Spartanburg 7 “Golf Gate” Indicative of Larger Problem

Parents, teachers and students across Spartanburg are not willing to look the other way on the District 7 school board’s recent decision to unload over $250,000 of district funds on an exclusive country club’s golf facilities. In addition to Spartanburg residents packing out a recent school board meeting ( video here), letters expressing outrage and disappointment have appeared over and over in the local paper calling for the district to back out of the decision.

Even in the face of widespread opposition by the people whose taxes pay his salary, Superintendent Thomas White has obstinately protested that the district’s actions were warranted and necessary. Families want to know: how can bureaucrats cram such unwise and unpopular measures down the throats of angry taxpayers?

Unfortunately, South Carolina continues to employ an unwieldy, one-size-fits-all public education system that puts ultimate control in the hands of bureaucrats, not parents. Because of this system, state employees like White feel totally comfortable trying to censor what parents think about how their own child should be educated, and can even openly oppose efforts that would grant educational choices free of bureaucratic oversight. Talk about a conflict of interest.

Anderson 5 Superintendent’s Talk/Actions Don’t Match up

$30 million in bureaucratic spending growth has to come from somewhere!

Parents and teachers in Anderson County are wondering how an economic down turn will affect their public schools.

According to Betty Bagley, Superintendent of Anderson County School District 5, classrooms are going to bear the brunt of the funding cuts.

Bagley estimates that the cuts will result in $900,000 less for the district, which will “require” a teacher hiring freeze and ultimately lead to larger class sizes for students.

The blame for the district losing money- according to Bagley- falls squarely on the legislature for limiting the local districts’ ability to continually raise single family home property taxes.

Never mind that Anderson District 5′s schools already enjoy a combined $11,021 in total local, state and federal per student funding. Anderson 5 officials want the ability to continue raising taxes.

Some Districts take FOIA seriously

The Voice has recently pointed out the low esteem in which too many publicly-funded entities hold the Freedom of Information Act. The number of school district officials demanding exorbitant amounts of money to provide basic information on their financial activities was far too high.

Thankfully, this attitude does not hold true for all school districts in the state.

The Voice would like to thank the school districts that went the extra mile to fulfill the spirit and letter of Freedom of Information Act. These districts provided the information requested in a very timely manner, and free of charge.

• Oconee County School District: Superintendent Michael Lucas
• Sumter County School District: Superintendent Frank Baker
• York 1 School District: Superintendent Russell Booker
• Abbeville County School District: Superintendent Ivan Randolph
• Darlington County School District: Superintendent Rainey Knight
• Lexington County School District 2: Superintendent Venus Holland
• Anderson County School District 3: Superintendent L. Hugh Smith
• Bamberg County School District 1: Superintendent Phyllis Schwarting

The Voice would also like to thank Superintendent Schwarting of Bamberg for choosing not to spend any of the taxpayers’ money on conference travel. Hopefully her example will encourage other superintendents to exercise similar restraint.

Spartanburg Superintendent Livin’ High on the Hog

Is a $14,400 annual travel stipend too small?

Feel free to request $6,000 in additional “conference travel” costs …you deserve it!

Even with the SC Department of Education expecting to deal with significant budget cuts, not a word has been said about district superintendent salaries and benefit packages. Classroom instruction and school buses might feel the bite of limited funds, but not the taxpayer-funded expense accounts of unaccountable district superintendents.

Just yesterday The Voice exposed the incredibly wasteful and unwarranted personal spending by the superintendent of Barnwell 19 school district. Sadly this kind of waste is the norm in many school districts around South Carolina.

Spartanburg County public schools are often held up as being some of the best achieving public schools in the state. Spartanburg School District 3 is among these.

What most parents in Spartanburg School District 3 probably do not know, is the extraordinarily large amount of money spent on and by Jim Ray, the District 3 superintendent.

The median income for a family living in Spartanburg County is about $45,000. Per capita income for the county is only $18,738.

