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There’s been a lot of talk lately in South Carolina political circles about school choice. Unfortunately, that’s all it is (and all it’s ever been)… talk.
When it comes to creating meaningful academic freedom in the Palmetto State, so-called “Republicans” have been failing for decades – while at the same time air-gunning massive funding increases for a government-run system which has produced nothing but generational failure.
This “epic fail” has extended to the 2025-2026 session of the S.C. General Assembly, in which school choice was supposed to have been the “highest priority” of S.C. Senate president Thomas Alexander and S.C. House speaker Murrell Smith.
That’s what they said, anyway.
Clearly, it was not the highest priority… for either politician.
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Alexander and Smith haven’t lifted a finger in support of school choice this year. Meanwhile, the watered-down legislation currently making its way through this so-called “Republican” supermajority legislature is a weakened version of an already weak choice bill lawmakers previously passed. Even worse? The new school choice bill is based on S.C. Education Lottery funding… a dwindling, uncertain source of revenue.
It’s almost as if they are trying to find a way not to get this right…
How did we get here? Last September, the state’s high court (as previously configured) narrowly struck down broad sections of the Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) – a modest school choice program created by the S.C. General Assembly and administered by the S.C. Department of Education (SCDE). According to its controversial ruling, this fund provided a “direct benefit” to private education institutions which violated “constitutional limits on the use of public funds.”
Since that decision, über-liberal chief justice Donald Beatty has retired from the bench and been replaced by John Kittredge – the justice who authored a scathing rebuke of the majority ruling. New justice Letitia Verdin has also taken her seat on the court.
In other words, the supreme court of today is dramatically different than the one which decided last year’s case…
Instead of being emboldened by this newly composed court, state lawmakers seem hopelessly fixated on kowtowing to its previous left-of-center iteration.
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RELATED | PICKING UP SCHOOL CHOICE SLACK
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In keeping with the kowtowing, the lottery scholarship bill introduced by S.C. senator Greg Hembree of Myrtle Beach, S.C. – S. 62 – would provide 10,000 scholarships in the coming fiscal year (2025-2026) and up to 15,000 scholarships in each successive year. Scholarships would total 90 percent of “the average per pupil funding from state sources for the prior academic year.” Per the current state budget, that would amount to $7,692.30 per scholarship – for a total of $76.9 million in total school choice funding (assuming every scholarship was filled).
Is that a lot of money? No… certainly not compared with what the state is spending annually, per child on its government-run failure factories.
According to the S.C. Revenue and Fiscal Affairs (SCRFA) office, per pupil funding in South Carolina in the current fiscal year is a record $18,842 – and that total doesn’t include local bond issues or money the schools stash in carry-forward accounts. That’s a staggering $13.46 billion, based on the state’s current student population.
Hembree’s bill cleared the S.C. Senate by an overwhelming majority and was sent to the S.C. House of Representatives – which has yet to hold a hearing on the bill. Hopefully the House will schedule a hearing soon and advance a version of choice that provides some semblance of academic freedom in the Palmetto State.
While waiting on the House to make good on its leader’s “highest priority,” I’ll also be waiting on Hembree to make good on his promise to advance a separate school choice bill – one funded with private money – sponsored by S.C. senator Tom Davis. And for the House to advance that bill, too.
Here’s the thing, though…
Even if both of these bills pass (and I hope they do), neither even approaches the vicinity of the area code of anything remotely resembling “universal parental choice.” Seriously… I don’t care how many Americans for Prosperity mailings or text messages you get asking you to “thank so-and-so for such-and-such,” don’t believe it.
It’s all bullshit.
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The GOP supermajority in South Carolina is no more embracing true universal school choice than Rachel Maddow is embracing MAGA. In fact, the bill the S.C. Senate passed last month was immediately overshadowed by a massive $447 million choice program advanced by Tennessee’s Republican legislature the very next day.
And even that bill isn’t “universal…”
“Universal” means everybody – no exceptions, no limitations and no restrictions.
It means whoever you are, wherever you live and wherever you want to go to school, every penny of tax money associated with your education follows you.
All $18,842.
That is “universal school choice,” and anything that falls short of it is, by definition… not.
Oh, and anybody defending so much as a penny of it going to the current system is defending definitional failure.
As previously noted, South Carolina badly trails its neighboring states and regional rivals in academic freedom – ranking No. 27 on the Cato Institute‘s latest list. Florida and Georgia rank No. 3 and 8, respectively, while North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia rank No. 12, No. 14 and No. 15, respectively. In other words, the Palmetto State has no time to tinker around the edges… especially with other southern states making such bold moves.
South Carolina’s “supermajority” is confronted by a clear and pressing need, a reconfigured court eager to lend its imprimatur and the promises of its two most powerful leaders.
In other words, they are out of excuses. The time for talk is over. It’s time to pass real school choice in South Carolina and start putting parents in charge instead of a failed, increasingly left-leaning bureaucracy.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
I just wish we would just amend our constitution to make an exception for public funds being used for private use in the case of k-12 education instead of navigating all the litigation wrangling. But approx. 7-8k in funding is not going to help the lower middle class (which lives paycheck to paycheck) and poor escape the horror show that is 75% of our public schools. It’s only going to help the upper middle class who can still come up with the extra 5-10k to bridge the gap for most private school tuition. But if that keeps the state from spending a full 18k on the departing student, the savings could further increase teacher pay – but it should only increase alongside an increased ability to fire the bad ones. There would be some improvement – but the real problem is our own culture – the destruction of the nuclear family by the welfare state & our deteriorating morals – and the resulting terrible behavioral problems compounded by poor mental health.
Socialism for conservatives.
Socialism in most endeavors has always been a failure. Taxpayer funded education falls into this category for failure, especially when controlled by cultural Marxists which make up the “education blob.” If our elected politicos were earnest about how they spend our tax dollars then they’d search for an education system that works rather than throw more tax dollars at the failed system. They need a state level DOGE and start looking outside the box for a working system. Both the curriculum and teaching method have to be changed out as currently they are based on cultural Marxism What we have now is insanity by throwing our tax dollars at the same ol’ thing, year after year, and expecting improvement. Start looking at classical education models and credentialling teachers not with the current dialectic methodology but a Socratic method based on Judeo/Christian based Western Civilization that this nation was founded on.