Zais's plan to discard public schools inches ahead

Let's see: It's a proposal that brings back segregation -- by gender, this time, but the die is cast -- and opens public school athletic programs to students who are not enrolled in those public schools.

In essence, it turns traditional public schools into a neighborhood Boys Club and Girls Club, with teachers and a cafeteria.

So we're one step closer to dismantling public education for good, which brings satisfaction to the state Superintendent of Education, Mick Zais.

The Post & Courier fills in the rest:

Palmetto State charter school supporters are celebrating the passage of a sweeping set of changes they say will benefit their public schools.

South Carolina lawmakers have adopted bill H. 3241 that proponents say would strengthen the state’s public charter schools. Some of the bill’s provisions include:

Allowing higher-education institutions to approve charter schools to open.

Permitting single-gender charter schools to exist.

Letting charter school students participate in extracurricular or athletic activities at their neighborhood school if those aren’t offered at their charter school.

“It’s going to result in students’ excelling academically and truly moving South Carolina forward,” said Mary Carmichael, executive director of the Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina, which has been a driving force behind the legislation.

Charter schools are public schools, but they are not governed by county school boards. They instead have separate boards to make decisions about funding, policy and curriculum.

Yes, because local control is good only when lawmakers say it's good. When local control is bad, lawmakers disallow it.

About 18,000 students are enrolled in 47 charter schools statewide. Charleston has nine brick-and-mortar charter schools, eight of which are open only to county residents. Lowcountry students also can enroll in online charter schools.

The state passed its charter school law in 1996, and lawmakers made significant changes in 2006, such as creating an alternative authorizer, the state Public Charter School District, and allowing virtual charter schools.

The new legislation is the biggest overhaul of the state’s rules on charter schools since then, Carmichael said.

Proponents of the bill have been working for nearly three years on this with Rep. Phil Owens, R-Easley, chairman of the House Education and Public Works Committee. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

They looked at the national model for state charter school law and tried to change South Carolina’s to be higher quality. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranked the state’s law No. 25 nationally, saying it needed to be adjusted to ensure equitable funding and access to capital money and facilities.

This is tragicomic. Supporters of traditional public schools -- you know, the ones that enroll 700,000 public schoolchildren in South Carolina -- want their schools to be higher quality, too. National rankings credit us for the quality of curriculum and instruction, but they rank us pretty poorly for support of our schools. And there's a 14-year-old lawsuit called Abbeville v South Carolina that asks the courts to order equitable funding for our public schools. But none of these things seems to matter.

If only traditional public schools had an advocate like Rep. Phil Owens working on their behalf for three years, traditional public schools might find themselves the beneficiaries of increased funding and better facilities.

How do we get one of those?

The original bill included a provision that called for local funds to follow students, regardless of where they enrolled, but that was eliminated. Carmichael said that’s an issue that still needs to be addressed and will be worked on going forward.

“That’s something we know long term we need to have,” she said.

Scott Price is attorney for the South Carolina School Boards Association, which serves and represents the interest of traditional school boards that sometimes clash with charter schools.

The association had some concerns with the bill, particularly the issue of the funding following the child. Estimates showed that districts could have taken a $25 million hit were that to happen, he said.

The association also had a problem with allowing charter school students to participate in extracurricular and athletic activities elsewhere, because it could be to the detriment of other children enrolled in neighborhood schools, he said.

Sure. Jimmy, enrolled in the traditional public school, wants to participate on the football team; Jimmy's talented and qualified, and he's enrolled in the school that sponsors the team, for cryin' out loud.

But Bruiser attends the charter school across the highway, and he wants to play football at Jimmy's school because the charter school doesn't have a football team, and Bruiser wants to play for Clemson one day. Coach is feeling substantial pressure to let Bruiser on the team; Bruiser's dad's name is Deacon, and Deacon got Senator to give Coach a call. Now, Bruiser can't add, subtract or do long division, but who cares? Bruiser's big and can run. Result: Jimmy gets to play Fantasy Football on his X-Box at home, while Bruiser gets Locker Number One in the traditional public school's locker room.

If you think this won't happen, you must live outside South Carolina.

The association supported some of the bill’s provisions, such as allowing single-gender schools and ensuring an appropriate timeline for school districts to turn over state and federal funds to charter schools.

In the end, “it’s something we can work with,” he said.

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais praised the passage of the new law and thanked lawmakers for it.

“The General Assembly has renewed its commitment to providing parents a choice in the school their children attend,” he said in a statement. “A one-size-fits-all model of education simply doesn’t work for many students. Public charter schools are laboratories of innovation where the interests of students come first.”

