By FITSNews || To hear South Carolina educrats tell it, funding for public schools has been cut to the bone in recent years – to “1995 levels,” in fact.
“In the past 18 months we’ve lost $700 million in cutbacks,” Greenville County teacher Kelly Nanney said recently. “And there is no plan to restore the funding, but I tell you the money is there to fund education at a 21st Century level. It is hidden in tax caps, exemptions for special interests and in poor planning on the part of lawmakers.”
While we’re not disputing the fact that lawmakers have planned poorly, the actual budget numbers for South Carolina’s public school system tell a vastly different story. In fact, during what has been the longest, deepest economic downturn in eight decades, public schools in South Carolina were actually funded at record levels in 2008 – a trend that continued in 2009.
According to the latest data released by the S.C. Department of Education, per pupil spending increased last year to a record $13,880. Total spending also jumped to $9.5 billion. In terms of money appropriated, the numbers were $13,182 per pupil and $9.1 billion – which represents an 8.3 percent increase from the previous year.
Will you read about these figures in any of the mainstream media outlets?
Of course not. They prefer to focus exclusively on the state portion of school funding, which declined last year from $3.7 to $3.5 billion – a 5.4 percent drop.
That’s sort of like looking at the state’s general fund (which is slated to drop in the current budget from $5.7 to $5.1 billion) without factoring in increases in federal funds and “other funds” generated by fees. Add those figures into the mix and the total state budget climbs from $20.1 to $21.1 billion.
Of the state’s 85 school districts, 51 increased per pupil funding in 2009 – with the average increase coming out to $566 per student.
The difference in money appropriated versus money spent, incidentally, is the result of transfers of funds between districts – which reminds us, S.C. public schools have approximately $715 million currently sitting in reserve accounts, which is $200 million more than they had five years ago.
Despite these record funding increases, however, educrats led by S.C. Superintendent of Education Jim Rex are bemoaning state spending cuts and threatening parents with teacher furloughs and layoffs. Just last month, Rex claimed that cuts of $365 million were going to do “significant damage” to S.C. public schools, and that furloughs and layoffs were likely going to be unavoidable.
Of course Rex neglects to mention that the largest increases in education funding have been going to non-classroom “administrative” costs – one reason why only half of every dollar spent on “education” in South Carolina’s public system actually makes it to the classroom. In 2008, a whopping $2.76 billion was spent on bureaucratic costs – which was up $220 million (or 8.5 percent) from the previous year.
It will be very interesting to see if this trend continues when the 2009 figures are broken down.
In the meantime, you can take a look at the numbers yourself by clicking on the spreadsheet below …
Also, for more information, visit our friends over at The Voice.
WEB EXTRA
S.C. Public Education Funding by District (S.C. Department of Education)
By Jefferson April 27, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Government instruction of children is not just the single largest budget item at the local and state level, it is the longest and most unmediated interaction with government power that most citizens engage in.
No wonder they “need” so much money to keep expanding their reach…
By Jim April 27, 2010 at 4:17 pm
You are misleading folks. Total funding from the state is up because of Act 388 – which took away local property tax and replaced it with state funding. Actual revenue to schools is way down……and what the legislature is doing to our public universities is a shame.
By fitsnews April 27, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Jim-
How are we misleading people? The numbers are provided from the S.C. Department of Education, dude.
-FITS
By Stupid April 27, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Jim
You can read the revenues line by line right here: http://ed.sc.gov/agency/Finance-and-Operations/Finance/old/finance/HistoricalData.html
and see why you are wrong.
The issue is bonds, debt, other local taxes on business, and non-EFA/EIA state revenue streams.
-or-
You can just keep speculating and pontificating and making dumb commentary.
By baker April 27, 2010 at 5:16 pm
By all means, school funding numbers get complex, and it can be difficult to figure out what you’re looking at.
Of course, Will and the SCRG folks keep on with this “half the money going to the classroom” garbage — they take librarians and guidance counselors, all required by law and serving important educational roles, out of the equation.
