School Reform News highlights Choice push in SC

“South Carolina Considers School Choice Legislation“

An article by Sarah McIntosh, published in the June 2009 edition of the School Reform News.

South Carolina could become the latest state to implement a tax credit scholarship program allowing low-income children to attend the private school of their parents’ choice, if a bill introduced during the spring session becomes law.

State Sen. Robert Ford (D–Charleston) is sponsoring a bill to provide more school choice in the state. Senate Bill 520, the South Carolina Education Opportunity Act, would establish credits on personal state income taxes for education expenses and donations to groups granting scholarships to low-income children.

More than 100 people came to testify at an April 23 Senate K-12 Education Subcommittee hearing. Though only 40 were permitted to speak, twice as many spoke in support of the program than against. At a second subcommittee hearing on April 29, legislators gave the bill an unfavorable grade but sent it to the full committee for a future vote.

P&C: Keep pushing school choice

School Choice will enhance educational opportunities for our state’s children.

An editorial published in the Charleston Post and Courier (5/18):

“Keep pushing school choice“

Last week, the S.C. Senate Education Committee effectively killed legislation that could have given some poor children stuck in long-struggling public schools a private-school alternative. The bill’s opponents may have again prevailed in the political arena, but they have only slowed the momentum for school choice in South Carolina.

Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, had long opposed including private schools in educational-choice programs. But citing the needs of low-income children in low-performing schools, he introduced that bill to deliver expanded choice through tax credits, for parents paying tuition and businesses providing scholarships.

Foes of his bill argue that private schools lack accountability because they aren’t bound by regulations governing public schools. They overlook the ultimate accountability that parents exert on private schools.

The bill’s foes also point out that many communities in our state lack private schools, which means that not every child now in a poorly performing public school would have the chance to transfer to a private school. By that flawed logic, we should deprive all children of that option as long as practical obstacles block any child from it.

As for funding objections, keep in mind that Sen. Ford’s bill provided tax credits, not direct state money. Keep in mind, too, that the proposal was designed to maximize assistance to low-income and disabled children, in part through tax credits for businesses that supply scholarships to families who otherwise couldn’t afford private-school tuition.

Tax credits and scholarships for private-school tuition wouldn’t solve all of our educational problems. They would, however, enhance educational opportunities for our state’s children. Increased choice within public schools would be welcome, too. But a bill to do that, backed by state Education Superintendent Jim Rex, apparently is stalled in the General Assembly, too.

Despite Sen. Ford’s inability to get his tax-credit bill passed this year, he deserves credit for bravely going against his party’s tide. He also deserves credit for his resolve to try it again next year. As Sen. Ford told an audience at a local church recently, “Eventually, we’re going to do it, and it’s going to help some kids.”

And if we can help more children get a better education, we’ll help our state to forge a better future.

Superintendent Jim Rex supports Student Scholarships

Scholarships and choices are great (except for our K-12 schools)!

Politicians and bureaucrats at South Carolina’s State Department of Education seem to want it both ways.

Their taxpayer-funded publicists promote the importance of state scholarships for students attending colleges, universities, and vocational schools in South Carolina. They recently issued a press release (see photo) calling for greater awareness and utilization of the H.O.P.E., L.I.F.E and Palmetto Fellows Scholarships, which support students attending both public and private schools.

Similarly, State Superintendent Jim Rex has personally fundraised for non-profit scholarship granting organizations that serve low-income students making higher educational choices.

But, on the other hand, Jim Rex and his public school monopolist friends are adamantly opposed to providing similarly scholarship opportunities for students in grades K through 12 (even when the scholarships are privately funded)

NAACP’s Rev. Darby debates School Choice with National Expert

Earlier this year, Senator Robert Ford (D-Charleston) announced his support for School Choice in South Carolina.

Ford made his position crystal clear: South Carolina public schools have persistently failed to properly educate low-income and minority children. A far reaching reform is required, and School Choice offers a way to engage parents and match children with classrooms suited to their needs. As Ford explained: “All of us have been defending the system. It’s time to stop. I’m not pussyfooting with this anymore.”

One of Ford’s most outspoken critics is Reverend Joseph Darby, senior pastor of the AME Morris Brown Church in Charleston, and First Vice President of the Charleston Branch of the NAACP.

Now, national expert on School Choice Andrew Coulson is engaging Rev. Draby in an online debate over the merits of School Choice. The first round of point and counter-point essays are posted on the CATO At Liberty blog.

For those who think the CATO blog is TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) here is a paragraph-by-paragraph overview of the opening arguments:

Public Schools: your taxes are OURS!

Sen. Robert Ford: Failing public schools are destroying our children

Statewide there are 185 failing public schools.

There are 73,722 children trapped in these schools – 92% are from low-income families and 77% are African-American.

Defenders of the status quo are offering excuses and personal attacks, Senator Ford is offering a solution.

Senator Ford Ready to Rumble

According to this article from The State, Senator Robert Ford is mincing no words when it comes to his support for school choice options.  The Democrat from Charleston says he is no longer willing to stand by and watch the white/black academic achievement gap grow larger.

“All of us have been defending the system. It’s time to stop. I’m not pussyfooting with this anymore.”

This should come as a major relief to the tens of thousands of students in South Carolina who are trapped in persistently failing public schools.

WSJ: Dems need to ditch unions, embrace choice

According to Terry Moe, of the Hoover Institution, Democrats need to break the stranglehold that powerful teacher unions hold over the party’s education policy.

This from Moe’s Wall Street Journal op-ed-

“Democrats are fervent supporters of public education, and the party genuinely wants to help disadvantaged kids stuck in bad schools. But it resists bold action. It is immobilized. Impotent. The explanation lies in its longstanding alliance with the teachers’ unions — which, with more than three million members, tons of money and legions of activists, are among the most powerful groups in American politics. The Democrats benefit enormously from all this firepower, and they know what they need to do to keep it. They need to stay inside the box.”