And South Carolina's Department of Education is now a laboratory for expensive experimentation where the interests of traditional public schools and their 700,000 enrolled schoolchildren come last.

Zais re-election campaign visits Orangeburg

I read, then re-read, this article in the Orangeburg Times and Democrat last week, and came to the same conclusion each time: State Superintendent Mick Zais traveled to Orangeburg and told educators he was there to hear about their successes, but delivered news and statistics to them that could only have dampened their spirits.

What message does it send, when educators are invited to give their superintendent good news about the hard work they're doing, and he responds to them with a laundry list of complaints and critiques to illustrate what isn't being accomplished?

Is Mick Zais the best we can do in South Carolina? Have we gone so far around the bend that there's no way back?

Witness:

Administrators at some local high schools had the chance to sit down and share their triumphs and concerns with S.C. Superintendent of Education Mick Zais last week.

Zais visited Orangeburg Consolidated School District Four on Tuesday. He spent about 45 minutes talking with Principal Jeannie Monson at Carver-Edisto Middle School before taking a tour of the school.

“I want to hear what’s working for you, which actually gives you a chance to brag or celebrate your successes,” Zais said. “I want to understand your concerns and issues and problems.”

Monson cited the use of data, the recruitment of excellent teachers and their professional development as the means of moving Carver-Edisto forward academically. Teachers use benchmarks such as the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards to create notebooks that record student scores and their goals and show what needs to be re-taught to them, she said.

What a great report, to show that data collection is being used by teachers and administrators to diagnose issues and tailor classroom instruction strategies, to demonstrate the value of hiring well-qualified and committed educators, and to emphasize the benefits of great professional development.

Kudos to Principal Monson and to Carver-Edisto Middle School!

But Zais took all that great information and delivered a stinkbomb in its place.

Zais spoke about his educational vision. He said his number one priority is literacy.

Students learn to read from K-4 through the third grade, he said. After that, they read to learn.

“Sadly, in South Carolina, 38 percent of our fourth graders are functionally illiterate,” Zais said.

That’s a significant problem. Students who can’t read can’t learn social studies or science or even math, he said.

Instruction needs to be differentiated if every child is going to be reading on grade level by the fourth grade, Zais said. A child who is struggling with learning to read needs to be with a teacher who knows how to teach struggling readers, he said.

Grouping children on performance level may not be necessary in every academic area, but in certain subjects, it just doesn’t work to put all students in the same classroom and expect them to learn the same material on the same schedule, the education superintendent said.

Tailoring the education to fit each student is important throughout school, according to Zais. Technical education is a viable goal for some students, he said.

“All kids don’t need Algebra II to make a good living and support their family — sometimes statistics might be more valuable,” Zais said. “I think we have an all too common assumption that if you don’t go to a four-year college, you’re going to be a failure.”

Zais also spoke about the value of proper leadership in schools.

“The foremost job of the principal is to recruit, develop, motivate and retain great teachers,” he said. “All the research says effective teachers will stay in high poverty schools if they have effective leadership. If they’re abandoning ship, the leadership is not effective.”

Had Monson not just illustrated the value of an effective leader? Then what was Zais's point?

Or was this just an opportunity to deliver another stump speech in his campaign for re-election? If so, the next three years are going to be long and ugly.

Teachers, principals and superintendents weren't Zais's only targets in Orangeburg. He apparently has problems with Orangeburg's board members, too:

Zais also called for school boards to understand their duties and support their superintendents and principals.

“The board’s job is to hire the superintendent, not run the school district,” he said.

They set policy, but shouldn’t take charge of operations, Zais said. The problem is some boards don’t understand the difference between the two, he said.

He cannot be accused of subtlety, our state superintendent.

What convinces me that this was just a stump speech opportunity for Zais was his reiteration of his last campaign's chief ideological proposals: merit pay, and paying teachers according to student test scores.

Another area Zais addressed was teacher pay.

“We don’t pay our best teachers nearly enough, and we pay our worst teachers far too much,” he said. “I think people should be rewarded for what they do.”

Zais said he’s trying to move the state toward better pay for successful teachers by linking them to student success.

“I have a real problem with where we measure the number of students who make 70 percent or more,” he said.

Students who score above or below that and make real progress are not mapped under today’s standards, and teachers don’t get credit for boosting them up, he said.

Unfortunately, Carver-Edisto wasn't the only school subjected to a visit from our present superintendent.

