A bill that would give South Carolina parents dramatically-expanded choices passed a State Senate subcommittee today, a victory for a proposal that supporters of our state’s failed status quo thought they had licked.
Nonetheless, the S.C. Education Opportunity Act will be moving forward to the full Senate Education committee after a vote to “carry over” (i.e. kill) the legislation failed.
Sen. Wes Hayes (R-Rock Hill) moved the legislation forward with an “unfavorable report,” which several parental choice opponents mistakenly interpreted as a victory for the status quo.
Several of Hayes’ constituents had traveled to Columbia this week to voice their support for the legislation – along with parental choice supporters from all over the state.
Also, Sen. Robert Ford – the lead Senate sponsor of the legislation – attended the hearing to personally lobby for his bill.
“These are people from all across the state,” Ford said, gesturing to the crowd accompanying him. “These are your constituents!”
Without question, the tremendous outpouring of grassroots support continues to play a critical role in moving this legislation forward.
Each year, parental choice rallies at the State House dwarf those held by other causes – even those causes that consistently avail themselves of taxpayer-funded promotional support.
Parental choice supporters have certainly made their presence known in Columbia over the past two weeks, packing hearing rooms and vocally showing their support for pro-parental choice lawmakers like Republicans Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) and Larry Grooms (R-Berkeley).
Last week, two overflow rooms were required to accomodate all the people wishing to speak in support of the bill.
By hammerheadSC April 29, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Good.
Finally.
About damn time.
By Rick Adkins April 29, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Let’s hope this bill gets to a vote on the floor. If we need anything in SC it’s competition. Especially in some of the poorest districts in our state. I hope that the State Department and others will see this as a positive for our children.
As a former State Board of Education member, I feel we need to explore many options. If it doesn’t work scrap it. If it does expand it. I also feel that the legislature should stay out of the business of educating our children and leave it to those who know what they are doing. But as long as the money flows through the General Assembly they will be making the decisions.
By Republic, The April 29, 2009 at 4:17 pm
This is a solid bill.
Legislation like it has changed thousands of young peoples’ lives in FL, AZ, GA, and PA.
About time SC got with the program.
By Jack April 29, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Yea, yea right. This bill has nothing to do with helping students in SC, its about forcing me to help pay for your children to go to private school. I do not have kids in school and I already pay for public schools. Why should I let you out of paying your fair share of the state’s bills so that you can send your kids to private school. That just increases my share of the state bills.
You have always had a choice, public school or private school. Public school state pays, private school you pay. The parents of poor kids don’t pay taxes so tax credits will not benefit them, and good luck on all these corporations and wealthy people who are going to contribute money to charities to educate the poor. Those are the guys who want me to help pay for their kids to go to private school.
Now if you want to limit the credit to poor people I will believe you. Otherwise you guys are just looking for a state hand out at my expense.
Tax breaks for rich people to send their kids to private schools nutty.
By BIN News Editorial Staff April 29, 2009 at 10:29 pm
The big sucking sound at the State House was the S.C. Education Oper’scam’ity Act going down the toilet. Again. Like the other voucher scams.
But sic(k) willie and Howie’s other voucher pimps claim victory!
Like General Custer at the Little Big Horn:
“Hey, guys! We got ‘em where we want ‘em. One more charge.”
Keep it up Howie. All you have to do is buy a majority of the Legislature.
By mark g April 29, 2009 at 11:49 pm
The Voucher plans are a canard, to distract people from the real problems in education.
The fact that the SC constitution calls for a “minimally adequate” education is truly embarrassing. But the real crime is the state can’t even meet that pathetic goal. So rather than tackle the problem in a meaningful, courageous way, voucher efforts are recycled as some kind of silver bullet. When they fail to pass, those in power can blame poor test scores on that.
SC is in a descending spiral, folks. Education, jobs, economy all sinking. With the gang in office now, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
By Natasha April 30, 2009 at 6:42 am
“Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is… maybe he didn’t.” From Eli in the Royal Tenenbaums…
Isn’t that what you really mean BIN?
