UPDATE YOUR RSS: Voice for School Choice is Moving!

“The Voice” is moving to a new domain.

The new site is www.VoiceForSchoolChoice.com

Note that we have removed the article “the” from the URL.

Please update your favorites, bookmarks, and RSS feeds.

Links on and off site will be mirrored at the new page.

Both theVoiceforSchoolChoice.com and .wordpress.com will soon redirect to www.VoiceForSchoolChoice.com

UPDATE YOUR LINKS: Voice for School Choice is Moving!

“The Voice” is moving to a new domain.

The new site is www.VoiceForSchoolChoice.com

Note that we have removed the article “the” from the URL.

Please update your favorites, bookmarks, and RSS feeds.

Links on and off site will be mirrored at the new page.

Both theVoiceforSchoolChoice.com and .wordpress.com will soon redirect to www.VoiceForSchoolChoice.com

SITE UPDATE: Voice for School Choice is Moving!

“The Voice” is moving to a new domain.

The new site is www.VoiceForSchoolChoice.com

Note that we have removed the article “the” from the URL.

Please update your favorites, bookmarks, and RSS feeds.

Links on and off site will be mirrored at the new page.

Both theVoiceforSchoolChoice.com and .wordpress.com will soon redirect to www.VoiceForSchoolChoice.com

Public School Achievement Gap in South Carolina

The “Achievement Gap” is a name used to describe the persistent and unjust disparity between test scores among different  racial and economic groups enrolled in South Carolina’s government schools.

New data have been released, and some are hoping it constitutes a reversal of this troubling long term trend.

The political publicists at the State Department of Education spun it this way:

South Carolina’s “achievement gap” between white and African-American students mirrors the rest of the nation’s, according to a federal government report released today.  Although mathematics and reading test scores have improved for both ethnic groups, the gap between the two has decreased only in math.

But looking past the soundbites, the data do not seem to mesh with other, independently gauged, indicators.

Jim Rex Calls for Major Sales Tax Hike

“I think that might be seen in South Carolina as defensible.”

-Superintendent “Dropout Jim” Rex on lifting the sales tax cap on cars, planes and boats

From the time that cuts to the state budget were first considered a necessity, Jim Rex has opposed any actions that would take money from the public education establishment. Despite the fact that South Carolinians in every income bracket are struggling to deal with a negative economic climate, Rex has continued to put on an aggrieved air, and acted as if education bureaucrats are bearing the entire weight of the state’s economic woes.

Probe into PACT Cheating Scandal Comes Up Empty?

A SLED investigation into MiShawna Moore, erstwhile darling of the South Carolina education establishment and suspected test “tailor,” has come up with nothing.

As principal of Sanders-Clyde Elementary, a chronically failing public school in Charleston County, Moore came under heavy suspicion when PACT scores at her school suddenly shot up above district and state levels. When tests were carefully monitored, scores dropped significantly in every subject; drops that were characterized as “unusual” and “much greater” than other schools. Equally troubling was the higher-than-usual number of erased and corrected answers.

Moore-and other school employees- insisted that the scores were legitimate, and that drops could be blamed on harsh test monitors denying students snacks.

The Associated Press reports that the SLED investigation into the situation has ended, with nothing to show for it.

It is everyone’s hope that there was no altering of test grades, and that somehow the numerous and incredibly sketchy indications of illicit conduct are pure happenstance, but it doesn’t seem likely.

Hopefully, the schools overseers in Charleston County and in the SC Department of Education will continue to look into this situation, and prevent more children from being similarly short-changed.

Department of Education gives Consultants $391,469 Stimulus Package

It’s that time again. The time when South Carolina taxpayers can see just how much money the “strapped” SC State Department of Education has paid out to education contractors and consultants during a recession.

This month, almost $400,000 was doled out to a variety of consultants, contractors and political advisers. Unfortunately, those aren’t the only people who got paid big bucks. Teachers may be on furlough, or without work, but SCASA managed to somehow squeeze $29,000 from taxpayers. Were some of these other payments made to folks who had booths set up at the recent SCASA oceanside retreat? Rex’s frequent excuse that contractors are brought in to “save the department money” certainly doesn’t hold water in this instance.

Here is a recap of consultant spending in 2009.

• January-$296,526
• February-$358,398
• March-$366,996
• April-$397,876
• May-$333,791
• June-$391,469
• Year to Date- $2,145,056

Here is a complete list of contractors and consultants who received checks from the Department of Education in June 2009. See it for yourself here.

Frustration with Lexington-Richland 5

“Not to worry, it’s not real money, it’s public money!”

A letter to the editor of the State Newspaper.

“District 5 has problem with openness”

“I read with interest school board chairman Robert Gantt’s op-ed (“Community supports District 5 building plan,” June 24) in which he said Lexington-Richland 5 made enrollment information available to voters before the referendum.

“For more than a year, the district told us enrollment was growing fast. At one point, the administration told us growth would be between 300-800 students annually. That’s growth you can look around and see, and because many residents looked around and didn’t see it, we questioned their figures.

“When this past year’s student enrollment count came out, a group of residents wrote the superintendent requesting the information. On Oct. 17, several residents filed a Freedom of Information Act request, which asked the district for the enrollment. Not a hard question, right?

Traditional Public Schools Not Ideal for Every Child

One-size-fits-all government schools: YOUR tax dollars forcing a square peg into a round hole.

With the help of a $191,000 federal grant, an after-school program will be able starting up at an Aiken County elementary school.
“Aiken Families in Transition,” the grant recipient, will take in up to 125 students who need after-school help in a wide variety of academic and critical-thinking subjects.

According to a State Department of Education press release, Superintendent Rex expressed encouragement for the program, stating, “ Students who are struggling in class can get a real academic boost in a well-run after-school setting.”

Through a variety of grants and private contributions, some of the needy students in Aiken County are going to get the instruction they need to compete and excel. For these students, who undoubtedly have a wide variety of learning needs and aptitudes, this help is going to come from outside a traditional, public school classroom.

2009 SC Legislative Wrap-up (BUDGET & SPENDING)

In December and January the Voice posted summaries of legislation introduced in the South Carolina State Legislature.

Here, seven months later, is an overview of the status of those and other bills relating to the budget and state spending practices.

(Also look for upcoming reviews of K-12 Education bills, Charter School bills, and Tax bills):

S. 2 Remove and replace state spending cap

This legislation revises this limit by imposing an annual limit on the appropriation of state general fund revenues by adjusting such revenues by a rolling ten-year average in annual changes in general fund revenues and the creation of a separate budget stabilization fund in the state treasury to which must be credited all general fund revenues in excess of the annual limit. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee and did not receive any further action.

S. 72 State agencies and institutions justify dollars from any source

This legislation provides that all state agencies, departments, colleges, universities, institutions, and entities shall report to the general assembly and to the governor on January 15th and July 15th of each year the justification of the dollars from any source that are received by them, and how these dollars are used to provide services to the citizens of the state, and to provide for the administration of and exceptions to this provision. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee and did not receive any further action.

S. 130 Requires budget to have narrative

This legislation requires the Governor’s annual budget recommendation and the reports of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee on the annual General Appropriations Act to be in a programmatic format by providing a narrative description of each separate program administered by a state agency and providing the elements that must be included in the narrative. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee and did not receive any further action.