Superintendent Jim Rex refuses to replace the state’s controversial PACT test on his own, instead he is maneuvering for a change in the law to lower standards and ensure a fat contract for his political donors at DRC.

South Carolina’s Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT) is an expensive and time consuming system of standardized assessments. The tests are required by South Carolina’s Education Accountability Act (EAA) and the federal No Child Left Behind law (NCLB). PACT was designed to measure student achievement relative to a standards-based performance benchmark.

Teachers hate these tests because they are so time-consuming. Parents are upset that no detailed child-specific data is released. Taxpayer groups complain that the state is spending hundreds of millions on a test that does not allow for comparisons to students in other states.

The PACT is a horrible test. It is produced by by Data Recognition Company (DRC), a politically connected company that has paid more than $390,000 to controversial consultants Tompkins, Kinard & Associates who lobby for them. DRC has also donated thousands in hard money to Democratic Jim Rex’s campaign for Superintendent of Education and liberal Republican House members like Bob Walker, and soft money to Bobby Harrell’s Palmetto Leadership Political Action Committee (PAC).

Analysis by the non-profit North Western Evaluation Association (NEWA) shows that PACT is among the weakest public school accountability tools in the United States. The High School Assessment Program (HSAP) portion of the PACT system was rated among the lowest NWEA ever studied. Dr. Dennis Nielson, a senior scholar at the Strom Thurmond Institute, reviewed PACT in 2007 and found that it so weak and ineffective that he concluded the State Education Department and EOC may be breaking state and federal accountability laws by continuing to use PACT.

So Jim Rex, who campaigned on a promise to replace PACT, is going to find a new test, right?

Well, sorta.

Rex could work with the Education Oversight Committee (EOC) and the State Board of Education (SBE) to find a new test. He could choose a commercially-developed test, augment it to South Carolina’s standards, and even tighten up the benchmarks if he wanted to. He could save taxpayer millions of dollars and give parents. teachers, and students the data they need. But he doesn’t want to.

Rather than changing out the test himself, Jim Rex is clamoring for lawmakers in the State Senate to pass Rep. Bob Walker’s H.4662, a bill Rex knows will ensure PACT II works to hide poor performance just as well as PACT I has. A proposed revision to the Education Accountability Act, H. 4662 also promises to net DRC hundreds of millions in additional contracts by narrowly defining the specifications for the new assessment tool.

If passed, H4662 would strip the EAA and micromanage the new testing requirements, virtually guaranteeing DRC another enormous contract. Bob Walker’s H. 4662 would:

• weaken tests by replacing essay questions with multiple choice
• eliminate entire subject areas and reduce the number of children tested
• provide parents less information on test report cards
• introduce “growth” as a measure to replace objective and absolute benchmarks
• reduce the number of performance ratings from 4 to 3, so more students will automatically “meet the standard”

Thankfully, some Senators are standing up against the barrage of DRC lobbying, direct hard money donations, and soft money of PAC donations. Senator Kevin Bryant has publicly called on Rex to change the test himself, and Senator Greg Ryberg has voiced concern about the micromanagement of assessment by the General Assembly.

Rex, working with taxpayer-financed lobbyists at the SC School Boards Association and SC Association of School Administrators is already on PR-overdrive to shirk his responsibility and deliver the goods to DRC. Status quo incumbents like Walker are also eager and willing to help the DRC/Tompkins machine to ensure the checks keep coming as they fight off challengers committed to real education accountability and reform.

The facts are clear: South Carolina spends $11,480 per child on its 700,000 public school students but ranks last in national performance. That’s because only 44 cents per allocated dollar reaches the classroom. The other 54 cents helps to fuel the DRC/Tompkins/Rex/Walker machine of political incumbency and patronage.

Our state needs to focus on educating children, not lining the pockets of DRC shareholders and insulating self-serving incumbents from reform-minded challengers. Rex should adopt an off-the-shelf, commercially-designed standardized test, like the Stanford 10 used in private schools across the state. Only when parents have the freedom to choose the best of all schools -and money follows the child- can South Carolina hope to emerge from this pit of failure and corruption.

The Item reports slow progress on the consolidation of public school districts in Sumter. Massive 25 member panel already weeks behind schedule.

Special needs scholarships (like those rejected by SC House members) praised in Phoenix’s East Tribune paper.

Determined to block real school choice for all children, South Carolina bureaucrats suggest expansion of Montessori schools within the public system.

Editorialists at the Philadelphia Inquirer point to school choice as a necessary component of real K-12 reform.

Public High School Principal in North Charleston tries to raise awareness about the drop-out problem, encourages parental involvement (fails to mention $11,550 in per pupil spending at his school).

New research by the Hoover Institute finds that “Americans think that far less is being spent on the nation’s public schools than is actually the case. The vast majority of the public thinks we spend amounts that can only be described as minuscule, and almost 96 percent of the public underestimate either per-pupil spending in their districts or teacher salaries in their states.”

The Wall Street Journal argues that campaign finance “reform” and other calls for “change” mask a defense of the status quo and unjustly limit political speech.

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.