Bryant: Status Quo “Running Out Of Excuses”
By Kevin Bryant
The education establishment in South Carolina is running scared, because it’s running out of excuses.
Despite more money, more “accountability” and more government programs, South Carolina still has the nation’s worst graduation rate. Our SAT scores are still at the bottom of the barrel.
People are tired of failure, of rhetoric that ignores the facts, of irrational defenses of our state’s failed status quo and the steady barrage of misinformation accompanying those defenses.
And they are tired of choice in name only. They are ready for real change.
Several colleagues and I recently introduced the 2009 Educational Opportunity Act, which will provide tax credits for parents to send their children to any school of their choice. This is real school choice, and detractors are attacking it by saying it “won’t help poor kids” because there is “no guarantee” private companies and individuals will support scholarships for low-income, mostly minority students.
There are no guarantees in Pennsylvania either, but since its inception, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program has seen more than 3,200 companies pledge donations, and sent more than $350 million to some 600 scholarship-granting organizations. A key provision of the S.C. legislation is modeled after this successful program.
In the current school year, this investment in academic freedom has funded more than 50,000 scholarships to poor, at-risk students in Pennsylvania.
That’s 50,000 students getting a fresh start — and $300 million freed up within the public system to educate a smaller number of students.
In 2007, 62 corporations gave $14 million to student tuition organizations in Arizona, and 20,000 scholarships were made available for low-income students in Florida.
But the defenders of our state’s failed status quo aren’t just ignoring these success stories; they are impugning the motives of parental choice supporters, even playing a subtle but every bit as despicable race card.
Calling us “suburban Republicans,” they are implying that anyone supporting this legislation is only interested in making choice cheaper for those who can already afford it.
They are correct in presuming that this legislation would benefit “suburban Republicans.” It absolutely will. But it also would benefit “rural Democrats,” “urban independents,” “lakeside liberals,” “coastal conservatives” and all kinds of parents in between.
This bill will help all children.
State Sen. Robert Ford — a Charleston Democrat whose impassioned advocacy on this issue has stirred the African-American community in our state to action — is being attacked by the education establishment and prominent members of the NAACP.
I wonder if his detractors feel the same about the African-American mayors of Washington, Newark, N.J., New Orleans, Atlanta, and Jacksonville Fla. — all of whom support parental choice.
Critics don’t want to talk about these leaders, though, because they want you to believe that Sen. Ford is all alone among African-Americans in supporting a parent’s right to choose.
Our bill isn’t about black or white. Nor is it about rich or poor, rural or urban. It is about providing better academic options for each and every child in this state.
Supporters of the status quo want you to believe that this bill won’t help anyone, and yet in the same breath they contend that it will destroy public education.
The truth is this bill will free thousands of children stuck in failing schools — and will improve our public schools in the process by freeing up more money per student.
Mr. Bryant represents Anderson County in the S.C. Senate.
Comments
By Matt on April 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Kevin Bryant–great op-ed! When can we get on board a campaign for Lt. Governor maybe??
By Bryant for Governor on April 13th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
This is the best articulated article on this issue I have ever read. I know Senator Bryant and he believes what he is saying. This will be good for our state, our economy and our citizens. Let’s all get behind Senator Bryant and the other supporters or “real” school choice.
By baker on April 13th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Sen. Bryant — Thanks for putting taking time articulate your position on school choice and parental and corporate tuition tax credits. Here are a few questions concerning your column here.
1. We all know that the public school system has to serve all kids who show up. Are there any private schools in Anderson, to your knowledge, that will accept students regardless of past grades, test scores, or behavior? Since these are the students we’re generally discussing when we talk about low test scores and graduation rates, I think it’s important that we look for ways to serve those students best. Again, any private schools in your county ready and willing to take the “toughest” students? If so, what is current capacity (if you happen to know)?
2. Does your bill have any income caps, or would parents who are quite wealthy be eligible for the tax breaks? (I think the old PPIC had an income barrier set at about $90,000 or something…depending on their number of children.)
3. Why not focus ONLY at this point on the corporate tax breaks for children of poverty?
4. Are you at all concerned that setting up a choice program that guarantees money to the well-to-do but creates a wait-and-see situation (maybe the scholarship-granting organizations will flourish; maybe they won’t) for poor families will ultimately lead to much more opportunity for the rich and middle-class than for the poor? Or, if the families’ tax rebates come in well before the scholarship-granting organizations really get established, is it inevitable that the wealthy and middle-class students — in a first-come, first-serve scenario — will take up the available seats in private schools?
5. We know that many, many families depend on school bus transportation for their kids….Do you envision any provisions for transportation? If so, who pays for it?
6. Are you so sure about this plan resulting in more money for public schools? After all, per-pupil expenditures represent an average cost; the money does not literally “follow the child,” of course. If 4 fifth graders leave Whitehall Elementary School, for example, and the school loses somewhere in the ballpark of $15,000, where do the savings come in? Is losing 4 students likely enough money to lay off a teacher? To cut an assistant principle’s job? To buy fewer books for the library? To cut out a bus route? Even if the school lost 25 students, if those students are spread across 6 grade levels, it’s hard for me to see where the school budget can be reduced all that much.
7. Do comments like “running scared” and “education establishment” reflect in any way on your relationship with public school leaders in your own community? Do you regard them as failures?
By Bryant for Governor on April 13th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Baker, it’s called “choice”. It goes both ways in a capitalistic society. You can choose to go or not, the school can choose to accept you or not. No harm no foul. The opportunity to get an education is there, either private or public.
This is the same old junk that SCASA, the NEA and the educrats want the public to believe.
The big picture is this…
IF PARENTS WANT THEIR CHILDREN TO GO TO A PRIVATE SCHOOL, THEY WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN (TRANSPORTATION ETC). THIS TAX CREDIT JUST GIVES THEM ANOTHER WAY TO DO IT.
Please come up with something original. This same old tired rhetoric is getting old, and easier to debunk!
By StupidShouldHurtMore (SSHM) on April 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
If Mr. Bryant would stop petitioning the City of Anderson (to run a used car lot in front of his drugstore) long enough to take a tour of the lowcounty, he would discover that there is no amount of earmarked vouchers that will correct the malaise that is education in the southern portion of the state.
Daufuskie Island, sir?
Read Pat Conroy’s Book “The Water Is Wide” and understand that it was PUBLIC dollars and a PUBLIC school system that corrected that … not private investment.
Businesses invest primarily for profit. In tight economic times, it’s a hard sell to go to a business and say “hey, mind providing us with funding for something that you won’t see a return on for, oh say, 20 years?”
In better economic times, and with the right “philanthrophy-minded” individual at the helm, then maybe, MAYBE, something could work.
I’d rather not stake my child’s future or an at-risk child’s future on a MAYBE, sir.
I’d rather not have an individual, who is a product of public education, armchair-quarterback his way into saying “public education is bad, m’kay.” It seemed to work for you, sir. Why not others?
- SSHM
By baker on April 13th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Bryant for Governor….I think my questions were perfectly valid, and I look forward to Sen. Bryant’s response. The free market is great. But we’re talking about public money and public policy. You seem to casually disregard whether this public policy regarding the education of children will in REALITY help the neediest children.
If most of the school choice backers in South Carolina argue in favor of the points you just have, I am confident that Sen. Bryant’s plan will not get very far.
By Matt on April 13th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
baker–we don’t know whether this real school choice plan will in reality help the neediest children until we try it. We’ve tried it the same way for decades by pumping more and more money into public schools–it hasn’t worked–so why not try something new?
By StupidShouldHurtMore (SSHM) on April 13th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
@Matt (and everyone else posting),
Who among you can say the following:
“Public education failed me personally.”
I’m not much of the betting type, but it certainly is a safe bet to say everyone posting to this thread, especially to include the author of the Op Ed, is a product of public education (and is anything but a failure).
We are all engaged adults – aware of what is going on well beyond the confines of American Idol. The issue isn’t the education, it’s the MOTIVATION.
The system works … we are proof positive that it does. Address the other factors – parental involvement – that can’t be address in the classroom.
- SSHM
By Matt on April 13th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Part of the argument for vouchers and tax credits is to increase parental involvement, empowering the parent to choose the best education for their own child’s needs. Say a parent wants their kid to be enrolled in AP courses, but the public high school does not offer enough of those. Sure the kid would do just fine as a public school graduate, but maybe the parent and the kid just aren’t satisfied with the product that the public school is offering. So give that parent an incentive to take their kid out of that public school and put him in a better option. If enough parents did this, maybe the public schools would get the message and offer a better product for the kids they supposedly serve.
By Nate on April 13th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I can say SC public schools suck, ’cause they do. Now I’m a pretty good “product” but it ain’t because of the schools…It’s b/c I had parents that stayed on top of me and when I failed (I eventually was a high school drop out), helped me find the right path to be the best that I could be. And I feel bad for the children that don’t have those kind of parents or don’t have the means to go to a better school or find a better environment that will offer them more success in the shiatty public education sector that is and will be SC.
By "Strange" isn't it on April 13th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
SSHM,
It’s obvious you don’t have any children. The system works for some not others.
The system we have in place now is not working for over 50% of the children that enter the 9th grade, and many of the children that do finish high school in SC are just “pushed” through the system.
I find it “strange” that you would constantly belittle a state Senator who wants to attempt to fix the problems in our education system. Only by the “grace” of God can we hope that more children will be better served by this. If it doesn’t work, the market will kill it.
Debating you is like taking “Candy” from a baby.
By walter david on April 13th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I am imagining Senator Bryant contemplating which picture to provide for this column. I assume that ain’t Obama getting off the helicopter.
By baker on April 13th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Matt — Interesting point about AP classes.
First of all, students even having an option of taking AP courses at any kind of school aren’t generally the ones who are bringing down our SAT scores and graduation rates. Among that population, we’re talking about students who have a different set of needs….and I asked Sen. Bryant about the availability of private schools willing to serve those needs.
But all that aside, there are lots of public schools that would LOVE to offer more AP classes. In many cases, they simply can’t because of money. Now, there are certainly some schools that could take more initiative and that could shuffle some resources. But in lots of small schools — especially those already serving a high percentage of struggling students — if there isn’t significant “critical mass” for those courses, the public school simply cannot afford it. They may have to have, for example, an AP course in Calculus that has only 3-4 students — just not financially realistic in a lot of situations. I think it’s illogical to blame the school in that situation and say that giving its top students money to go to a private school is going to whip the public school into shape.
Now, there may be a fair debate about whether poor-but-high-achieving students in that public school lacking AP courses deserve entry into a private school offering those courses….and how to make that work, and what that would mean for the health of the public school, etc. But that debate, in my opinion, shouldn’t be a matter of faulting the public school….again, in cases where the costs of AP or other specialized courses just aren’t realistic.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on April 14th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Kevin,
Great pic…taken just after you emptied the port-a-pot tank on the “w” flight that took “w” home. Remember? With an approval rating in the toilet.
Good heavens. Look at your hair! You look like you’re ready to ‘lay on hands’ and shout “be healed from public education”…”be healed, and I will send you a green prayer cloth to save you from public education………….”
What m@r@ns we have as leaders and blog-pimps.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on April 14th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Kevin, Fix your hair, dude. Like anyone thinks you will get near Marine One again anytime soon. Geee, Kevin, most pimps have some pride. Don’t you?
By Toyota Kawaski on April 14th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Yes Sir Mr.Rich we will print your crap yesah boss
By baker on April 14th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I thought Sen. Bryant would want to stop back by and respond to questions…..I guess he’s no Mick Mulvaney.