Ott's Amendment 22 adopted

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon withdrew the next seven amendments, bringing the body to Rep. Harry Ott's Amendment 22.

Ott: This amendment says, Let's try it for five years, then look at it. If it's working, this body can reauthorize it. At least we can take a look.

We've voted down all amendments on accountability. Are we just going to throw money at it and hope our problems go away without evaluation the outcome?

With this amendment, in five years, they will get to re-evaluate and determine what they want to do.

Herbkersman: We have been throwing money at a problem without getting results. Would this amendment prevent changes over that five years?

Ott: If you come here next year and decide you want to change something, you can.

Y'all know I'm not for the bill. All I'm saying it, Let's take a breath, look at it after five years and see if it turned out the way you wanted.

Ott asked unanimous consent to change from a five-year period to a seven-year period, which was granted.

Bedingfield requested roll call on adopting the amendment.

Vote: 67-46, adopted!

Brannon's Amendment 15 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 15: Includes the definition of immediate family members, who cannot receive scholarships when a family member is on the private school's board.

Bedingfield moved to table; Brannon requested roll call.

Vote: 68-46, tabled.

Brannon's Amendment 14 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 14: A private school receiving SGO funds must be currently accredited.

Bedingfield moved to table; Brannon requested roll call.

Vote: 62-49, tabled.

Brannon's Amendment 13 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 13: A private school receiving SGO funds must have been operating in South Carolina for 12 months before receiving the funds.

Bedingfield moved to table; Brannon requested roll call.

Vote: 61-50, tabled.

Brannon's Amendment 12 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 12 adds disabilities or academic achievement to the list of characteristics that private schools cannot discriminate against.

Rep. Steve Parker: I can't imagine anyone would oppose this amendment.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter: Is it accurate that your amendment takes away the argument that private schools and publics are apples and oranges because publics have no right to refusal, while privates do?

Brannon: Yes.

Cobb-Hunter: So private school must accept anyone, if it is accepting public dollars?

Brannon: Yes, with one exception. Under the SGO program, the school has to qualify to receive scholarship dollars and if they're not set up to meet the needs of disabled children, they would qualify to receive these dollars.

Rep. Dwight Loftis: But all public schools do not accept all children with all disabilities.

Brannon: You have to read this amendment in conjunction with the rest of the bill. A private school doesn't have to accept anybody. If they don't qualify by the SGOs, they don't have to accept anyone. Should we set up SGO so they can pick and choose?

Loftis: We should set up schools just as we set up public schools, that don't accept all disabled children.

Herbkersman: Do you think the Governor's School of Science should accept someone whose academic achievement is lower than their standards are right now?

Brannon: That's not apples to apples. Should they be able to discriminate as they choose?

Herbkersman: They should be able to have standards.

Bedingfield moved to table; Brannon requested roll call.

Vote: 66-49, tabled.

Brannan's Amendment 11 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 11 is technical. Various kinds of schools are defined in various parts of the bill; this amendment takes out one code reference because it's "fraught with peril when it comes to fraud."

Bedingfield moved to table, Brannon asked for roll call.

Vote: 67-47, tabled.

Brannan's Amendment 10 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Amendments 4 through 9 are passed over; Amendment 10 is explained by Rep. Doug Brannon.

Brannon: Pointless, but this amendment deal with transparency and accountability. Every independent school accepting grants shall undergo an audit and report to the Education Oversight Committee. If they're going to take state money, they should tell what they're doing with it.

Rep. Seth Whipper: They're taking state money?

Brannon: They're private, nonprofit organizations handing out money that would have come to the state.

Whipper: But the money doesn't come from the state.

Brannon: Corporations can contribute money to an SGO and save up to 65 percent of their state tax obligation. Rather than pay taxes, they can reduce their bill by giving money to an SGO.
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Whipper: What state standards for anything are involved in this bill?

Brannon: You saw that Rep. Anthony's amendment to create some standards was just shot down. I'm just trying to account for money.

Rep. Bill Herbkersman: Let's talk about state money. It's taxpayer money. If you contribute money to your church, that's tax deductible. You wouldn't tell me not to give to the cancer society because it takes money away from the state, would you? But you would for giving money for school choice?

Brannon: We're dealing with education here. These organizations should be accountable.

Herbkersman: But it's not state money, it's taxpayer money.

Rep. Gene Pinson: Who can argue that we should oppose transparency or accountability?

Bedingfield moved to table, Brannon asked for roll call.

Vote: 69-48, tabled.

Brannon's Amendment 3 is tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Doug Brannon, Amendment 3: If a private school offers any scholarships and they qualify under this bill to receive scholarship funds, then they must accept voucher students for the amount of the voucher offered by the scholarship granting organization.

