Somebody Is A Little Pissy Today

RED-EYED SUPERINTENDENT JIM REX RAGES AGAINST THE MACHINE

FITSNews – January 21, 2008 – For a guy who is supposed to be the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, State Education Superintendent Jim Rex needs to learn how to take criticism a little better. And for a guy who likes to talk about school choice as an “idea whose time has come,” this sort of virulent anti-choice outburst probably doesn’t help his credibility all that much.

Sure, Rex was responding to South Carolinians for Responsible Government, who are collectively about as subtle as a sledgehammer when it comes to making their point, but Rex’s overbearing response to an op-ed published by the group’s president last week reminded us of the old Southern expression “a hit dog hollers,” whether in its name-calling, its misinformation or its failure to address the fundamental point raised by his critics.

Calling his opponents on school choice “infinitely thuggish” as well as “disreputable” and “shadowy,” Rex hits all the anti-school choice hot buttons, basically trying to get you to think that anyone who supports legitimate choices for children (as opposed to the nonexistent ones he’s proposing) is somehow under the thumb of “wealthy out-of-state ideologues who think South Carolina is a good place for an ill-designed experiment on children.”

Having vented his spleen for the first three-quarters of the op-ed, Rex must have popped a Cymbalta before writing its concluding paragraphs, because he finally calms down and actually starts talking about what he’s in favor of, not reasons that other people are evil. Of course in doing so, he pretty much reinforces why real school choice is so desperately needed in South Carolina …

“Supporting innovation and expanding public school choices for parents and students are two elements that I believe are necessary to translate the incremental gains of recent years into dramatic progress,” Rex writes toward the end of his opus frowny face.

First of all, this isn’t an incremental gain. Nor is this. Or this.

But assuming we were making “incremental gains,” is the hope of turning that into “dramatic progress” why Rex’s education department recently funneled over $2 million in “innovation grants” into the districts of supportive Democratic legislators and key budget writers?

Sure, he’s seeking to make “dramatic progress,” alright … but as usual it seems he’s measuring that progress in terms of money coming in, not academic progress going out.

And is “dramatic progress” ever really going to be achieved through the current monopolistic enhancer known as “public school choice?” Particularly when Rex’s plan would cap enrollment to just 3% of the highest attendance figure each school can come up with over the previous decade, all while giving those schools more than enough “weasel language” to deny choice for pretty much any reason they see fit.

Do we really make “dramatic progress” by proposing next-to-nothing in terms of actual reform, and then handing the keys to those phantom changes over to the same people who have screwed up so monumentally in the first place?  

Frankly, public schools in South Carolina are doing a good enough job of denying choice on their own, they don’t need that cability further cemented in the law.

Its also interesting that someone as intelligent as Rex would use the same flawed survey to justify his contention that choice hasn’t worked in other markets. What Rex failed to point out was the only choices this survey panned were public school choices, which are the exact same ones he’s championing here in South Carolina.

We don’t always agree with the SCRG strategy, believe it or not. In fact, we criticized the organization’s tactics on several occasions during the 2006 election cycle. But we do believe in the issue they are advancing, and it seems pretty clear to us that Rex’s reaction to their latest missive was as over the top as he insists they are.

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