Despite its documented failure at the state and national level, both S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and State Sen. Vincent Sheheen joined “Republicans in Name Only” in the S.C. Senate this year in approving a $26 million appropriation for expanded early childhood education – U.S. President Barack Obama’s signature education initiative.
(Haley had repeatedly opposed the K-4 program, however we predicted her forthcoming flip flop in this post back in January).
“I do know these are areas that are challenged and I do know these are areas where we need to step up and do more,” Haley said of the program, which fiscal conservatives urged her to veto. “I’m willing to test it and see how it goes.”
Already unsatisfied with this $26 million expenditure, Sheheen announced this week that he will push for additional government spending on this unsuccessful program.
“While the 4-year-old kindergarten expansion this year is a tremendous step, there is still much more that needs to be done,” Sheheen said. “We must continue to work for full-day, voluntary, universal, 4-year-old kindergarten so that every child — no matter where they live — has the chance to learn and succeed.”
Yeah … except government-funded four-year-old kindergarten doesn’t help children learn or succeed. It simply deprives taxpayers of money.
“The percentages of children at-risk for not being ready to succeed in school have not decreased since 2000,” a recent report from the S.C. Legislative Audit Council (SCLAC) revealed, referring to the impact of the state’s initial foray into government-run early childhood education.
The price tag for Sheheen’s latest proposed expansion of this failed program? He didn’t say …
This is a perfect example of the failure of appeasement when it comes to dealing with fiscal liberals of both parties in the S.C. General Assembly. Haley probably thought approving this program would keep Sheheen at bay for awhile, and it did – for six weeks.
Will Haley finally draw a line in the sand on this issue during the upcoming campaign and stop throwing good money after bad?
And more importantly, why is there not a candidate in the race for governor advocating for the elimination of these failed programs?
11 comments
A Liberal commie whore wants to spend money. What else is new.
You left off the part about spending other people’s money while making himself tax exempt.
Damn
A complete and total disgrace. He could spend a hundred grand per kid with no appreciable results. His face actually makes me nauseous.
We need to spend more for cradle to grave indoctrination. “It’s for the children.”
I hope to GOD the GOP puts someone to run against Haley she has been nothing but a failure..at least Sheheen didn’t give out our social security numbers trying to please the Teabaggers over a piece of $24,000 equipment that would have stopped the hacking.
Other countries around the world have children learning a 2nd language in kindergarten……..we have kids who aren’t potty trained or can count to 10! Yeah, don’t fund any kind of education, wat do we ned edumacattion fer!
That’s an “apples to oranges” argument. Completely idiotic comment. Our ongoing public school disasters cannot be solved with more money. People like you are determined to ignore the elephant in the room; lack of incentive and respect for authority among “students” and parents, virtual lawlessness among a growing segment of “students”, and the almost complete breakdown of the traditional family. Congrats Democrats, you have achieved stunning progress in only fifty years.
In general, liberals look at public education as an investment and conservatives look at it as a cost. Research, experimentation, minerals prospecting, and I am sure a host of other areas of activity in businesses get a similar dichotomy of view, but without the political connection. Both ends of the spectrum have some truth to them.
There has never been and will never be any correlation between the amount of money spent on education and outcomes. The U.S. spends substantially more money per student than any other nation on earth and we rank 18th. In fact, the worst school districts in America spend the most money per student. Educrats, NEA, and SCEA members keep demanding more and more money touting this as the end-all solution. remember the EIA (Education Improvement Act) with teachers and educrats using the slogan “Our kids need that penny) that raised sales tax 1 cent for education? That was going to be the end-all be-all solution to all our education woes. Didn’t work. They kept going back to the Legislature demanding more and more money. Now education receives over 1/3 of the state’s budget not to count the outrageous amount of property taxes local school districts take in.
Here’s a shocker, in the mid-1970s Finland had one of the worst education systems in the world. Now? They rank #1 in the world. They are in class half as long as our kids are per day. The difference? Better teachers. In Finland teachers are considered up there with engineers and architects. Only 10% of students who apply to become teachers get into a teacher program. Here any dumbass can be a teacher. In fact, it’s a joke that students who don’t know what they want to do or can’t hack other subjects go into teaching. As the saying goes: those who can do, those who can’t teach.
Someone needs to have the balls to bring in business experts, use Six Sigma, and trash the current system, and re-engineer the entire educational system and bring in people who can get the job done. Bring in professionals from the real world to teach classes. Get rid of the idiots who took all those stupid, inane, marxist education classes in college. Bring in people with MBAs, engineers, chemists, biologists, researchers, doctors, economists, etc. that have masters degrees or PhDs, no education classes, and let them teach kids.
Is anything new with the Democratic Party? Their solution to every problem is “we need more money.” Yes, they care and they show it by their desire to throw more money at a problem . . . not their own money, of course.