Zais also visited the Hunter-Kinard-Tyler schools, which have new principals this year. Hezekiah Massey is at the middle/high school, and Francina Gregory is at the elementary school.

Last year, high school students increased HSAP scores by 13 points, and eighth grade students’ scores on the PASS test increased from 11 to 21 percent in every subject area. Their score in social studies went up by 25 percent.

These new principals seem to be very dedicated, very energetic, Zais said.

“Looking at the report cards, they’ve been able to demonstrate pretty significant progress within just one year,” he said.

Obviously, it takes more than a year to turn a school around, but if the principals have the support of the school board and the superintendent, District Four can move forward, he said.

Massey said changing the mind-set of students was the main thing that contributed to the school’s success. It was expecting more of them and teaching them that a “C” or a “D” won’t do when they’re capable of making an “A,” he said.

The school also exposed students to the idea that they can go to college, he said.

“We want to make sure the fact that they may not have come from a family of college graduates — that they may even be the first one in their family to go to college — doesn’t deter them from pursuing the goal of attending a higher education institution,” Massey said.

Superintendent Brenda Turner said the district’s conversation with Zais gave some insight on more creative ways to engage the community in training students to learn to read on grade level by the end of the third grade.

She said it was a conversation about some of the celebrations going on in the school. Zais also talked with both principals at H-K-T about using resources to provide meaningful learning opportunities for all students, she said.

Remember Sammy Davis Jr.?

Remember "The Candy Man Can," his cover of a song from the original Willy Wonka film?

If so, you may remember this lyric:
"Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow, collect up all the cream?
The Candy Man can..."

Our superintendent, Mick Zais, is the opposite of the Candy Man.

Give him good news, and he turns it into bad.

Give him something happy, he'll leave you feeling sad.

Three long years more, folks. Three long years.

Pray the damage can be undone.

Zais re-starts his campaign website

Fifteen months into his four-year term as superintendent of education, Mick Zais has decided it's time to kickstart his 2014 campaign for re-election.

I can't believe I missed this last Thursday, but Zais picked that day to re-start the website whose front page identifies it as his "campaign website."

Conventional wisdom would suggest ramping up such campaign activity after this year's election cycle, when the legislature has settled back down and the political world will focus all of its attention on the races of 2014.

But maybe Zais has gotten an inkling that he's a fairly unpopular -- even disliked -- leader and feels the need to rev his engines early, to help draw money from funders who already have their checkbooks open for this year's candidates, and perhaps to scare off any opponents from within his own party. Rumors do fly around Columbia that Zais may draw some primary competition.

Regardless the real reason, Zais has welcomed back his followers -- or is he welcoming himself back, after so many absences? -- to boot up his campaign. Mind you, he's not promising to offer much information, only laying down a marker and begging readers to sign up for his campaign emails.

Here's the compelling text:

Welcome back to MickZais.com. After shutting down the website for over a year, I’ve decided to turn it back on again so I can share news articles and my perspective on education policy.

Many of you are Facebook friends and follow me on Twitter, and I appreciate your support. This blog is another avenue where we can a discussion about policy and why education must be transformed to meet the needs of students.

I hope you’ll come back often to MickZais.com. The website will be bare bones for a little while, but the blog will be updated frequently. If you’re not not subscribed to my e-mail list, please do so today. Thanks for visiting!

Mick Zais

PLThomasEdD: Zais lacks experience, expertise

Blogger PLThomasEdD, who posts at DailyKos, published another great commentary there yesterday, this one taking Superintendent Mick Zais to task for his claims in an opinion-editorial in The State.

I hope readers will share PLThomasEdD's commentary far and wide among educators, because he's precisely the sort of education leader that's missing from government: Experienced, expert and circumspect.

South Carolina's Superintendent of Education Mick Zais makes several claims in The State (March 25, 2012) that build on one central argument: "The most important information about teachers isn’t the degrees they have or their years of seniority. Their effectiveness in the classroom matters much, much more."

Like Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Zais has no experience teaching children in K-12 public education. This complete lack of teaching experience and degrees in the field of education is a suspect position from which to claim that these two characteristics do not matter. In fact, political appointees and elected officials sit in unique positions often above both accountability (the mantra du jour of the political elite regarding education) and qualifications—unlike the real world markets they often praise.

Since the early 1980s, U.S. public education has been experimenting with accountability, standards, testing, and school report cards. In 2012, every single state as well as educational leaders at the federal level have declared those public schools failures or inadequate.

Zais's solution to this dynamic echoes the national argument now facing our public schools:

Accountability, standards, testing, and school report cards have failed, they argue, thus the solution is more and different accountability, standards, testing, and report cards!

