No Sex, But Lies And Educrats Remain

It’s been almost three months since our website fired the “shot heard ’round the Midlands,” a stunning expose (if we do say so ourselves) on sex, lies and corruption in one of South Carolina’s most well-regarded school districts.

Set against the backdrop of declining achievement scores and mounting institutional pressure for a twice-defeated quarter-billion dollar bond referendum, the revelations of high-level sexual indiscretions as well as the intentional manipulation of student growth data fueled a firestorm of controversy.

Since we ran our our original story, a lot has changed … and stayed the same.

The superintendent of the district has resigned in disgrace, the principal with whom he is alleged to have had an affair is also gone, and the local school board has hired a slick new salesman to get its coveted referendum passed.

Surprisingly, we actually know Lexington-Richland 5 Interim Superintendent Herb Berg very well, and have nothing but good things to say about him.

In fact, when the S.C. School Boards Association tried to force an anti-parental choice resolution down the throats of South Carolina’s school districts four years ago, Berg was the only local Superintendent to insist that parents’ at least be given a chance to hear the evidence prior to the board voting on the measure.

It was a rare display of merit-based politics within a failed educrat establishment that typically marches in lockstep against even the mere suggestion of change.

Having said that, Berg has jumped into this district’s ill-conceived referendum with both feet – despite the fact that the district is now acknowledging just how badly it misled the public with respect to its actual needs.

“There is no doubt School District Five is in the midst of a serious facilities crisis,” Berg wrote in a recent letter to the community. “The need for renovations to existing facilities and the building of the new schools is very clear.”

Unfortunately, that’s not even halfway true.

A case can certainly be made that renovations are in order, but the need for new facilities is only clear to a handful of wealthy developers who have been trying for years to get the public to pass this referendum so that they can place shiny new public schools next to their neatly-manicured new neighborhoods.

Which makes the next sentence in Berg’s missive all the more disappointing.

“The school district, and many citizens in the community, are working hard to educate voters and to build the trust necessary for this referendum to be successful,” he writes.

First of all, the school district shouldn’t be working on anything except educating children – which is one big reason why state law expressly forbids them from using taxpayer resources to engage in political activity.

But it’s the reference to “building trust” that disturbs us the most, particularly when the lies the district has told in the past are now clearly visible for all to see – and yet the push for the referendum continues anyway.

Consider the facts …

When former Superintendent Scott Andersen was making the case for the $260 million referendum a year ago, he projected district-wide growth of 3,151 students over the next decade.

Then, in May of 2008 (two months before our groundbreaking story came out), Andersen’s figure mysteriously jumped to an estimate of 8,492 new students over the next decade.

Obviously, with that kind of growth (an average of anywhere between 300 and 800 new students a year, depending on which lie you believed) the case for new facilities would have been relatively easy to make to the public.

Yet Anderson’s numbers were obviously nowhere near accurate, and when the district released its updated student population figures this September, the overall enrollment across the district had … wait for it … actually dropped by nearly 200 students.

While school officials scrambled to justify these discrepancies, their own CFO acknowledged to the school board that “growth has not only slowed but has stopped.”

In spite of this clear and compelling evidence against the passage of a referendum for new facilities, the district is still moving full speed ahead in its effort to fleece local taxpayers.

Worse still, they are wasting money that could go toward enhancing existing schools (which were built specifically to handle expanded facilities) on a perpetuation of the tired old “scare tactic” – portable classroom construction.

A crass, costly and completely unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars, the construction of these multiple portable classrooms (at $70,000 a pop) is taking place for one reason and one reason only – to create the impression of overcrowding where none exists.

These unneeded portables are intentionally shoved into parking lots in highly-visibility locations – right up against the road as part of a deliberately misleading effort to give passing motorists the false perception of a crisis.

Last year, for example, the Irmo cluster of schools in Lexington-District 5 received 17 new portable classrooms – despite the fact that enrollment there dropped by 300 students. Those portables are all slammed as close to Irmo roadways as possible.

But it is the Chapin area of the district (where opposition to the previous two failed referendums has been the strongest) which has seen the greatest expansion of portable classrooms.

Chapin Elementary, Chapin Middle and Chapin High School each received eight new portables apiece this year, despite the fact that these three schools only grew by a combined 32 children.

Basically, two portables could have easily accommodated this growth, but district officials sent twelve times as many portables as the schools actually needed.

District officials are also misleading the public as to the impact the referendum will have on residents’ property tax bills, citing an average increase of $14 a year but neglecting to tell them that a vote against the referendum would actually cut property taxes, seeing as the district is currently in the final year of paying off its last referendum, which was passed a decade ago.

That’s vital information the district has intentionally withheld.

Fortunately, at least one of the candidates running for the school board this November is shooting straight with local residents.

Kevin Kibler, whose children attend Lexington-Richland 5 schools, has built his campaign around providing parents with an honest assessment of the district’s real needs.

A former budget adviser to Gov. Mark Sanford, Kibler recently told FITSNews that he views his financial expertise as an important ingredient in meeting the district’s challenges, but secondary to a much bigger goal.

“We not only need someone with the experience to come in and make sense of these numbers, we need someone the people trust to be honest with those numbers,” Kibler said.

Not surprisingly, the education establishment has viciously attacked Kibler given his previous association with Sanford, who has consistently pushed for expanded parental choice both in and out of the public school setting.

After defeats in 2005 and 2007, voters will decided on the referendum’s fate November 4 after district officials refused earlier this year to allow them to vote solely on funding for legitimate facilities renovation projects.

And as we did on both previous occasions, we will continue urging District 5 residents to vote “No” on this referendum … at least until somebody in their school system decides to start telling people the truth.

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