Unable to run for governor because of the pathetic job he’s done running our state’s public school system, a visibly irritated S.C. Superintendent of Education Jim Rex bitches and moans about having to testify before a legislative subcommittee in a video released today by our friends over at The Voice.
Presumably, Rex was unaware that his presence wasn’t required by the subcommittee, but you’d never know it from the condescending, dismissive tone he uses.
“I’m happy to talk about public school choice, I’ve talked with many of you about it incessantly over the last couple of years,” Rex says in the video clip. “I’m not happy, of course, about being here yet again to talk about an idea that won’t serve our state.”
Well, frankly we’re not happy that South Carolina is failing tens of thousands of students yet again – despite hundreds of millions in funding increases.
Nor are we happy that Rex spends so much of his time (and our money) fighting against parental choice when he should be figuring out a way to get more than 50 cents on the dollar into our classrooms.
Also, does Rex not know that the S.C. Education Opportunity Act is an entirely new piece of legislation? With an entirely new set of legislative supporters?
And how does Rex know that parental choice is an idea that won’t serve our state?
Has it ever been tried? After all, tax credits for low-income students served 50,000 students in Pennsylvania last year.
If South Carolina is just going to spend $11,000 a child to fail 73,000 mostly poor, black students anyway, what’s the harm in trying something different?
Oh yeah, we forgot … we don’t try anything different in this state. Which is why nothing ever changes.
“I hope that we’ve reached a point in South Carolina where we can put this distraction behind us,” Rex said.
Distraction?
By Lexvegas May 5, 2009 at 10:07 am
Rex is really condescending in this clip.
When he ran 2 years ago he as much more silver-tongued, and would have been able to spin (or co-opt) the parents in this type of situation.
His time at SDE has either worn down his PR skills or made him more explicitly partisan.
By GGIH May 5, 2009 at 10:56 am
The Education Opportunity Act is certainly not an entirely new piece of legislation. It’s the same old rehashed crap — it just has a new set of bought and paid for sponsors.
By Jack May 5, 2009 at 11:03 am
There is this perpetuated myth, that Tax credits served 50000 low income students in Pennsylvania and that somehow relates to what the SC tax credits for private school crowd wants in SC.
If you want to propose a tax credit for corporations and private citizens if they contributed to a scholarship funds to help low income students in failing schools go to private schools until their public school improves; that may be workable. But you want tax credits for all parents with children in private school, regardless of the quality of their available public school, and regardless of their income and ability to pay. Why should we give a tax credit to a millionaire in Charleston to send his kid to Porter Gaud? How does that help public education?
By GnuBerry May 5, 2009 at 11:14 am
You seem fixated on vouchers.
By sclawyerIII May 5, 2009 at 11:25 am
I still have no idea why the taxpayers are supposed to subsidize private education. If you want to send your kids to private school and it is important to you, then save your money, sacrifice, and do it.
The government won’t stop you.
However, the government has and will continue to have an obligation to provide education to those that don’t choose or aren’t able to attend private schools. I can’t see any reason why government should have an obligation to support private schools as well.
To mask this as a policy geared to help the poor black kids in failing schools takes quite a bit of chutzpah. I think we know, the purpose is to help middle class kids bail out of those schools and those students.
In the end this is a major giveaway to the middle class, the wealthy, and most especially to those in the business of private schools, which quite honestly are no better than what they do than public ones when you compare similar groups of students.
By John May 5, 2009 at 11:27 am
A tax credit for scholarships for poor students HAS been proposed over and over for the past 5 years. Over and over those sucking at the teats of our “education” pig have fought it. And why should the wealthy parents not get the same tax breaks. They pay the most taxes and prop up this ass backwards state.
By Republic, The May 5, 2009 at 11:48 am
Jack – the same PA and FL mechanism to help the low-income kids in this SC bill; it is called an SSO (Student Scholarship Organization)
sclawyerIII – do you think we should stop funding HOPE and LIFE scholarships, many of which send children to private schools? (and this K-12 proposal doesnt even provide direct allocations as the SC college scholarships do!)