Let's face it: Average tuition at a private school in South Carolina is $11,000. If all you're giving them is $7,500, they don't have the money to make up the difference. So make these schools take these students.

Rep. Seth Whipper: What are the numbers involved in this voucher transfer?

Brannon: It's $4,000 deduction if your child enrolls or IS enrolled in a private school.

Whipper: Given merely on the fact the student is enrolled?

Brannon: Is enrolled or will be enrolled, up to $4,000, paid in the form of tuition. It's $2,000 for people who home-school their children, and less for transportation across public school district lines.

Scholarships may be granted for up to $5,000 to some students, paid to private schools for the benefit of these children.

Whipper: What we're talking about is SGOs -- some kind of foundation, a scholarship-granting organization. What are they?

Brannon: All I know is what I've read in the bill. There could be one, or ten thousand. There's no limit to the number of them. One could have $25 million.

Whipper: But they can only give a certain amount?

Brannon: Five thousand or ten thousand per child who qualifies. My amendment requires any school that gives a scholarship to accept scholarships from SGOs without asking parents for any additional funds.

Whipper: Are they philanthropic?

Brannon: They're non-profit. There are rules in the bill itself related to them.

Whipper: Will these SGOs be limited to schools they name for a period of time or in perpetuity?

Brannon: That's not in the bill.

Rep. Eric Bedingfield: To clarify, average tuition is $4,400. I don't disagree there are private schools with high tuition, but others have very low tuition. This amendment would require schools that aren't equipped to take SGO students to take them. So I move to table to amendment.

Brannan requested roll call.

Unidentified: But public schools HAVE to take these students...

Vote: 67-48, tabled.

Herald-Journal: "Public education is not some leftist tenet"

Hosanna.

Why does it take a potential electoral crisis -- six Upstate lawmakers appear to be in hot water for their votes against the most recent iteration of ye olde Sanford-Haley voucher scheme -- for one of the state's daily newspapers to make such a plain and clear defense of public education in South Carolina?

Similarly, why does it take such a crisis for one of our daily papers to openly defy the anti-public education group "South Carolinians for Responsible Government"?

SCRG, whose funding is believed to have roots in New York City and elsewhere (so says A, and B, and C, and D, and E, and F), has played The Woman Scorned since the legislature in May defeated the 2011 version of the same old voucher (or tuition tax-credit, take your pick) plan that Governor Mark Sanford first tried to sell us in 2003. It appears that some of Spartanburg's own lawmakers, including some who have, at one time or another, advocated some sort of school reform, and who may even have accepted campaign donations from pro-voucher sources, are among those who voted down the voucher plan. So these have been branded with their own numerific label -- the ominous "Spartanburg Six," like the "Fab Four" or the "Dirty Dozen" -- and the modern Red Shirts are out for revenge in the name of ideological purity.

It's this purity that the Herald-Journal's editors take up in yesterday's edition, writing, "It’s an odd assertion that a 'true conservative' is someone who wants the government to subsidize private education and that those who want to protect the public schools are somehow phony conservatives."

Indeed, the earliest South Carolinians who advocated for free public education for all of its children were conservatives -- and pro-business conservatives, at that.

But that’s the allegation six Spartanburg lawmakers are facing. They voted against the latest school voucher scheme and fell afoul of the groups established with out-of-state money to push this agenda in South Carolina. They also angered some tea party groups that are quick to believe any allegation of phony conservatism.

The truth is that the Spartanburg Six — Reps. Rita Allison, Steve Parker, Eddie Tallon, Mike Forrester, Derham Cole and Doug Brannon— did the right thing.

The measure billed as “school choice” would not have opened up new choices to parents or children. Its overall effect would have been to make private school more affordable for parents already able to make that choice. It offered such parents a tax credit to help pay the tuition. Poor parents, who can’t pay the tuition up front and don’t make enough money to take advantage of the tax credit, would have been left out in the cold. The bill offered them only the unlikely promise of privately financed scholarships.

The bill would not have improved any schools. It would have taken scarce resources away from the public schools, and it would have eroded the independence of private schools. Government money always comes with government strings. If this voucher bill had passed, it would have been only a matter of time before the General Assembly applied its accountability system and school report cards to private schools. Lawmakers would have declared that the state could not be subsidizing private schools without holding them accountable. Sooner or later, private schools would have to adopt the same tests and curriculum as public schools.

It’s time to get past the lie that parents who pay to send their children to private schools pay for education twice, or that they pay for schools they don’t use. The truth is that we do not pay taxes to support public schools solely to educate our own children. We support a public school system so that we can live in an educated society. We support a public school system because the alternative is an illiterate populace, rampant poverty and a hopeless future.

