**The less-than-half-the-money-to-the-classroom stuff: Will and his fans may have determined that Ashley Landess is the “sharpest tool in the shed” or whatever, but the Policy Council “study” from several years ago saying that public schools spend most of their money outside the classroom has been debunked over and over and over. To get their numbers to come out the way they apparently wanted, the PC had to put such positions librarians (obviously academic support personnel….and required by law), guidance counselors (support personnel on a number of fronts….and required by law) on the other side of the ledger. If I’m not mistaken, they also included one-time capital expenses in their snapshot of school spending. People with common sense understand that this so-called research was bunk.

Of course, Will and “The Voice” and others continue to cite this non-sense as if, I suppose, they actually believe it’s a fair representation of academic spending in public education.

**Choice as a means of saving public education money: Good grief. On the one hand, these folks rant about how greedy the “educrats” are. On the other, they are claiming that public school people are turning down an opportunity to have a bunch more money and have responsibility for fewer students. Something doesn’t square. It’s because this idea of “backpacking” money for individual students — while it’s an idea that may have merit from some angles — doesn’t have much to do with school budgets.

If 10 kids leave a school with their $8,000 or whatever amount in their “backpack,” this doesn’t represent an $80,000 savings for the school. In all likelihood, especially if the 10 students are in different grades, not one single teaching position can be cut, not one janitor can be laid off, not one classroom can have the lights turned off, etc. Instead, the school just loses $80,000. Even if 50 children leave a school, depending on their age distribution, it may not result in any opportunities for the school to cut expenses…..despite what Will’s “estimates” say.

**So-called choice “levelling an inequitable playing field”: Most folks, I think, logically figure that the top private schools in SC have no interest in taking students with academic or social problems….and those are the youngsters most likely to drag test scores down and drop out of school. And in communities that have only one or two private school options, the idea that private school choice is going to save the day strikes people as pretty absurd. Floating voucher money or whatever out there might create energy for some new choice — but I think that would be extremely iffy in our poorest communities. Meanwhile, there are transportation concerns to consider.

I have long said that a targeted voucher program might work in the right circumstances. It’s hard, though, for me to see SC overcoming very real and practical challenges to make it work here. And I think most people who ponder the issue are of the same way of thinking about it.

**Consolidation: There may be a need for further consolidation, but I’m not sure Will’s prescription makes sense. In fact, I think many people in SC think is good to have smaller districts where they can have easier access to administrators and school board representatives. I have mixed feelings about it myself, but I think blanket statements about how massive consolidation would streamline administration and improve classroom learning are highly questionable.

If we separate the fluff from the substance, you will see where our resident “expert on education” is advocating greater centralization. How can you possibly have more local control if you are advocating greater centralization?

How does one arrive at the conclusion that only “thirty local administrative units in a state this size” should exist?

Basically, Fits is proposing an end of “Home Rule for Public Schools.” Let these thirty or so administrative units address the needs of 46 counties – and do it well (hint: It won’t work).

Ever bothered to do a study on the operational costs of the Greenville County School System? Remember, Greenville, once upon a time, was a multi-school district county. Compare costs, before and after. You’ll see centralization fails to work on large-scale endeavors.

- SSHM