By Jack May 5, 2009 at 12:09 pm
John:
First of all it is the middle class that props up this state not the wealthy; but mainly because its not fair to ask me to pay more for the public school system than you do; and it is not fair to ask me to help you pay for your kid to go to private school. I already pay for a public school, I do not use. I should not be asked to help you pay for your kid to go to private school.
My city has a substandard public transportation system. So I would like to have a tax credit to help with the purchase of a car. I have a big family and will need a large SUV; so the tax credit needs to be pretty big, and I will need an additional tax credit to help with the gas since my SUV takes more than the average car. Is that OK?
Finally I am not aware at any proposed scholarship programs targeted solely at low income students in failing schools and which ends when the school is no longer failing; because the school choice folks would not waist their time supporting such a proposal. That is not what the want. They want a state hand out to pay for private school regardless of the quality of the public school available to them.
By Ron May 5, 2009 at 12:17 pm
A new study compares education systems in 29 countries and finds a connection between diverse education options and average student achievement. The study, by Harvard researcher Martin West and University of Munich researcher Ludger Woessmann, is “the first effort to establish whether the relationship between private school competition and academic performance is causal,” according to Dr. West.
West and Woessmann traced the historical roots of the private education sector in the 29 countries. The more Catholic schools each nation had in 1900, when the Catholic Church called on its members to favor parochial schools over state-run schools, the more private schools that nation had in 2003.
Every 10% increase in the size of a nation’s private education sector in 2003 correlated with an increase of almost half a year of high school learning, as demonstrated by 15-year-olds on the 2003 PISA assessment, the best-known international test. A 10% larger private education sector was also associated with lower educational spending: a 5.6% reduction in the amount of money spent on education per student over the course of his or her educational career.
These effects remained when West and Woessmann factored private school students out and examined only the scores of public school students in each nation. “The results suggest that public school students profit nearly as much from increased private school competition as do a nation’s students as a whole,” they concluded. “It therefore appears that much of the increased performance of education systems with higher levels of private school competition accrues to students who attend public schools.”
Friends and foes of school choice have long debated the effect of a strong private education sector on the education that students still attending traditional public schools receive. Opponents of school choice say that families who accept vouchers or tax credits are abandoning the public school system, and robbing remaining public school students of tax dollars and involved parents who would otherwise prevent the schools from getting even worse. School choice proponents, on the other hand, claim that increased competition from private schools, through choice programs that break the government school monopoly, will eventually force public schools to reform and improve in order to compete for their share of the market.
Dr. West says that this study supports the claims of free market and school choice proponents. “There is nothing to fear with the experience of other countries to think that private school sectors will undermine the performance of public school systems. In fact, quite the opposite.”
West and Woessmann reported their results in an article, “School Choice International,” in the winter 2009 edition of the Hoover Institution’s Education Next journal. (www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/31105709) (School Reform News, Jan. 2009)
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By Jack May 5, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Ron, in how many of the 29 countries studied did the state pay for children to go to private school? I’ll bet none. No one is arguing the presence of private schools hurts public schools.
By Jack May 5, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Republic:
I realize there is a voluntary scholarship program in the proposed legislation. If you get rid of the tax credits, and if you pair the scholarship program down to helping children in failing schools until the school improves, I may agree with that program.
The Life and Hope scholarships are not the same. First they are largely funded by lottery money, so I do not have to contribute to them if I do not want to. Second, the state does not provide a system of free college education. Third, the number of slots at state supported colleges is limited, it may be necessary to go to a private school to get into collage; and fourth, the primary goal of these scholarships was to prevent South Carolina’s brightest students, from being lured away to other states by scholarship money.
I do not think Pennsylvania is attempting to lure SC’s elementary, middle, and high school students to Pennsylvania with the promise of a free private school education.
By sclawyerIII May 5, 2009 at 2:57 pm
That’s a good question for you to ask.
I believe that the Hope and Life scholarships are both funded by the S.C. Education Lottery and soley apply to higher education.
Higher education is not compulsory and the State does not undertake the burden of seeing that all its citizens receive higher education.