This has to be the most rational editorial published by the Herald-Journal in recent memory. And though it doesn't name SCRG, the editorial may as well be an open letter to that group and its out-of-state sponsors.

The Spartanburg Six voted to protect the public schools because they recognize that there is no reasonable alternative. It’s not because they don’t want parents to have choices, but they recognize that there will be no free-market utopia where tax credits allow all parents the choice between excellent private academies and the government is out of the education business. That plan simply isn’t realistic.

The Spartanburg Six are not slaves to the teachers’ unions or some liberal agenda. Public education is not some leftist tenet. It is not some new liberal invention. It’s the method this nation has used for generations to create the success we have had. That system isn’t perfect. Our schools are struggling in many ways, but voucher schemes like the one rejected by the Spartanburg Six would not help.

Read these words again: "Public education is not some leftist tenet. It is not some new liberal invention. It’s the method this nation has used for generations to create the success we have had."

What a statement, a declaration of the true good that went into establishing public education and the true good that has come -- and continues to come -- from public education. So I repeat my question: Why does it take a potential electoral crisis for one of the state's daily newspapers to make such a plain and clear defense of public education in South Carolina?

I hope that every district superintendent in South Carolina sends a printed copy of this editorial to every principal, teacher, secretary, custodian, cafeteria worker and bus driver in South Carolina with a thank-you note, as an illustration that there is a strain of common sense and decency that runs underground in our state, that the thankless work our public school personnel do is important, and that the occasional and slight scraps of support issued by a public voice ought to be held up and celebrated. Give the editors of the Herald-Journal some positive reinforcement for their declaration, whatever their motivation, and they may feel courageous enough to say it again, and again.

Contact the editors here (area code 864):

Horeth, Chris - Perspective, letters to the editor
chris.horeth@shj.com Phone: 562-7267
Parris, Lou - Stroller
lou.parris@shj.com Phone: 562-7204
Smith, Michael - Executive Editor
michael.smith@shj.com Phone: 562-7200

On the same day, in the same edition, the same editors invited Rep. Doug Brannon to publish a column explaining his choice to oppose the voucher scheme. It, too, bears reading, and Brannon deserves the same thanks for standing up for public schools.

If the legislature hadn't gone to such a Byzantine system for email communications, I'd post Brannon's email address to make it easier to thank him. Instead, call his legislative office and leave a message of thanks: (803) 212-6876.

Brannon writes in the Herald-Journal:

After significant thought on my part and the urging of many, I decided to write this to explain why I made the motion to table and voted to table H-3407 (the South Carolina Educational Opportunity Act).

There are four primary reasons the motion to table was made.

Reason 1: The cost of H-3407 in terms of reduced general fund revenue is impossible to calculate. Under the proposed bill, there are no limits put upon the amount an individual or corporation may contribute to a scholarship organization, no limit to the number of scholarship organizations that can be formed, and the bill allows for "stacking" of tax credits in such a way that multiple taxpayers could claim tax credits on the same student. Under this proposed bill, all taxpayers could have eliminated 95 percent of their state tax liability.

Reason 2: This bill offered choice to a limited group of taxpayers, and none of these groups was the intended benefactor. Under H-3407, a private school could choose to accept new students or scholarship students. There was no mandate that private schools join in this choice plan. Corporations or individuals could choose to make contributions in lieu of paying state taxes, and those families that can currently afford private school tuition could choose to take a tax credit against their state tax liability.

The average annual tuition at a private school in South Carolina is $8,720.36 Under H-3407, the total scholarship available to low-income families (the only families that qualify) during the first year is $2,878.00. Who will pay the difference? For families that do not qualify for a scholarship, a tax credit is available in the amount of up to $2,878.00. A tax credit does not result in a tax refund. A tax credit does not put money in your hand.

In South Carolina, there are 149 private schools. Of those, 119 are church related. If a private school that is affiliated with a church accepts a scholarship student, under this bill, that school may not ask that student for a profession of faith, to worship or to pray. We would be asking private church-related schools to create a separate secular curriculum. Do we really want separate but equal again?

Reason 3: H-3407 may not be constitutional. In Williams v. Illinois, the United States Supreme Court said that "a law nondiscriminatory on its face may be grossly discriminatory in its operation." As stated here, this bill did not offer choice to the low-income or those in failing schools — it offered choice to those who can afford it.

Reason 4: One person's choice should not come at the expense of others. Because this bill would have resulted in a significant reduction in general fund revenue, this so-called choice would have come at the expense of others in the form of less money for other services provided by the state of South Carolina.

I encourage each of you to read H-3407. Please see for yourself the flaws in this bill and why it was bad for South Carolina.