the unchecked bureaucratic spending that whittles away the resources being sent to schools. The very people who lap up these state funded perqs without a second thought are the first ones to cry out against reform. In a state that spends $7 Billion on education, and still has a 47 percent graduation rate, should this kind of money really be going to lush accommodations?

4. Sea Watch Resort, Myrtle Beach- $870.24 washed out to sea

“With its two glorious towers overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the Sea Watch Resort awaits to present you with a Myrtle Beach resort vacation paradise.”

We personally think that “glorious” vacations in paradise should be taken by people who get glorious results in their jobs. Unfortunately, South Carolina public education administrators and bureaucrats seem perfectly willing to go frolic in the waves and keep putting real reform on the back burner. Maybe that’s because real education reform would put the money they spend on posh vacations back into the classroom?

3. Kingston Plantation, Myrtle Beach- $1,465 that will never see the classroom

“Situated on pristine oceanfront in the heart of Myrtle Beach’s Grand Strand. The drive to the tower is lined with palm trees, setting the stage for the luxury that awaits you inside.”

There’s nothing like a little publicly-funded luxury to get someone geared up for education. Of course we don’t want to paint spend-happy bureaucrats in a negative light. Maybe they bemoaned dilapidated school buildings and low teacher salaries while they sat in the pool sipping Mai Tais. South Carolina Taxpayers are only willing to pick up the $1,500 tab for this oceanfront junket because they don’t know about it. Why would the educrats volunteer the information and ruin a good thing?

2. Galt House, Louisville- $935.89 up in smoke

“Surround yourself in upscale, boutique-style charm in …our wonderful, newly-renovated downtown Louisville hotel. Indulge in a wide range of guest-friendly amenities, including six onsite restaurants and lounges, concierge desk, business center, spa services and, outdoor pool.”

We don’t think there is any question that the SC Dept. of Education guests at Galt House intended to “surround themselves in boutique style charm,” and the taxpayers back home have the $900+ bill to prove it. The thousands of children who drop out of school every year in South Carolina have the rest of their lives to learn to read. You may only get this free stay once. By all means, get room service…this one’s on us.

1. Crowne Plaza, San Francisco- $612 tax dollars down the tubes

“The newly renovated Crowne Plaza San Francisco International Airportdelivers upscale amenities and life-enhancing services in a comfortable and elegant environment.Our luxurious hotel offers a … pampering, productive environment.”

Thank goodness there is a place for South Carolina educrats to finally collect on what the public owes them: a pampering environment.

No really guys, you deserve this. In fact, you’re entitled to it! You (and you alone) make sure the children of South Carolina are provided with an “upscale” and “life-enhancing” education, so it’s only fair that the tax dollars of their parents should go toward your much needed R&R. No need to worry about growing class and racial performance gaps in our schools, just relax and unwind. Don’t do if for yourself, do it for the kids!