This complete failure in logic and context resonates only with those without the exact qualities Zais and Duncan reject—teaching experience and formal preparation in teaching and learning.

I have taught now for 28 years, including 18 years teaching public high school English in rural SC. What has benefited me most in those years teaching?

Without question, the single greatest contribution to my effectiveness as a teacher has been experience. I am significantly superior today to the teacher I was nearly 3 decades ago, and I am certain I am now a pale version of what I'll be in the coming decade.

Inextricable from the importance of experience are my degrees in education and my scholarship over my career.

In what profession does experience and knowledge of the field not matter? Do we want medical doctors without experience and education in medicine? Airplane pilots without experience flying planes?

But our elected and appointed education leaders are not alone in this total lack of credibility to portray education accurately or to pose solutions needed for our persistent challenges to teach and learn in our public schools. Political leadership would have much less power and influence if our media took the responsibility to challenge and confront the repeated false claims and hollow solutions coming from our state and federal government concerning schools.

Secretary Duncan and Superintendent Zais, for example, are allowed the bully pulpit of their positions, without regard to their lack of experience or expertise. As a result, the public is fed a continuous stream of misinformation and jumbled logic. Let's consider a few in Zais's commentary.

• Teacher experience and degrees do not matter, but classroom effectiveness does? This claim falls apart when we examine what constitutes classroom effectiveness. Ample research shows that teacher effectiveness includes significant correlations with experience and degrees (see HERE), thus the initial claim poses a false dichotomy and a disturbing lack of awareness of the field of education.

• Measuring teacher effective on fixed test scores is a failure but value added methods solve that problem? Again, this is a common-sense sounding argument that has power among those who haven't taught and those without knowledge of the field. But the overwhelming patterns of evidence concerning VAM-style teacher and school accountability, even by those advocating the practice, show that VAM is unstable and not a credible avenue for guiding accountability policy. [1]

• School report cards fail because they have used "ambiguous terms," but new report cards will work because they will label schools with A through F ratings? This is the most troubling and illogical argument I have seen recently. How is an "A" less ambiguous than "Met"? Both require that anyone wanting to know what either means has some sort of rubric for how this singular notation captures some set of criteria. The problem is not the labeling format, but the act of labeling and the failure to acknowledge that all labeling and ranking systems used to sort children, teachers, and schools overwhelmingly reflect the status of the student's life outside of the control of the student, teacher, or school. Test-based data remain in 2012 a proxy for the socioeconomic conditions of any child's life more so than an accurate representation of teaching or learning.*

And this leads to a final similarity between Zais and Duncan. In Zais's commentary, he fails to acknowledge or mention poverty even once (although SC sits in the bottom quartile of affluence in the nation)—just as Duncan is apt to do in his many speeches.

The unacknowledged truth about education in SC and across the U.S. is that schools that struggle are burdened by the weight of poverty and too often fail to confront social inequity by perpetuating inequity through policies such as standardized testing, tracking students, and disproportionate disciplinary practices.

Leadership without expertise is no leadership at all, and it leads only to more troubling and ironic conclusions. Zais ends his commentary with: "Student learning is at the heart of accountability and educator evaluation. Our new evaluation system puts students first. It has the potential to transform education in South Carolina."

Yes, if the new evaluation system is mandated, transformation will occur, that is if we are willing to consider destroying teacher autonomy and morale, student engagement and deep understanding, and public school stability as transformation.

[1] See Bruce Baker's detailed examinations of value-added methods at School Finance 101. Also note that Dr. Baker has experience and formal training in the areas about which he presents information.

* Leaders without experience, preparation, or scholarship in the field of education have neither current nor historical context for their claims. Even a cursory examination of the Poverty Index and school report cards used in SC reveal the powerful connection between poverty and measurable student outcomes. This same dynamic is revealed in the data from the College Board in every single year the SAT has been administered as well.

Zais insults students, schools receiving awards

Last week, local and regional newspapers trumpeted the announcements that various schools in their coverage areas had been recognized with Palmetto Gold and Silver awards for student achievement.

And why not? In South Carolina, where public schools are denigrated daily by ideologues who favor privatization, corporatization, segregation and elimination, the news that so many students and schools have earned a little recognition is wonderful news indeed. What a boost to students' morale, educators' morale, entire communities' morale.

And, in any other state, the state superintendent of education would have appropriately held a press conference, invited all the state's media and surrounded himself with cheering children and educators. Even better, a state superintendent worth his salt as an education leader would have spent the entire week on the road, repeating that spectacle for local media from Caesar's Head to Port Royal.