By Toyota Kawaski April 30, 2009 at 8:17 am
yesah Mr.Rich right away sir
By Kobayashi Maru April 30, 2009 at 8:56 am
Apparently, you weren’t at yesterday’s meeting. If you were, you might have gathered that this doomed bill came out of subcommittee with a big old cinder block around its neck and it’s walking the plank.
By baker April 30, 2009 at 11:54 am
I think the strategy of the hardline school choice pushers may be undermining their cause. This current proposal seems so obviously weighted toward the relatively well-to-do. They will get guaranteed money — and even very rich people who already have their children in private school will get money! Those are people at private schools that generally won’t admit struggling students….many of whom are poor. Meanwhile, nothing is guaranteed to the poor — they MIGHT get a scholarship to use IF they can find a school to admit their child.
I suppose the strategy may be to ask for as much as you think you can possibly get and then negotiate down from there. Problem is, in my opinion, when the plan is like the current one, it may make many level-headed people not only doubt the proposal, but also to doubt the sincerity of the people making the proposal and talking about “helping the children” (to borrow a phrase oft-noted by Will Folks).
If the plan was focused only or primarily on helping the poor, people might react differently.
By RedRabbit April 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm
jack,
If someone gets a tax credit, that means the state is allowing them to keep some of THEIR OWN MONEY. How are you forced to pay for anything? People who take tax credits or scholarships to go to private or homeschool are saving the state (you) the cost of educating that student. What’s this “fair share” BS? Parents have been paying the same taxes you have, AND have also been paying for private school/home school education that-in a small way- helps offset the state’s otherwise sorry academic ratings. Look at the legislation, read it, and look at other states with similar programs. It will help keep you from looking so reactionary and ill-informed.
By baker April 30, 2009 at 2:22 pm
RedRabbit —
You seem to be promoting a pay-per-service tax system….if you don’t use public schools, you shouldn’t have to pay taxes for them, at least not as much as public school users do. Does that mean that if I walk to work, I shouldn’t have to pay taxes for the roads? Or if a rich, gated-community pays for police protection those people can opt out of paying taxes for the Sheriff’s Office? Should they just keep some of “THEIR OWN MONEY”?
You may disagree philosophically, but I don’t think it’s uninformed to believe that public schools are part of the infrastructure of our society — at least so long as we’re going to have compulsory education. We all pay for that. Even if you have no kids still in school…or yet in school. Even if you decide you’d rather also pay for private schooling for your own children.
It’s certainly not a perfect system, and I agree that there is a certain logic to the school choice movement. I simply see it as not particularly practical….and I don’t buy the argument about tuition tax credits that says “it’s my own money.”
By Jack April 30, 2009 at 7:04 pm
RedRabbit.
I do not have kids in school; yet I pay for public schools. If you get a credit to send your kids to private school, you are paying less tax than I am and we are getting the exact same thing. A public school system we do not use.
Your decision to send your kid to private school is your choice. I already willingly pay for a school for your kid to go to, and I do not want to help you pay for your kid to go to private school by cutting your tax bill. Saying its your money is crap. Under that theory what I pay for taxes is my money to, but I do not get to say where it goes. It does not save me one dime if you send your kids to private school, unless you are going to reduce the amount going to the public schools for every dollar of tax credit you get. This bill does not do that, nor would I support one that did. We need educated people. If you pay less in taxes the state will be required to increase my taxes or borrow money so that it can continue to pay for OUR bills without you paying your fair share.
Here’s my analogy. Four of us go to dinner. We all order the same thing. It costs $10 each. We agree to split the bill four ways. You then order desert. It costs $5 and want to reduce the amount you are paying on the $40 bill by $5 because you had to pay for desert.
Fiscal conservatives should be outraged at this proposal.
By BIN News Editorial Staff April 30, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Kobayashi Maru makes a great point.
Voucher scam plus cinder block.
Great image. Drown it, again.