But anyway, a few points:
1. SCRG, or “The Voice,” claims the state “provided local schools with an average of $3,753 per-pupil in 2009.” A Spartanburg Herald-Journal report says the base student cost in 2009 was $1,764. The article also says the SC House of Representatives has proposed for 2010-2011 a base student cost of $1,630. (http://www.goupstate.com/article/20100425/articles/4251052?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)
Both of those figures are way less than what “The Voice” reported. I suppose that “base student cost” may not account for ALL state spending. What would make up the difference?
2. Secondly, while federal funding may help make up decreases in local and state funding, that money is often targeted at specific programs. That’s a lot different from having money piped into the general fund of a district. And when the general fund takes a hit, that can be where day-to-day expenses, including teacher salaries, can be problematic.
3. SCRG notes a “spike” in bond revenues during the 2008-2009 school year. Would those perhaps be for construction and other facilities upgrades? Once again, way different from basic money for the general budget.
By madcock April 27, 2010 at 9:32 pm
This is classic Sic/GOP bullshit.
It works like this:
1. The GOP legislature buys votes by passing bills that slash the revenue that local school districts get from local property taxes, paid primarily by more affluent citizens.
2. Then they use state sales and income tax revenue, paid for, as a percentage of income, at a much higher rate by working people, distributed by the state, to make up for a portion of the property tax revenue they stole from our schools.
3. When the net effect of that is lower revenues for schools(slashed propery tax revenues) but higher revenues from the state(sales and income tax revenue that only partially makes up the deficit that cutting property taxes created) they print garbage like this claiming they are supporting schools more than ever.
Imagine a mugger stealing $20 dollars from you. Then he comes back and gives you a $5 bill. When you complain he’s a thief he says “what are you talking about, I gave you $5, and instead of thanking me for giving you money, you insult me by calling me a thief.”
This is the exact racket.
If it weren’t so serious, it really would be funny.
They really are lying bastards who should be drawn and quartered.
By BIN News Editorial Staff April 27, 2010 at 10:34 pm
sic(k) willie is such a voucher scam whore that reading his posts is a waste of time. He spouts voucher clown rhetoric like a pin ball machine.
Meaningless ping, ping, ping.
By The Colonel April 28, 2010 at 7:14 am
The issue we ought to consider here is; spending does not equal instructing.
Utah has the lowest expenditure per pupil and regularly whips our butts in performance – Boston has the highest at $16,000+ and has a 57% graduation rate.
Our problem is that more than half of the money allocated to schools goes to administration. Greenville has 70,000 students and 1 district, Spartanburg has roughly the same number of students and EIGHT DISTRICTS with 8 sets of district staff – consolidate down to two and save 3.5 million in salaries alone. Richland has 2 districts and the largest student population of any of our 46 counties. 2 is about right. Lexington has 5 districts two of which have less than 3,000 students?!?
We could easily save $20,000,000,000 a year by forcing counties to consolidate to no more than 2 districts per county and eliminating the 30-45 districts that exceed that number.
By R April 28, 2010 at 8:27 am
I challenge any liberal, educrat, NEA member, SCEA member, etc to prove that money equals performance. You can’t. I’ve lived in South Carolina all my life and the educrats/liberals have run the school in the same manner for decades and 1) never accept any responsibility for poor school performance and 2) constantly state that more money will solve the problem. When Dick Riley was governor the educrats begged for the EIA (Education Improvement Act) and teachers ran around with stickers saying “our kids need that penny” to increase sales tax for education. It didn’t work and then they came back asking for more, more, more money.
The fact of the matter is that there never has been, is not now, nor ever will be ***ANY*** correlation between money spent and outcomes or performance. Members of the Legislature may change, the governor may change, and the Superintendent of Schools may change but one thing stays the same: the educrats. Its the same educrats who run the departments or colleges of education, staff at the State Department of Education, local school districts, who are administrators in schools and school districts. They continue to try the same failed methods that haven’t worked in the past and don’t work now. They refuse to accept any accountability, try anything new, or believe that any other entity is capable of educating students but them. Meanwhile private schools and home school students continue to outpace, outscore, and out perform public school students in nearly every area. Education is yet another example of waste, fraud, deceit, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, bloated administration, stifling of innovation, unaccountability, and ineptness that is anything run by the government.