Not here.

We don't have an education leader in the office of state superintendent; we have Mick Zais.

Zais responded to the good news by insulting the achievement of every one of our hard-working students, educators, parents and administrators. He suggested that the high number of award recipients means the standards had been watered down.

What a maroon.

As usual, national education observers took note of Zais's bone-headed comments and showcased him as South Carolina's embarrassment of the week.

Veteran education reporter Sean Cavanaugh of Education Week published this note:

South Carolina schools are seeing a lot of gold and silver this year, but that sound you hear is the skeptical eyebrow of the state superintendent hitting the ceiling.

The state education department announced March 20 that 853 schools in the state were winners of the Palmetto Gold and Silver Awards handed out for strong general academic performance, or for closing achievement gaps, or both. Of that number, 354 received Gold Awards.

However, that means nearly 70 percent of the state's schools qualified for a Palmetto award of some kind, the state education department noted in a release today. It's not quite "everyone gets a trophy" but it seems like the kind of thing that would irritate Glenn Beck.

By contrast, two years ago, only 403 schools in South Carolina received Palmetto awards.

The department's release notes that this is the first year that schools could qualify for a Silver Award if their ratings were above a "School At Risk" rating during the most recent year. Such a school also has to achieve a certain score on the state's growth index for three consecutive years in order to qualify. This is the first year that three years' worth of such data on the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards are available.

The department noted that under these new criteria, an additional 312 schools this year qualified for a Palmetto award.

"While congratulations are in order for many schools, it cannot be overlooked [that] the new criteria added by the Education Oversight Committee drastically increased the number of award recipients.

This issue should be corrected by the Education Oversight Committee so the public is not misled and those schools that made real gains in student achievement do not have their recognition diminished because of award inflation," State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais said in a statement accompanying the department's release.

But the Education Oversight Committee Zais referred to never intended to dilute the awards, said Melanie Barton, the committee's executive director.

Barton told Shawn Cetrone of The Herald in South Carolina that the committee had to revamp the award criteria in 2008 in order to match the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards, which were new at the time. (The Palmetto awards program began in 1998.)

"We had to get it up and running immediately," Barton said.

One other note: Of all the schools receiving awards, the vast majority (612) were recognized for general performance only, while only 39 were recognized only for their work in closing achievement gaps. The remaining 202 were recognized for strong ratings in both categories.

Is there no one who will yet offer themselves as candidate for state superintendent of education?

Surely there is a serious education leader who can bring sufficient organization skills and acumen to mount a reasonable campaign, in either major party.

Show yourself soon, and let's get back to the work of educating South Carolina.

Riley: America depends on quality teachers and schools

Former South Carolina Governor Dick Riley is one of the handful of elder statesmen who can be called "education governors," alongside former North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt.

In fact, Riley is one of only two South Carolinians to serve in a presidential Cabinet in the twentieth century; he served as education secretary for former President Bill Clinton, and former Governor Jimmy Byrnes served as secretary of state for former President Harry S. Truman.

So when Dick Riley speaks -- especially on the topic of public education -- it behooves reasonable people in his home state to listen.

Today, Riley published a column co-written with Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College at Columbia University, and now president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Their topic? Addressing the need to improve America's public schools by addressing the needs of their teachers.

The latest national teacher survey brings tough news.

Previous research shows that a good teacher is the single most important in-school factor in improving student achievement, but this latest report reveals that the teaching profession in the United States is deeply troubled.

According to the bellwether MetLife Survey of the American Teacher released last week, teacher job satisfaction has dropped from 59 percent to 44 percent just in the last two years, to the lowest level in more than two decades.

Why might that be? Perhaps the well-funded public relations campaign waged against traditional public schools by education deformers -- thanks to Diane Ravitch for that term -- has something to do with it. Perhaps it's the well-orchestrated effort to undermine respect for one of the nation's noblest professions. Perhaps it's seeing your life's work denigrated by elected leaders at the local, state and federal levels. And perhaps it's seeing every challenge and difficulty in society and our economy laid at the feet of overworked, underpaid and highly-stressed educators.

Or, maybe, the architects of "No Child Left Behind" have finally achieved their goal, and teachers are collectively reaching their breaking points.

At the same time, the number of teachers who say they are planning to leave the profession has doubled in the past three years; three out of 10 public school teachers are now looking to take their talents elsewhere.

And why not, when private contractors are sucking every spare dime out of public education budgets, and lawmakers with their hands out for campaign cash know where the bread is buttered.

