SC

SCEA About More Than Government Schools

Anyone who pigeonholes the S.C. Education Association (SCEA) as just another establishment voice for bureaucratic bloat misses the far larger, more sinister point of the organization. And while it’s probably fair to say establishment groups like the S.C. Association of School Administrators (SCASA) and the S.C. School Boards Association (SCSBA)…

Anyone who pigeonholes the S.C. Education Association (SCEA) as just another establishment voice for bureaucratic bloat misses the far larger, more sinister point of the organization.

And while it’s probably fair to say establishment groups like the S.C. Association of School Administrators (SCASA) and the S.C. School Boards Association (SCSBA) really are singularly focused on leeching as much money and influence as they can out of the state’s bloated education bureaucracy (which is bad enough), the SCEA takes this status quo advocacy a step further.

In contrast to the bureaucratic legions of the other alphabet soup unions (and make no mistake, they are the equivalent of unions), the SCEA exists to function as the NEA’s main conduit of influence into South Carolina. That’s a troubling reality for a number of reasons.

If you can believe what the nation’s biggest, most influential teachers’ union says about its own agenda, the desire to possess influence is South Carolina is about way more than improving classrooms, or picking up a few more dues-paying members.

The NEA wants its South Carolina affiliate to establish a beachhead for them to propogate radical social change.

If you think that sounds crazy, try reading through the NEA’s “2012-2013 Resolutions.” The NEA’s guiding document openly supports divisive, far-reaching policy changes should make our most skeptical reader scratch their heads.

We’re talking gun control, abortion on demand, government healthcare, and mandatory teaching of school children about sexual diversity.

Take a look …

  • The Association further believes that strict prescriptive regulations are necessary for the manufacture, importation, distribution, sale and resale of handguns and ammunition magazines. The possession by the private sector of automatic weapons and military-style semiautomatic assault weapons should be illegal except for historical and collection purposes, which must be strictly regulated.”
  • The National Education Association supports family planning, including the right to reproductive freedom. The Association urges the government to give high priority to making available all methods of family planning to women”
  • The Association supports the adoption of a single-payer health care plan for all residents of the United States, its territories, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Don’t think that’s sweeping enough? The NEA recently stated its support for the United States (and its legal system) submitting to the United Nation’s “International Court of Justice” to resolve international disputes.

That’s the agenda driving the NEA. It’s not about teachers and smiling children; it’s about reshaping the country until everything conforms to their own radical vision.

Can we be expected to believe their affiliate (and financial dependent) here in South Carolina is somehow detached from these same causes? Of course not.

The fact that the SCEA is viewed as a credible voice in South Carolina’s education dialogue is nothing short of terrifying.

Of course its advocacy is yet another reason why our state’s status quo continues to resist long overdue market-based reform of our failed government-run school system.

***

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26 comments

Fleet March 14, 2013 at 7:16 pm

No collective bargaining for state employees=SCEA is powerless. This is another nonstory by Fits.

Reply
CNSYD March 14, 2013 at 8:44 pm

Bingo!

Reply
Fleet March 14, 2013 at 7:16 pm

No collective bargaining for state employees=SCEA is powerless. This is another nonstory by Fits.

Reply
CNSYD March 14, 2013 at 8:44 pm

Bingo!

Reply
lowcorider March 14, 2013 at 9:54 pm

If you see a public school headline on this site don’t bother reading it. Same old same old. Just deposit the Rich check sic. A hundred articles on public schools from another white man who has never had a child in attendance.

Reply
Mike at the Beach March 15, 2013 at 12:06 am

Soooo… to follow your logic, since I bust my hump to keep my kids in a private school, I forfeit my right to voice an opinion (or at least have it considered by you and your ilk, anyway) regarding the incredible waste and inefficiency attendant to the administration of SC’s public education system funded with my tax dollars? Oh, I’m a white guy, so I guess I can’t have a position of civil rights either. I’m also straight, so ditto on gay marriage. Does that mean that all of these clowns who’ve never served in the armed forces and seen combat will finally stop blabbering about military issues like women in combat roles? Doubtful…

Reply
sweepin March 15, 2013 at 7:56 am

One man, one vote. Your voice is no more nor less of any other’s. However, currently, your’s is of the minority.

Reply
Smirks March 15, 2013 at 9:16 am

No one is telling you that you don’t have the right to hold an opinion, they are just telling you your opinion is shit and people shouldn’t waste their time listening to it. And I’m inclined to agree.

There are a vast number of people paying taxes that go into schools, including people who no longer have kids in school, people who haven’t had kids yet, people who will never have kids, people who homeschool, and yes, people who send their kids to private school.

Public schooling is an investment the people make to guarantee a certain level of education to children. The reason being is that education can be expensive and a child shouldn’t be denied an education just because their parents can’t afford to pay for it. The public school system runs and should run regardless of whether or not you have kids and regardless of whether or not you put your kids into public schooling.

Lives change. People who once homeschooled their kids may suddenly find themselves unable to. People may plan to homeschool their kids to a certain age and then put them in a public school. People may put them in private schooling and suddenly become unable to afford it. People may decide or discover their private school isn’t adequate, or is even doing worse than the public school their kid would be going to.

What the “school choice” crowd is asking for isn’t choice. You have your choice. What you want is your money back for not choosing public schooling, but you still get to keep the choice of public schooling. Public schools still have to run, they still have to provide an education, they still have to maintain buildings and pay teacher salaries, and at any given point in time, they have to allow your child to attend, even if you skipped out on paying the public school system for the last ten years. They have to make sure they have the classroom space. They have to have the teachers ready and available. They have to have the desk, the books, the locker for your kid. They have to have the electricity on, internet access, working electronics to aid in teaching your child. It is flat out wrong for you to demand YOUR tax dollars back until suddenly YOU decide to put your kid into the system and make use of a bunch of shit YOU didn’t help pay for. THAT is the “choice” the voucher crowd asks for, and it is a giant steaming load of horse shit.

If anything, the people that won’t have or no longer have children have a far better case to demand their money. THEY have no choice. THEY must pay into a system they cannot use (albeit they possibly did use or could have used at an earlier point in their lives). THEY don’t hover over the heads of the public school system with a potential added burden that could drop at any time.

You may not like it, in fact, you may downright hate it, but public schools are your safety net. They are the social floor that your child cannot fall beneath, the one line of defense between some education and no education, and will be made available to you no matter if you are filthy rich or dirt poor. One day you may need it. One day it may be the only thing that you can use to educate your child. The least you could do is demand the system be improved, if not fixed, and strive to make it better not only for those in public school, not only for those who don’t have a choice, but for those who do have a choice who may one day lose that choice. The least you could do is instead of demanding your tax dollars back and choosing not to give a fuck what happens to the system you abandoned is to actually take an interest in what is being done to make the “incredible waste and inefficiency” go away.

Vouchers don’t make the public school system better, they allow certain people to ignore the state of the public school system and rob funding from it that everyone else has to pay into. This speculative shit about it introducing “competition” and “free market” whatever into the public school system is absolute crap, that by taking funding from public schools they’ll somehow be inclined to miraculously improve even though nothing else has been done. They won’t. Public schools fail kids, but public schooling itself doesn’t “fail” and disappear, much to the horror of those who are left behind on the sinking Titanic while the voucher crowd boards the lifeboats they secured for themselves. Bad public schools will still run, they’ll just run even worse than they did before.

Reply
lowcorider March 15, 2013 at 9:59 am

So you mad boo?

Reply
Mike at the Beach March 15, 2013 at 11:18 pm

Wow, you guys rile easily! I don’t know from whence any of your madness stems, but you’re not sucking me into it! I simply pointed out that you made a logically flawed statement / inference that if one
doesn’t have their kids in public school, their opinion is somehow of less
value (or less valid) than those of the parents who choose public ed. I made no reference to getting my money back or any other weirdness; I’m simply stating that my opinion is an educated one, and the fact that I choose to keep my kids in private school in no way affects the validity of whatever point I MAY EVENTUALLY MAKE about school choice some day (just as non-vets are entitled to educated opinions regarding military service, war, etc.). You ladies all need to take deep breaths. I’m not in favor of the privatization of education (although I can listen to Will’s opinions on it without hyperventilating). As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even touch on whatever opinions or positions I may have in regard to SC’s education establishment, other than it’s expensive and wasteful and could use a little reform. Not exactly a “scrap public ed” position, no?

I think this Rich guy whose name always pops up here at some point during education debates must possess some powerful dark mojo (I’ll Google him up this weekend and check that out). We need a name for this phenomenon – similar to Godwin’s Law (the theory that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler or the Nazis reaches a near-certainty). The “Howie Phenomenon,” perhaps…as any discussion of public education begins on FITS, “Howie,” “Rich,” or “cash those Howie Rich checks” gets mentioned as a matter of near-certainty.

It’s all good, though- and it’s going to be damn near 80 degrees here in the Redneck Riviera tomorrow. My Howie Rich Google session may have to wait. Me and my two evil little private school kids may be on the inlet…

Reply
Please March 16, 2013 at 10:50 am

If you don’t know who Howard Rich is, the multiple shell organizations he funds, and the political donations he makes to candidates in SC and other states in an effort to further his agenda, you really don’t need to participate in this discussion because you haven’t been paying attention. At all. Please come back when you’ve done some research.

Mike at the Beach March 17, 2013 at 4:12 pm

I know enough about him in regard to who he is, what he funds, etc.; I
meant that I would try to research why he seems to have this amazing ability to
set people into fits (no pun intended) on these comment boards. It’s a little
obsessive (like a lot of the stuff on here). Most online
“discussions” are like this these days – they tend to be, for the
most part, either-or propositions. One extreme camp versus another, with a
general inability to exchange real ideas, compromise, etc. Here, some try to
boil the discussion down to a situation wherein one is either a Howie sycophant,
kid-hating, rich-guy elitist who wants to destroy public education, or a
socialist, elitist, “educrat” whose sole aim is the preservation of
the status quo (also at the expense of “the children”).

This debate is going on nationwide, and is much bigger than lil’ ol’ SC. The
hyperbolic “Howie effect” is not nearly as pronounced (or even
observable) in other discussions. A rich guy trying to leverage his cash to
push his agenda – unheard of. Forgive me if I don’t get all breathless and
woozy.

Lowcorider March 14, 2013 at 9:54 pm

If you see a public school headline on this site don’t bother reading it. Same old same old. Just deposit the Rich check sic. A hundred articles on public schools from another white man who has never had a child in attendance.

Reply
Mike at the Beach March 15, 2013 at 12:06 am

Soooo… to follow your logic, since I bust my hump to keep my kids in a private school, I forfeit my right to voice an opinion (or at least have it considered by you and your ilk, anyway) regarding the incredible waste and inefficiency attendant to the administration of SC’s public education system funded with my tax dollars? Oh, I’m a white guy, so I guess I can’t have a position of civil rights either. I’m also straight, so ditto on gay marriage. Does that mean that all of these clowns who’ve never served in the armed forces and seen combat will finally stop blabbering about military issues like women in combat roles? Doubtful…

Reply
sweepin March 15, 2013 at 7:56 am

One man, one vote. Your voice is no more nor less of any other’s. However, currently, your’s is of the minority.

Reply
Smirks March 15, 2013 at 9:16 am

No one is telling you that you don’t have the right to hold an opinion, they are just telling you your opinion is shit and people shouldn’t waste their time listening to it. And I’m inclined to agree.

There are a vast number of people paying taxes that go into schools, including people who no longer have kids in school, people who haven’t had kids yet, people who will never have kids, people who homeschool, and yes, people who send their kids to private school.

Public schooling is an investment the people make to guarantee a certain level of education to children. The reason being is that education can be expensive and a child shouldn’t be denied an education just because their parents can’t afford to pay for it. The public school system runs and should run regardless of whether or not you have kids and regardless of whether or not you put your kids into public schooling.

Lives change. People who once homeschooled their kids may suddenly find themselves unable to. People may plan to homeschool their kids to a certain age and then put them in a public school. People may put them in private schooling and suddenly become unable to afford it. People may decide or discover their private school isn’t adequate, or is even doing worse than the public school their kid would be going to.

What the “school choice” crowd is asking for isn’t choice. You have your choice. What you want is your money back for not choosing public schooling, but you still get to keep the choice of public schooling. Public schools still have to run, they still have to provide an education, they still have to maintain buildings and pay teacher salaries, and at any given point in time, they have to allow your child to attend, even if you skipped out on paying the public school system for the last ten years. They have to make sure they have the classroom space. They have to have the teachers ready and available. They have to have the desk, the books, the locker for your kid. They have to have the electricity on, internet access, working electronics to aid in teaching your child. It is flat out wrong for you to demand YOUR tax dollars back until suddenly YOU decide to put your kid into the system and make use of a bunch of shit YOU didn’t help pay for. THAT is the “choice” the voucher crowd asks for, and it is a giant steaming load of horse shit.

If anything, the people that won’t have or no longer have children have a far better case to demand their money. THEY have no choice. THEY must pay into a system they cannot use (albeit they possibly did use or could have used at an earlier point in their lives). THEY don’t hover over the heads of the public school system with a potential added burden that could drop at any time.

You may not like it, in fact, you may downright hate it, but public schools are your safety net. They are the social floor that your child cannot fall beneath, the one line of defense between some education and no education, and will be made available to you no matter if you are filthy rich or dirt poor. One day you may need it. One day it may be the only thing that you can use to educate your child. The least you could do is demand the system be improved, if not fixed, and strive to make it better not only for those in public school, not only for those who don’t have a choice, but for those who do have a choice who may one day lose that choice. The least you could do is instead of demanding your tax dollars back and choosing not to give a fuck what happens to the system you abandoned is to actually take an interest in what is being done to make the “incredible waste and inefficiency” go away.

Vouchers don’t make the public school system better, they allow certain people to ignore the state of the public school system and rob funding from it that everyone else has to pay into. This speculative shit about it introducing “competition” and “free market” whatever into the public school system is absolute crap, that by taking funding from public schools they’ll somehow be inclined to miraculously improve even though nothing else has been done. They won’t. Public schools fail kids, but public schooling itself doesn’t “fail” and disappear, much to the horror of those who are left behind on the sinking Titanic while the voucher crowd boards the lifeboats they secured for themselves. Bad public schools will still run, they’ll just run even worse than they did before.

Reply
Lowcorider March 15, 2013 at 9:59 am

So you mad boo?

Reply
Mike at the Beach March 15, 2013 at 11:18 pm

Wow, you guys rile easily! I don’t know from whence any of your madness stems, but you’re not sucking me into it! I simply pointed out that you made a logically flawed statement / inference that if one
doesn’t have their kids in public school, their opinion is somehow of less
value (or less valid) than those of the parents who choose public ed. I made no reference to getting my money back or any other weirdness; I’m simply stating that my opinion is an educated one, and the fact that I choose to keep my kids in private school in no way affects the validity of whatever point I MAY EVENTUALLY MAKE about school choice some day (just as non-vets are entitled to educated opinions regarding military service, war, etc.). You ladies all need to take deep breaths. I’m not in favor of the privatization of education (although I can listen to Will’s opinions on it without hyperventilating). As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even touch on whatever opinions or positions I may have in regard to SC’s education establishment, other than it’s expensive and wasteful and could use a little reform. Not exactly a “scrap public ed” position, no?

I think this Rich guy whose name always pops up here at some point during education debates must possess some powerful dark mojo (I’ll Google him up this weekend and check that out). We need a name for this phenomenon – similar to Godwin’s Law (the theory that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler or the Nazis reaches a near-certainty). The “Howie Phenomenon,” perhaps…as any discussion of public education begins on FITS, “Howie,” “Rich,” or “cash those Howie Rich checks” gets mentioned as a matter of near-certainty.

It’s all good, though- and it’s going to be damn near 80 degrees here in the Redneck Riviera tomorrow. My Howie Rich Google session may have to wait. Me and my two evil little private school kids may be on the inlet…

Reply
Please March 16, 2013 at 10:50 am

If you don’t know who Howard Rich is, the multiple shell organizations he funds, and the political donations he makes to candidates in SC and other states in an effort to further his agenda, you really don’t need to participate in this discussion because you haven’t been paying attention. At all. Please come back when you’ve done some research.

Mike at the Beach March 17, 2013 at 4:12 pm

I know enough about him in regard to who he is, what he funds, etc.; I
meant that I would try to research why he seems to have this amazing ability to
set people into fits (no pun intended) on these comment boards. It’s a little
obsessive (like a lot of the stuff on here). Most online
“discussions” are like this these days – they tend to be, for the
most part, either-or propositions. One extreme camp versus another, with a
general inability to exchange real ideas, compromise, etc. Here, some try to
boil the discussion down to a situation wherein one is either a Howie sycophant,
kid-hating, rich-guy elitist who wants to destroy public education, or a
socialist, elitist, “educrat” whose sole aim is the preservation of
the status quo (also at the expense of “the children”).

This debate is going on nationwide, and is much bigger than lil’ ol’ SC. The
hyperbolic “Howie effect” is not nearly as pronounced (or even
observable) in other discussions. A rich guy trying to leverage his cash to
push his agenda – unheard of. Forgive me if I don’t get all breathless and
woozy.

Smirks March 15, 2013 at 8:27 am

Blah. The ones you quoted are somewhat out of scope for the NEA. Although I’m sure one could argue that gun laws, family planning laws, and the health care system do have an affect on students of various ages, it is pretty easy to tell that they are promoting that shit for reasons other than “the sake of the children.”

But then again, so does the “school choice” movement.

SCEA vs. Howard Rich and his ilk of “school choice” bullshit, no matter who wins, we lose. We need an approach that tells SCEA to go fuck itself while simultaneously telling the voucher crowd to go fuck themselves as well. We need radical change, but not SCEA’s change, and definitely not some crappy voucher system.

Reply
Smirks March 15, 2013 at 8:27 am

Blah. The ones you quoted are somewhat out of scope for the NEA. Although I’m sure one could argue that gun laws, family planning laws, and the health care system do have an affect on students of various ages, it is pretty easy to tell that they are promoting that shit for reasons other than “the sake of the children.”

But then again, so does the “school choice” movement.

SCEA vs. Howard Rich and his ilk of “school choice” bullshit, no matter who wins, we lose. We need an approach that tells SCEA to go fuck itself while simultaneously telling the voucher crowd to go fuck themselves as well. We need radical change, but not SCEA’s change, and definitely not some crappy voucher system.

Reply
Darth March 15, 2013 at 9:46 am

SCEA’s track record, apparently keeping a closeted “corridor of shame” which is failing our students and an apparent contrived “corridor of shame” with “showcase” buildings selectively allowed to rot for the cameras of a complicit PBS. The contrived side showed itself as a ruse behind a local option sales tax in Charleston some years ago came unravelled as leaks that selected maintenance had been delayed until it played on 6PM local news.
I expect that more will unravel from the left’s corridor of lies.

Reply
Darth March 15, 2013 at 9:46 am

SCEA’s track record, apparently keeping a closeted “corridor of shame” which is failing our students and an apparent contrived “corridor of shame” with “showcase” buildings selectively allowed to rot for the cameras of a complicit PBS. The contrived side showed itself as a ruse behind a local option sales tax in Charleston some years ago came unravelled as leaks that selected maintenance had been delayed until it played on 6PM local news.
I expect that more will unravel from the left’s corridor of lies.

Reply
dm10ae March 16, 2013 at 3:51 am

Privatize all public schools; let the state have a model that is expected to be followed. Or, school districts vie for x amount of funds and have duplicated positions in every district and each district has similar expenses-eliminate all school districts except 7 like the 7 districts for congressmen. Funding will be equal for the 7 districts- if students/families move anywhere within the state, they are on track like there wasn’t a move.

Reply
dm10ae March 16, 2013 at 3:51 am

Privatize all public schools; let the state have a model that is expected to be followed. Or, school districts vie for x amount of funds and have duplicated positions in every district and each district has similar expenses-eliminate all school districts except 7 like the 7 districts for congressmen. Funding will be equal for the 7 districts- if students/families move anywhere within the state, they are on track like there wasn’t a move.

Reply

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