Public schools, teachers, administration, educrats, and liberals are terrified of competition and accountability. The are terrified at the prospects of parents being able to chose where and by what method their children are educated. If our so called leaders REALLY want to improve education in South Carolina, and this nation, they would allow the per student cost to be attached to the student (as in Europe) and allow PARENTS to decide which public school their children went to or a private school. Public schools and teachers would be forced to either adapt, compete, and improve or fail and close. As long as parents are forced to send their children to failed schools who have a monopoly, no accountability, or competition education will not only continue to fail but get worse.
Again, prove to me that there is a positive correlation between money and performance because you can’t.
By Stupid April 28, 2010 at 8:54 am
baker,
go read the EFA and EIA and then come back to discuss the role of the “base student cost.”
it is not and never was designed to be a major portion of total spending or the dominant factor in state aid.
you have no idea what you are talking about…
By Lamont Cranston April 28, 2010 at 9:09 am
The essence of the article was something like this: “Education funding is up despite state budget cuts and the Wailing of the Educrats.” Actually, wasn’t The Wailing of the Educrats a movie produced by Leni Riefenstahl about the German cuts in education in May of 1933?
In any case, the figures quoted by SCRG are given with the intent to mislead the reader. While it is the case that SCRG and The Voice are actively undermining the public education in South Carolina, we would hope at least for some semblance of truth to be spewed along with the venom of the Brownshirts of Devine Street.
For the rest of the story, click on the website link above.
By iTeach April 28, 2010 at 10:31 am
1. Parents have always had a choice with regard to their children’s education; private schools and home-school groups are well-established in almost every community in SC. No one is “forced” to attend public schools.
2. Public schools are not afraid of accountability- recent changes in teacher evaluation procedures are as stringent as can be. The world has changed so rapidly in the last twenty years. Expectations for students are higher than ever, but students need your moral support- not constant whining about schools.
3. Go volunteer for a few days in a MIDDLE or HIGH school and then see how you feel about all this. You’ll see that there are more GOOD things happening in schools every day that you could ever imagine.
4. Bureaucracy is the enemy of teachers as well. We would much rather be able to buy new dry-erase markers or take our children on a field trip than to have a “learning specialist” employed by our district or school.
By The Colonel April 28, 2010 at 10:34 am
“Brownshirts on Devine”?!? I’m over in SWA, help me out with that one please.
By Toyota Kawaski April 28, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Yesah we noes Mr.Rich it has benz several weeks cents we inked some BS for you we wills does a better job please donts cuts us off sirs
By baker April 28, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Thanks, Mr. Stupid — I asked the question about base student cost vs. overall state funding. I didn’t claim to be the expert. If you’ve got a synopsis to share, great.
A couple of erroneous comments have been made here, though, including that more than half the money goes to administration. I guess if someone has a very liberal definition of “administration,” maybe…..but are librarians and guidance counselors “administration”? For that matter, is all maintenance to considered “administration”?
Sure, it sounds good to talk about administration and so-called “educrats,” but it doesn’t always contribute to an honest discussion.
Same goes for this bit of ridiculous hyperbole by “R”: “The fact of the matter is that there never has been, is not now, nor ever will be ***ANY*** correlation between money spent and outcomes or performance.”
By beetrave April 28, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Will: the boilerplate BS about “half of every dollar going to administration” is beneath you. We all know that those monies go to everything from libraries to gas for the buses. Stop insulting your readers and detracting from more substantial arguments you make in this and other articles.
That said, I do agree with comments above that SC schools should look into consolidating districts — especially in the Midlands. There is no good reason to duplicate all of the administrative positions held in Richland 1, 2, 3, & the Lexington districts.
I believe in school choice, too, especially if it can be used to subvert white flight. How many spots in Irmo are available for kids who currently attend Eau Claire High? Or Hyatt Park Elementary? I’m sure that some of their parents would be happy to drive them up there for a chance to go to their award-winning schools, especially those schools that have boundary lines drawn so that they only draw from a certain group of subdivisions. School choice now!