We are not alarmists, but we believe the combination of decreasing satisfaction and indications of increasing turnover raises serious concerns about the future of the teaching profession. These data suggest that we are actually losing ground on recruiting and retaining top teaching talent.

It's not Governor Nikki Haley and Superintendent Mick Zais who should be reading this column; they're already hopelessly wedded to their ideology. Instead, it's the next wave of lawmakers -- the ones who will run and begin serving during the next decade -- who need to take this expertise to heart. They're the ones who will have to clean up after the devastation of "No Child Left Behind" and the blind obedience to lucrative high-stakes testing regimes.

The root of the problem is the convergence of two powerful forces. The first is that many of the nation's fastest-growing job categories require more education and more advanced skills and knowledge than ever before. So it is essential that our schools perform at higher levels than have ever been expected of them in the past. Graduation rates and student achievement must rise dramatically.

The second force is the economic recession, which is requiring states to make substantial budget cuts. Since education is such a major portion of their spending, it cannot be exempt. Connecting the budget and dissatisfaction dots of the survey data, it's clear that teachers are bearing the brunt of these cuts.

The result is that at precisely the moment we expect and need more from our schools, they are being subjected to deep and debilitating cuts, producing declines in teacher staffing, down-scaled programs, loss of services, increasing class sizes and fewer opportunities to update teacher skills. In other words, schools are being asked to perform at new heights using resources that are at new lows. It's no wonder that teachers are frustrated with the profession.

God bless Dick Riley. Is there any real reason why he shouldn't run for re-election as governor in 2014? Jim Hunt served four terms in North Carolina; can't we afford Riley three?

And if not him, where do we find another like him?

So what do we do?

Let's start with improving teaching and recruiting the best candidates. A September 2010 report from consulting giant McKinsey & Company shows that top-performing countries such as Finland, South Korea, and Singapore have no trouble attracting their nation's top college graduates into teaching jobs. All of their teachers come from the top third of their graduating classes, compared to 23 percent of teachers in the United States who do so.

The long-overdue focus on robust professional development and quality evaluation must continue, but that's only part of the solution. To bring in the talent we need, we must also upgrade teacher preparation and induction programs to make them worthy of high achievers. That means supporting scholarship programs targeted at attracting the best students to teaching, raising the quality of teacher education at the nation's universities, creating more high-quality clinical experiences and residencies, extending and enhancing student-teaching experiences with the kinds of students they will teach, building in mentorships with master teachers for the first three years, and placing teachers in schools with strong instructional leadership.

That way, when the nation's economic growth kicks into higher gear and funding returns to the nation's schools, we'll have high-quality, highly trained teachers both in the classroom and in the pipeline, ready to maximize resources and leverage their upgraded expertise.

All this will cost money, but it will also save money: Using estimates from the Department of Labor that attrition costs an employer 30 percent of the leaving employee's salary, a 2004 analysis by the Alliance for Excellent Education calculated that the nationwide cost of teacher turnover, not including retirements, at least $4.9 billion every year.

We also need to spend our education funding more effectively. For example, the 2010 McKinsey report says that the United States could more than double the proportion of top graduates who teach without raising pay by subsidizing teacher-preparation tuition, creating more effective administration and training opportunities in high-need schools, improving working conditions and providing performance bonuses.

The MetLife survey results are a warning bell. The future of our country is dependent on the quality of our schools and our teachers. As a nation, we acknowledge this rhetorically, but our education policies and practices too often move us in the opposite direction. We need to change this if we want the economic prosperity that rises with the quality of our education. We need to stop pretending that it somehow doesn't matter who teaches our children and start investing wisely in a new generation of teaching excellence.

Is there anyone who will take up Dick Riley's charge?

Anyone?

Report: State's graduation standards reflect definition of rigor

Just as few days after declaring that South Carolina's school standards were too low -- and blaming former Superintendents Inez Tenenbaum and Jim Rex for weakening them -- Superintendent Mick Zais is unfortunately unable to comment upon a new report that shows some of the state's high schools deliver quite rigorous curricula -- rooted in high standards and expectations.

Jay Ragley, Zais's press secretary, told the Independent Mail of Anderson that his boss "had not been supplied the report and was unable to comment on it yet." Hopefully the mail -- if not the Independent Mail -- will get to Columbia soon.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of high school students and thousands of their instructors across South Carolina are learning and teaching according to rigorous standards, and they are certainly able to comment on it. This is the difference between being an educator and being a politician.

