Will of voters ignored, voucher bills are back again

A legislative update from The South Carolina Education Association on Friday warns educators that, yet again, our elected leaders in the legislature have chosen to introduce another voucher bill. This time, there are two of them, including one sponsored by the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee himself.

The use of public funds to support private schools is the focus of H.4547 (White-Anderson) and H.4576 (Bedingfield-Greenville). While no cost analysis has been performed, these bills will cause a drain on K-12 public education that was funded at 1995 levels in the current budget. With your help, we were able to defeat a similar effort last year, which would have cost the state $64 million per year. We will need your continued support to protect and defend public education from these continued attacks.

Have we not been through this enough?

Did not a poll conducted last year show that 64 percent of South Carolinians opposed using public dollars for private schools?

Does not the South Carolina Constitution prohibit the expense of public dollars for private or parochial education?

So why do we keep wasting taxpayer funds on more hearings, more committee meetings, more floor debates and more ink in support of measures that have been defeated again and again and again. Granted, we in South Carolina have a difficult time giving up a lost cause -- or is that Lost Cause? -- but this is ridiculous. And it makes us all look ridiculous, again and again and again.