By Just a thought April 28, 2010 at 1:29 pm
It costs more today to educate one child compared to the cost of 20 years ago. Outside social problems, like poverty, drugs have increased without camparative and increasing services. Outside pressure impacts the schools and students. Bottom line: South Carolina is an anti-education state. It wallows in ignorance; it enjoys and celebrates ignorance. Consequently it will always compete with Chinesse coolies for wages and jobs. Businesses will pass this state by, unless they need poor uneduated unskilled workers.
By It IS that bad April 28, 2010 at 3:06 pm
it was the budget and control board that determined that 44 cents per dollar is spent on “instruction.”
that is the figure listed in their annual “local government finance report.”
By Simple-Simon says use Common Sense April 28, 2010 at 3:53 pm
1. Audit the DOE and all 85 School Districts.
2. Post the audit for public review online.
3. Make every single penny of education spending in South Carolina – federal, state and local – available for review by the public in a centralized, easy-to-digest format on the Internet.
4. Consolidate districts, eliminate non-classroom costs, ineffective programs, and reduce duplicative administrative positions.
5. Fire the ineffective teachers.
6. Create competition by privatizing supplemental educational services for persistently failing schools.
7. Eliminate the cascade of federally mandated sanctions by abolishing the Federal Department of Education.
It’s no longer acceptable to simply highlight the recklessness of our out of control government or play the political blame. That approach won’t fix our broken system. We don’t need education reform, because reform is a mere change of an existing system and the existing system is eternally flawed. What we need is a TRANSFORMATION to an educational system that is guided by the Constitution and individual liberties.
Elect Kelly Payne as the next Superintendent of Education.
KIDS FIRST!
http://www.votekellypayne.com
By Mad Mama April 28, 2010 at 4:22 pm
iTeach, I am wondering what you are doing online at 10:31 a.m. if infact you doTeach?! There is not more good than bad going on in the schools. Wake up!!! The next two weeks kids across the state will be wasting time and engery preparing for and taking PASS testing. I don’t give a rats fannie how my kid does on a standardized test. Money, time and energy are wasted every day at school. One other point iTeach, if I don’t send my kids to school then DSS shows up or a truancy officer. I shouldn’t have to home school to be sure my kids are in good hands and even if I did, I’d still have to pay taxes to fund the public schools. I don’t conduct oral surgery at home either…I find a good orthodontist that I can trust and that I choose based upon reputation and proven performance. Teachers and administrators like you with the attitude of “if you don’t like it, then home school them” are a big problem too. Oh, and have a nice day!
By WilliamW April 28, 2010 at 11:55 pm
What an interesting blog posting from such an interesting site. Seeing as how your subtitle is “Unfair and Imbalanced”, I can see directly why you would post such misleading figures regarding educational funding in South Carolina. With pride and bliss, you also post a link to The Voice For School Choice. What a joke. Let me be a little bit sarcastic. Can I? The Conservative Republican controlled state legislature wants to do even more damage to state funding for education by eliminating the state corporate tax rate(HB 4478) which is only a tax on their overall profits and by the way is one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the nation. Lest we not forget, that they could and probaly write off the five percent they currently have to pay at the federal level with the enormous federal corporate tax credits they recieve. Do you not think that eliminating the third largest revenue generator for the state government budget will bring so much more revenue for statewide school funding and college and university funding? Oh, and how those wonderful proposed new higher fees for hunting licenses and a larger state sales tax can make up for revenue losses. The Republican legislators have such wonderful ideas. They will work wonders for new revenues to balance that state budget in recessional economics. The state’s unemployed and lower income citizens certainly support a high grocery tax that was once proposed. When conservative “school choice” idealogy replaces an ability to look at the state’s educational system and come up with sensible solutions, even those most uninformed South Carolina citizens can see through your rubbish. Let me access the conservative idealogy that is present here and around the state for conservative solutions to educational issues with a litle sarcacism.
1.Republican candidates for statewide office should continue to take money from a New York real estate mongul who wants South Carolina to be the next test case for school voucher programs. Yay! Even those his plans to privatize the New York public educational system failed, and most New Yorkers rejected his proposals, we should try it here. I wonder if the state legislature can give a voucher to a parent who lives in North Charleston that will pay for the tuition at Ashley Hall? Do we have the state revenue for that? Is that economically feasible?