"While education experts often disagree on what truly constitutes 'rigor,' the definition put forth by the National High School Alliance succinctly captures the essence of the concept," the report says. "Rigor, according to the alliance, is shorthand for 'an educational experience that leads to a common outcome — that all students are well prepared for post-secondary education, career and civic life. Further it state that rigor is marked by a 'steadfast focus' on increasing achievement for all students through high-level content and instruction, and aligning high school requirements with college and work expectations."

The report by researcher Clifford Adelman says academic intensity can be seen in the requirements for graduation in a school. Adelman's report says academic intensity in high school predicts success in college more than grade-point average, test scores or class rank. In his study, the highest level of academic intensity was a transcript that included 3.75 or more units of English; 3.75 units of math, with the highest being calculus, pre-calculus or trigonometry; 2.5 units of science; more than 2 units of foreign languages; more than 2 units of history and social studies; more than 1 advanced placement course and no remedial classes in English or math.

That transcript closely resembles South Carolina's graduation requirements. In this state, students must have 4 units of English, 4 units of math, 3 units of science, 3 units of history and social studies and one unit of foreign language or career and technology education.

Isn't that something? The definition of "rigor" and "academic intensity" happens to include a catalog of coursework that "closely resembles" South Carolina's own graduation requirements.

I reckon our standards are pretty damn solid, after all, and that our superintendent will be issuing his apologies to the thousands of educators and students he offended with his callous political remarks of last month -- and in writing, since the offensive original column was in writing.

Interestingly, this new report says that South Carolina could offer more rigor to its curricula by doing several things -- "adding to their curricula advanced placement courses, dual credit courses, International Baccalaureate instruction, higher level math courses and early college instruction" -- that will cost a lot of money. Given that Zais has decried our standards and the state of our system, would he initiate a request for the additional funding necessary to implement these recommendations? You know, if his goal is to improve our standards and add more rigor to our school curricula.

That might be called putting one's money where one's mouth is.

Shall we hold our breath and wait for that request to come from the penthouse suite of the Rutledge Building?

Boosting its local readers' schools, the Independent Mail reports that all of the high schools in its area offer the courses recommended by the report.

All of the high schools in the Anderson, Oconee and Pickens area offer advanced placement courses. Many of the schools offer dual credit courses, as well. Student participation in those classes varies depending on the district. Iva-based Anderson School District 3 has the lowest student participation rate in AP classes with 8 percent while the School District of Oconee County has the highest with 24 percent.

"AP classes are rigorous and require success in appropriate prerequisites," said Tripp Dukes, assistant superintendent for instruction at District 5. "All students with the prerequisites and work ethic to handle those classes should be given the opportunity. To get underserved students in those classes begins by raising the expectations and rigor in the elementary and middle schools which we strive to do."

In Anderson School District 5, two new programs — one for high school level International Baccalaureate instruction at T.L. Hanna High School and Early College Academy at Westside High School — offer advanced instruction.

Good for the students and educators in Oconee, Anderson and Pickens counties. Perhaps the superintendent will send his first wave of apology notices to them.

Patte Barth, director of the National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education, said bringing academic rigor to high schools depended on the school.

"Are high schools rigorous enough? The answer is 'It depends,'" Barthe said. "High schools are doing a great job of increasing rigor and making students successful. But it is uneven. We're not suggesting any of the suggestions are the only answers, but they are some suggestions high schools can take to make their students better prepared for postsecondary education."

But Hannah Arnold with Crescent said it also depends on the student.

"I think it comes down to the student," she said. "It really depends on what courses the student chooses to take. Our high school course offerings are diverse. It just depends on the student to chose the more rigorous courses."

It always comes back to the student, certainly.

But it helps to have a supportive advocacy structure in the state capital, missing no opportunity to strengthen and improve a public school system that is clearly moving in the right direction, and that would benefit immensely from a restoration of investment in South Carolina's 700,000 public schoolchildren.

If this current Rutledge regime can't meet that need, maybe South Carolinians should raise our standards and elect a new one.

An officer but no gentleman: Zais attacks Inez Tenenbaum

To the best of my memory, former Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum started her career as a classroom teacher, then became a lawyer specializing in children's advocacy, then was elected superintendent of education in 1998 and was re-elected in 2002.

In fact, I believe Tenenbaum was so popular a state superintendent that she collected more votes than anyone else running statewide in 2002, and was the only Democrat elected statewide the year that Mark Sanford defeated Jim Hodges.

I recall hearing Tenenbaum say, time after time, that South Carolina's curriculum standards were already among the highest in the nation before the Bush administration imposed its so-called "No Child Left Behind" on South Carolina and the other 49 states.

