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

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.

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?

Voucher scam plus cinder block.

Great image. Drown it, again.

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.

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.”

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.

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.