By econ 101 April 30, 2009 at 11:18 pm
jack
1. you need to google “marginal cost”
2. you need to read the budget – you will see only 20 something percent of the $11K in “per student” K-12 spending is actually tied to the kid; the rest is programmatic, grants, and line items… this means per student spending goes up when kids transfer out, and does so out way out of proportion to the size of the credit their parents claim
3. name one city or state where per-student public school spending dropped (or even stagnated) after the introduction of school choice tax credits… there is no such case!
4. if you are happy to be paying $20k for the sh*t schools in Allendale and Jasper, that’s great for you… but if you have any actual regard for the kids there you owe them something better than money and platitudes.
By baker May 1, 2009 at 10:11 am
Econ 101:
I think you’ve got the financial analysis of this all wrong.
First of all, as has been noted many times before, a school doesn’t save significant money with the loss of just one students, or a few here and there, or perhaps even a few dozen. If an K-5 elementary school loses 30 students, roughly five per grade, that is not likely enough students in any one grade to cut a teaching position, reduce the size of the library, lay off a custodian or a cafeteria worker or bus driver. So, the money that would be taken out of the school would, indeed, probably be a financial negative for the school.
Moreover, this bill would give money to parents who already put their children into private school. In a county like Jasper, for instance, if there are 600 kids in private schools (I don’t know what the actual number is) and there’s a $2,500 tax credit going to families for each of those kids, that adds up to a straight $1.5 million that’s got to come from somewhere….from the Jasper County public school system?
By Jack May 1, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Econ 101 – I fully understand marginal cost and it is meaningless in this case because this bill does not reduce marginal costs. You guys that seem to have a mental block here, because you are missing my point completely. I pay for a public school system, that I do not use. You pay for a public school system you do not use. We are exactly the same in that regard. But you want the state to reduce your tax and increase mine because you want to send your kid to private school. Even though I am already paying for a public school for your kid to go to.
What part of the the advanced mathematics of addition and subtraction do you people not get. If your taxes go down and the cost to operate the state stays the same, someone else has to pay more or the state has to borrow money and we have to pay more in the future. This bill would reduce your tax but would not reduce the cost of operating the state. Therefore I will pay more tax now or in the future to help your kid go to private school. This is a really dumb deal for me, and anyone who either does not have kids in school or has kids in public school with no intent to change.
As far as what I owe the children of Allendale and Jasper counties, the answer is nothing. The state owes them an education. I am willing to pay my fair share of public education for those children. But my fair share is exactly the same as your fair share, and if you pay less than me, I am paying more than my share and you are paying less than yours. I have absolutely no desire to pay more than you or anyone else just because you want to send your kids to private school. I do not care if the expenditure per student going to public school goes up if you send your kids to private school, because I am paying for it by giving you a tax break. Your absurd theory is if I am happy to pay 20,000 for a crappy school in Jasper County, I should be ecstatic to pay 21,000 for a potentially marginally better school in Jasper County.
I’ll bet you do not live in Jasper or Allendale county. I’ll also bet your kids already attend private school. I’ll also bet that you would get a tax reduction under this bill. I can assure you cutting your taxes will not help the children of Jasper and Allendale county.
If your real goal is to provide better education to the children of SC and you think making private school available will do that, here is an idea. Set up a scholarship fund with your own money, and the money of all the people supporting this bill and use the money to pay for poor children who attend bad schools to go to private school. That way you achieve your real goal at a significantly reduced cost to the state, since we do not have to give tax cuts to those people sending their kids to Porter Gaud and Heathwood Hall. Furthermore it will not cost me anything unless I choose to contribute. Which if you actually do that I will.
By James the Foot Soldier May 3, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Jack is correct – true fiscal conservatives should be appaled at this piece of legislation.
It is nothing more than a blatant ass-kiss of the Bob Jones disciples – get your noseS out of their rotund asses and start talkin real solutions for public education – PAY FOR PERFORMANCE being my personal favorite.
PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH