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South Carolina Legislative Leaders Punt On School Choice
“Republican” supermajority will not challenge specious ruling shutting down the Palmetto State’s fledgling school choice program…
6 comments
I’ve said before that I’m not opposed to school choice, but the avenue to what they’re trying to achieve is through an amendment to the state constitution. If the “framers” of the state constitution were not opposing this sort of plan when they drafted Section 4, they sure hid it well with some deceptively simple language.
“SECTION 4. Direct aid to religious or other private educational institutions prohibited.
No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
To say that the sticking point here was that the “framers” would only accept public dollars going to private and religious institutions if it first passed through a series of middlemen is retarded. Supporters of the voucher plan are seeing only what they want to see. It just isn’t there. The intent of Section 4 was clearly to prevent taxpayer subsidization of private or religious education. If South Carolinians’ attitudes surrounding education and state government allocating public dollars to private schools have changed, then they need to put forth a constitutional amendment. I doubt they’re going to do that because my gut tells me that the average South Carolinian doesn’t want that to happen.
Under your assertion, the Life Scholarship is unconstitutional. Your assertion of “direct aid” is flawed.
The Life Scholarship is just that, a scholarship given for academic achievement. It requires certain levels of academic achievement to be initially received and to be continued by the student. Vouchers have no such academic requirement.
I could be wrong, but I believe that Article XI of the SC Constitution applies only to the “system of free public schools open to all children in the State”, which would be K-12. It establishes the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Education, neither of which has anything to do with institutions of higher education.
I’d like to see the Legislature address the issue of tax dollars being wasted on superfluous school districts and their overhead costs. Why can the single Greenville County School District serve 99 schools while in neighboring Spartanburg County there are seven school districts serving a total of 72 schools. Why does a poor school district like Greenwood 50 (Ware Shoals) have the associated administrative staff and overhead costs and only serve three schools? It is past time to mandate one school district per county reducing over 70 school districts to 46. We have an experiment going regarding public Charter Schools that now number over 100 and are exempted from many laws and regulations related to other public schools giving them the freedom to use the teaching methods of non-public schools. The Charter School laws may not be perfect, but fine tune them and give them a chance before dumping tax dollars into private schools.
Chief Justice Kittredge needs to schedule a reconsideration hearing with the current justices and get that idiot former chief justice off the panel.