2.Build up harsh rhetoric at Republican Party events, church gatherings, and other “Conservative” meetings about how our public schools are a waste of money even though the majority of the target audience has their children enrolled in public schools.
3.Promote the school district consolidation effort even though all those “conservative parents” you are trying to reach out their like their local school boards and easy access to their administrators.(Just check out the votes and previous activity of upstate legislators when the state legislature acted upon school district consolidation before) Bunch of bad Republicans, right?
4.Promote the misleading information that homeschoolers and students who attend private schools in South Carolina are achieving more than students who attend public schools. Do you have some sound statistical data that they perform better?
5.Promote an oxymoronic statement. Use Federal AYP status and statistics for school ratings in South Carolina( that you mention in The Voice) to show how schools are failing while at the same time not acknowleging that these “state designed tests” that you speak of are written or heavly influenced by the “private” educational publishing companies. Sure, thats the way to go, keep promoting the “privatization effort” while not letting people know that it was the private educational publishing companies that produce more than half of the standardized tests states use in this country to measure student performance. It should not matter that they produce tests without proper evaluation of state ciriculum learning models. Right? Wouldn’t a more sensible solution be to allow the”educrats” you so disdain (you know those useless statiscians and academic evaluators hired at the SC State Department of Education) who actually know how to advise test writers what content material should be included?
6.Lets not forget that NCLB was championed by the Bush Administration. Is it possible that the data conservatives are using was a political calculation and AYP status is ammunition for conservatives to show how bad public education is in this country? Is it no surprise that the biggest lobbying group for passage of NCLB were the educational publishing companies who did not consider concepts like testing variables and pluralistic classrooms? You can check back on congressional testimony by experienced educational testing writers that specifically said testing models in many states were flawed but no matter Congress passed it anyway. Frontline has some valuable information on the flaws of NCLB. Oh, but I forgot, anything on public television is elitist eastern liberal crap because conservatives need only Fox News which is fair and balanced right?
By Roan Garcia-Quintana April 29, 2010 at 4:54 am
Well, it does not surprise me that in order to counter the facts presented here, those government-education lovers have to resort to insults, innuendos, and straight out lies. First of all, having worked at every single level of education, I have seen the waste that goes on inside the school house, the district office (indeed!), the state department of education, and in the US Department of Education, where I worked as a deputy director at the National Institute of Education.
The government education system is bankrupt and I don’t mean monetarily, but in the intellectual and common sense. There is plenty of money to make it work. Many district office personnel make over $100k a year. For each one that you remove, you can hire 3 or 4 beginning teachers. But do you ever hear the educrats say, “we are going to have to eliminate all of our deputy superintendents, or curriculum consultants, etc?” Of course not. That would alarm no one. Yet these educrats are the ones who impede the use of sound pedagogy by dedicated teachers. All these educrats do is promote failed fads that have been thrown out by California (e.g., Block scheduling, whole language, new-new-new math, the middle school concept, ad nauseum).
I worked for a school district that in my first three years found $20 Million, $10 Million, and $20 Million, respectively. How do they find this money? The most I have ever found is a $20 bill in my sock drawer. Now we really don’t know how much money goes to the classroom. Barbara Nielsen, a Republican by the way, redefined what constituted “instructional positions” to the extent that almost everyone in the school, except the janitor, was considered a teacher. Just look at the number of teaching positions and divide that number into the number of students and you will get a very small student-teacher ratio, which teachers will tell you it just isn’t so.
My point is that money is not the answer. Catholic schools educate for about 1/4 of what the per pupil cost for government schools do. Charter schools also educate for a fraction of the traditional government school, and they can hire college professors to teach; something the traditionals cannot do, because they only hire “certified” teachers.
Certification is another issue altogether. But most people don’t know that a Physics professor from Clemson, USC, MIT, or any university is not allowed to teach in a public high school. Why, because he or she have not been indoctrinated in what is called the certification process: the history, philosophy, psychology of education as well as other courses that contribute absolutely nothing to the education of a student.