Though 67% of students in the district are living in poverty, Ray has carved out an incredibly lucrative position for himself. In contrast to the families he “serves,” Ray makes an incredible $142,063 for leading and directing the under performing schools in District 3. This salary is over three times as much as the average family in his district, even before factoring in the $14,400 annual stipend for “local mileage,” and $1446 a year for dues to SCASA and the Rotary Club!

How do the schools under his care perform? Certainly Ray’s generous $151,909 salary package is justified by equally high performance?

Feds: 80% of South Carolina Public Schools Failing

After a year of poor SAT scores and bottom-line PACT proficiency, news of an across-the-board drop in the number of schools making “Adequate Yearly Progress” is just bad icing on an already inedible cake.

Parents have already had to hear that even the best performing school districts in South Carolina are still hundreds of points below public schools in North Carolina. Now, figures from the State Department of Education show that only 1 out of every 5 schools in South Carolina met goals for “Adequate Yearly Progress.”

Of all the public schools in South Carolina, only a pitiful 18% managed to meet federally-defined Adequate Yearly Progress Goals for 2008. That breaks down to 715 of the state’s 875 elementary and middle schools failing to meet their goals! Of the 200 high schools in the state, 165 failed to meet their AYP goals.

News: Accountability and Status Quo Apology

Economist Jay P. Greene notes that public schools tend to offer less disclosure and transparency than private ones (though anti-choice advocates complain about accountability at private schools).

In general, I am struck by how little public accountability there can be in public schools. As mentioned yesterday and in past postings on this blog, getting public schools to implement policies that the public adopts, through their elected representatives, is an enormous challenge. If public school officials or educators prefer not to implement a policy they have remarkable latitude not to do it or to do it in a way that severely undermines or negates the purpose of the policy.

Monitoring what schools actually do is extremely difficult because what happens in schools and classrooms behind closed doors is rarely seen by anyone other than the staff and students. And even when non-compliance is observed, imposing sanctions is next to impossible. I’ll wager that no teacher, principal, or superintendent in Georgia will lose his or her job or suffer in any other way for disobeying the law that they retain certain students. (more)

More sad news about the condition of children in South Carolina comes from the annual Kids Count report. According to the State Newspaper:

South Carolina ranks 46th nationally in children’s ability to perform. The state only ranks ahead of Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi. The Palmetto State ranks in the bottom 10 states on seven of 10 indicators. The report reveals that since 2000, the percentages of South Carolina children living in poverty, in single-parent homes and with unemployed parents have risen:

• Twenty-six percent of mothers get less-than-adequate prenatal care, leading to health risks for newborns.

• Forty percent of the babies in South Carolina are born to single mothers, up from 35 percent in 2000.

• More than 19 percent of South Carolina’s children live in poor families.

• Fourteen percent of first-graders aren’t ready.

• Thirty-three percent of all 10th-grade students fail one or more parts of the high school exit exam on their first attempt.

• Thirty-six percent of this state’s children — up from 31 percent — live in homes where parents don’t have full-time jobs. Twenty-two percent of children, up from 19 percent, live with families with incomes of less than $20,444 for a family of four.

Orangeburg Brain Trust Ponders Fuel Costs

In response to increasing fuel costs, Orangeburg Representative Jerry Govan is bending the full weight of his intellect toward lessening the impact of high fuel costs on South Carolinians. The result of this world- shaking endeavor? A four day school week.

This from the Orangeburg Times and Democrat-

“It’s worth discussing,” said state Rep. Jerry Govan, D-Orangeburg, who plans to introduce legislation calling for a statewide four-day work week.
In addition, he is currently researching the possibility of a four-day school week. He says such a move would save the state more than $10 million per year to operate school buses alone.

What a surprise. There go our hopes of Govan suggesting that Orangeburg school districts undergo an audit to determine what redundancies and waste can be culled out to free up money for necessities… like fuel for buses.