K-12 children deserve same options as preschoolers, college students

From the State Newspaper’s “Saturday Opinion Extra” (10/1/08):

People like choices. This simple aphorism is the basis of South Carolina’s most popular and far-reaching educational reform in the last four decades: state scholarships for higher education.

Across South Carolina, the HOPE, LIFE and Palmetto Fellows scholarships have helped thousands of students attend college. Many of the students come from disadvantaged circumstances. Some will be the first in their family to attend college. For others, the scholarship helps lighten the load of high-interest student loans.

These scholarships can be used at a wide range of both public and private colleges and universities. There is no state preference for choosing Clemson over USC or Wofford over Charleston Southern. This is a personal choice, rightly left to students and their parents.

Special Needs Scholarships: School Choice Par Excellence

Special education is very complicated. Time intensive and specialized instruction, facility modification, specially tailored curriculum and assessment, specialized transportation and a virtual minefield of state and nation regulation make special needs education an expensive and frustrating endeavor. Sadly, lawmakers in South Carolina don’t seem very interested in improving the situation.

But classroom instruction for uniquely challenged students is vitally important. It can help to foster individual autonomy, practical reasoning skills, a sense of self worth, and provides for meaningful socialization.

Recognizing these important benefits, federal lawmakers passed the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) which specifically guarantees a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for all disabled students. In practice, this means that parents work with public educators to develop and implement an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) tailored to the specific needs of each child.

Because traditional public school classrooms and curriculum are designed as a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction, children with unique needs often require extensive supplementary instruction. The need for student assistants, separate curriculum, and classroom modifications often lead public school officials to place special needs students in private schools. These children attend independent schools, focused on special needs instruction, but are classified as public school students because the state pays their tuition. Not only do the children enjoy better and more specialized instruction, school districts also save thousands of dollars by contracting services to those who are more uniquely qualified to provide them.

Though federal law requires disabled children receive a publicly financed education, and allows children to attend private schools to meet this goal, this is not a decision left to parents. This important decision is made by public school employees and education bureaucrats. Sometimes parents luck out and have the chance to place their children in effective and dedicated special needs private schools. More often they don’t. Like all government policies that depend on the whims of bureaucrats, identifying any type of logical pattern to these decisions is difficult.

However, five states have taken the highly acclaimed model of special needs private school placement, and extended the decision making process to include parents of the disabled children. Rather than having to accept the mandates of bureaucrats, parents can apply for support directly from the state in the form of scholarships or tax credits. Not only do the children receive access to uniquely appropriate instruction, the state and local district saves thousands of tax dollars because federal and local funding streams are rarely tied directly to the individual student.

Successful examples of statewide special needs scholarship programs include:

Florida: “McKay” Scholarships
Ohio: “Autism Scholarship” Program
Utah: “Carson Smith” Special Needs Scholarships
Arizona: “Pupils with Disabilities” Scholarship Program
Georgia: “Special Needs” Scholarships

These programs continue to receive glowing reviews. Research indicates that participating parents are more satisfied than parents of children who remain in traditional public schools. Additionally, parents report being offered higher quality services outside the public school system when using the scholarships. There are also measurable achievement gains among the participating students in private schools when compared with their peers in traditional public school setting.

As usual, certain politicians in South Carolina seem oblivious (or simply indifferent) to the success of these scholarships. In April, a committee of state lawmakers narrowly rejected sending a scholarship proposal for an up-or-down vote in General Assembly. Representatives Denny Woodall Neilson, Herb Kirsh Brian White would not allow the bill to receive the open floor discussion that such a education improving and money saving plan certainly deserves.

Contact your lawmaker. Let them know that denying choices to parents of special needs children is unjust. It wastes tax dollars and stifles opportunity for some our state’s most underprivileged students. South Carolina can, and should, do better.

Scholarships: If College, Why not K-12?

Hypocrisy: Politicians and editorialists point to state-financed college scholarships as a major success for education and equality, but deny scholarships to parents of K-12 students.

Monday, South Carolina’s State Newspaper ran a brief article detailing the growth in publicly-funded college scholarships.

The number of S.C. students using state-funded scholarships to attend college in the state continues to soar.

Last fall, 87,867 students used the scholarships to go to S.C. colleges and universities, an increase of 2,251 from 85,616 a year earlier.

Over the last five years, the number of S.C. students using the state’s scholarships has increased by 23,812, a 37 percent growth in the program, according to new statistics from the state Commission on Higher Education.

The article goes on to discuss how scholarships are financed through Education Lottery Revenues, and that the growth in number of scholarships, and in scholarship size, is faster than anyone would have predicted. This point was considered in more detail by the South Carolina Policy Council last year,.

Beyond questions about sheer growth of the HOPE, LIFE, and Palmetto Fellows Scholarships, nothing in the article suggests the basic design of state-support for families seeking to educate their children is problematic. That is because these college scholarships – which provide assistance both for students at public and private schools – are widely hailed as a major success. Thousands of lower and middle income children, who would not have otherwise enjoyed the opportunity, have gone to college because of these scholarships. Many academically exceptional students have chosen to stay in-state for their schooling when they might have attended schools elsewhere. Finally, the wide range of public and private schools that can accept the scholarships ensures that all colleges and universities strive to positively distinguish themselves in order to attract students, raising the standard of our state as a whole.

HOPE, LIFE, and Palmetto Fellows Scholarships are an excellent example of school choice. By funding the student, rather than funding a monopolistic government schooling system, lawmakers have expanded opportunity and empowered families. This has fostered competition and expanded access. The same model should be employed for students in grades Kindergarten through twelfth grade.