The students who go to private schools are not a drain on the public colleges and universities that they would be on the public K-12 system.
Besides, another of the arguments for letting the private schools participate in Hope and Life programs is keep talented students instate.
Finally, the lottery scholarships aren’t taxpayer funded, they are provided by people who choose to buy lottery tickets. Sure our government spends tax money to try and entice our least educated to spend their money on what is by all accounts a stupid purchase, but its all voluntary. So it is a different animal. If you don’t want to pay the stupid tax, you don’t have to…
By baker May 5, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Ron, That’s an interesting study. It does suggest that competition may be good for the entire educational scene.
But, you know, there are a lot of factors to consider, in my opinion. Which countries were studied? What money are they spending NOT ONLY on public education, but on other social services that benefit children and families? The success of children in school has to do with more than class size and teacher pay and support for the curriculum, though all that is very important…..it also has to do with early childhood healthcare and nutrition, housing, social services, employment opportunities for their parents (training, adult education, etc. come into play). If these countries are spending more than the US in these areas, then maybe they don’t need to spend as much directly on public schools.
Also, does the number of private schools reflect a higher level of resources or a higher level of commitment to education, in general, in some of those countries? Are parents typically more involved?
Are public schools’ missions more clearly defined? In America, we tend expect public schools to be everything to everybody. Especially at the secondary level, far from “one-size-fits-all,” our schools are expected to have top-notch athletics programs, extensive arts offerings, and everything academically from remedial reading to courses for college credit. Are spending levels skewed because Americans simply demand that their public schools provide a wider range of services?
Finally, what do we know about the private schools in those other countries? How are they funded? Who are they willing to admit? Is there any reasoanble chance that schools of similar quality and efficiency will open up in Allendale or Colleton or Williamsburg or Jasper counties?
Maybe the researchers have answers to such questions….if not, I’d say their “findings” are pretty dubious.
By sclawyerIII May 5, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I would be interested to see what sorts of students these foreign schools were enrolling as well.
And which foreign countries we are talking about of course.
Many foreign countries don’t attempt to provide full k-12 equivalent educations to all students, but instead have more vocational and practical focuses for those students who don’t perform as well.
It would not fair to compare American schools which do not segregate out this segment of students with foreign schools that do.
I do not believe that public schools perform much worse than private schools when you compare apples to apples. Selective public schools like Academic Magnet in Charleston and the Governor’s School perform just as well as the better private schools.
And many public schools in strong school districts are in fact much better than the private school offerings in other areas.
There isn’t a magic to private school, there is some magic in selecting out which students you don’t want, though. And that is the crux.
If culling out weaker and troublemaking students is the right approach, I don’t know, then maybe it should be tried. But that isn’t particularly a justification for subsidizing private education.
the cost of the public schools is decreasing or coming off taxpayer’s books, so that just means we’ll pay for both. That doesn’t seem terribly reasonable.
By BIN News Editorial Staff May 5, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Mr. Rex makes a great point!
The S.C. Legislature needs to tell Howie Rich and all of his voucher clowns that the voucher scam is dead in S.C.
Jake is a great person to deliver the message. Actually, he already has.
The latest education voucher’oppor’scamity act is nothing new.
Just a new paint job on the same broken down wreck.
It has a blown engine, bald tires, a busted transmission, no headlights, the turn signals don’t work, rusted out fenders, holes in the floorboard and the windshield is cracked (like it’s voucher pimp salesmen).
Worst of all, its radio only gets one channel.
W-CR@P, Live From sic(k) willie’s HowieLand Station.
Vouchers only leave those who need help the most even further behind and do nothing to address the real issues facing education in S.C.
You know the real problems: poverty, racism, the shameful “minimally adequate” standard, and the host of social ills that follow.
But sic(k) willie and Howie’s other shamed voucher clowns still bloviate like the voucher pimps they are – until Howie’s money dries up.
Will, this is personal from an old friend. You are part of the problem.
Vouchers really are dead in S.C. No matter how repaint the wreck.
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balanced
By BIN News Editorial Staff May 5, 2009 at 8:21 pm
you
;)