So let us get rid of the educrats in the state and district offices, move the money into the classroom and reduce the number of administrators at the school level. Let’s make our schools a place that is conducive to teaching and learning. Let’s let teachers teach. Good teachers are willing to exchange part of their salary for a good teaching environment. Just ask private schools. Each year they get lots of applications from government-school teachers who are willing to take a 30% cut in pay, just to teach in a good environment in which they are supported and not threatened and intimidated.
By Zeke White April 29, 2010 at 10:36 am
The goal of any public administration is to deliver goods and services effectively and efficiently with limited resources. Spartanburg District 4 has had to not renew 12 teachers and can’t hire any. It is considering 5 furlough days. Conservative spending policies have allowed the district to fill in missing state funding this year with general funds money. Next year, due to Act 388, things will get worse.
Per pupil spending in District 4 is around $7200 putting the district in the bottom 5 in per pupil spending in the state. Still, the district is in the top 5 in positive results and graduation rates in spite of being a mostly poor and rural district in a wealthy county.
Anyone in the district can reach the superintendent or other administrators any time or talk to them at events. They are responsive and contentious. In the single district in Greenville, it is almost impossible to reach the superintendent. We get a lot of bang for our bucks in Spartanburg District 4 and we like it that way.
No privatized or voucher funded system can help make so many people at least literate.
An educated population is fundamental to democracy. That the neoconservative run Republican Party in this state desires ignorant and malleable masses to vote against their own good for political gain is simply appalling.
“Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners could vote.” Hunter S. Thompson
By baker April 29, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Roan Garcia-Quintana makes some good points.
I wholeheartedly agree about teacher certification. We should be figuring out ways to make it easier for talented and knowledgeable people to become teachers — not the other way around. For elementary education, where teachers actually teach basic reading skills, etc., pedagogy is more important, I think. But at the secondary level, knowledge of subject matter, along with at least some practical experience/introduction, should suffice.
There is waste at various levels of education, obviously. And fads do come and go. I can see all that.
At the same time, there is some waste in almost any organization. I worked for a corporation that, it seemed to me, wasn’t always very efficient. Private schools have their waste, I figure. And it is cheaper at many private or even charter schools to educate students for less money because they may not be dealing with costly programs such as special education….they may not provide bus transportation….they may not field athletic teams….they have greater latitude to remove unruly kids….and so on.
By M Falk May 22, 2010 at 3:29 pm
My son attended school at Sullivan’s Island Elementary School. I have two older children who attended public, private and parochial schools in KY. One has just graduated from a private college the other is a student at a large SC University. I have, in 23 years of dealing with administrators at schools, NEVER seen such a mess as I did at Sullivan’s Island. The Principal was more concerned with the children walking on blue lines in the hallway, and not talking at lunch than learning. The teachers were trying, but they had 25 children in every classroom and had to ‘teach to the test’. I have moved my child to the University School of the Lowcountry. uslowcountry.com There are 25 children in the whole school. 4th-8th grades. In my experience as a student and the parent of students, the most important factor in my children’s academic success has been the size of their classes. The smaller the ratio of students to teacher, the higher the success rate of student. This is why homeschooled children do so well. This is why children educated in private schools tend to do better-classes are USUALLY smaller, AND in both of these learning environments, the ‘rules’ can be adjusted to meet the needs of each individual student. Individual thinking is encouraged. Pack mentality discouraged. New orleans is having very good success with it’s decision to create a charter school system after Katrina, making each school autonomous. What works in Mt. Pleasant is not going to work on Rutledge Avenue or James Island. Perhaps the reason Lexington County Schools have the some of best students in the state is that they have taken a small number of students and broken them down into an even smaller subset making it easier to fulfill the needs of each specific group. Those of you who say that the administrators are wasting money, yes and no…we need them at the very local level and a small group at the state level. That’s it. The principals of the schools need to be experienced educators with an interest in how children learn, not how to ‘learn’ children. More local, smaller neighborhood schools to which children and their parents can walk with teachers who live close by with lots of connections to the community like local corporate sponsors for sports, and arts, and theatre and playgrounds among other things would be a great answer giving everyone a vested interest in the education of the children.
By M Falk May 22, 2010 at 3:31 pm
PS We live in a Republic, not in a Democracy.