And I recall that it wasn't only Tenenbaum saying it, but Education Week magazine consistently ranked South Carolina's standards high.

So I was shocked to learn that the fellow currently occupying the superintendency, Mick Zais, has unleashed a scorched-earth attack on Tenenbaum on the very subject that Tenenbaum was strongest: High standards.

Zais's new attack against a predecessor -- and, by the way, the woman who presently serves the nation as Consumer Product Safety Commissioner, ensuring that consumer products are manufactured to higher safety standards -- came as part of a diatribe against U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Now, just to review, during the same period of time that Tenenbaum was a classroom teacher and a lawyer specializing in children's advocacy, Zais collected an engineering degree from West Point Academy, masters and doctorate degrees in social psychology and organizational behavior from the University of Washington, and other degrees from military training programs, and served in a variety of Army commands on bases around the world.

According to his official biography, Zais's total experience in a classroom has been three years as "assistant professor" at West Point Academy, teaching "organizational behavior, leadership, and management consulting" to West Point cadets, not such basic -- and tested -- subjects as language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, et cetera, to South Carolina public schoolchildren.

So, armed with that awareness, here's what I read of Zais's screed to Duncan, in which he lambasted Tenenbaum and her successor, lifelong educator and former Columbia College president Jim Rex.

“Let me be crystal clear: South Carolina’s standards were lowered through an organized effort by former Democratic State Superintendents of Education Inez Tenenbaum and Jim Rex, the State Board of Education, the Education Oversight Committee, and taxpayer-funded education lobby groups. Their intent was to hide the true performance of our schools from students, parents, and taxpayers.”

“The governance of South Carolina’s system of education is too fragmented. Parents and taxpayers don’t need more unaccountable boards in Columbia; they need leaders willing to take principled stands to transform education so every student receives a personalized and customized education, not an inflexible, standardized one. That is my mandate from the voters.”

Zais continued, “Under my proposal for flexibility from certain provisions of No Child Left Behind, South Carolina would implement a new system of accountability that would grade schools from A through F, something every student and parent can understand. The proposal would set high and achievable standards for every student in every school. I look forward to submitting this proposal by February 28 and working with the U.S. Department of Education to gain approval of the State’s waiver request.”

“As State Superintendent of Education, it is my goal to raise standards as new statewide assessments are implemented in the next few years. History has shown, and President Obama’s Administration has confirmed, the education establishment in South Carolina and their lobbyists cannot be trusted.”

Zais concluded, “I call on all students, parents, and taxpayers to hold those responsible for lowering standards to account, and to stand with my allies and me as we work to transform education in South Carolina. Now is the time to put students first. That is my calling; that is my charge to keep.”

Words of an angry man, to be sure.

So the blame for Zais's inability to command a population that never sought to be commanded rests at the feet of Inez Tenenbaum and Jim Rex, whose primary crime was to advocate for South Carolina's public schoolchildren in times when state and federal lawmakers imposed standards and accountability without sufficient resources, through the old Education Accountability Act of 1998 and No Child Left Behind of 2001.

I would suggest -- and I'm surprised that the superintendent, with his degree in social psychology and certainly his awareness of a concept called "projection," wouldn't recognize this -- that he may be projecting his own negative emotion and feelings of incapacity upon his more-popular predecessors who, for all of their imperfections, retained a measure of trust from the state's community of professional educators because all knew that Tenenbaum and Rex had lived, breathed, walked in the shoes of those professions throughout their careers.

Leading troops in Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Kuwait and Kosovo clearly were monumental tasks, worthy of respect and admiration. But here, in quite a different theater of public service, it is conduct unbecoming a state superintendent to lash out at a woman whose service in the same position position ended more than five years ago. What benefit does one gain from attacking her?

I'm not sure -- I suspect that the vast, and let me say again, vast majority of education professionals are not sure -- that a career in military service, capped by a decade presiding over a small private college, really represents a "calling" to lead a state's public education system. Certainly, voters elected one candidate over another, and the office is occupied, but let's not fall off into hyperbole.

Preside over a classroom of seventh-graders who aren't quite as motivated and disciplined as, let's say, West Point cadets for 29 years, and the vast majority of education professionals would likely not flinch when one claims a "calling" and a "charge to keep" in leading public education.

Have the grace to refrain from ad hominem political attacks on predecessors of the opposite party -- as I noticed the good general didn't reach so far back in his anger as to bruise Superintendent Barbara Nielson -- and at the very least, no one would question one's sense of decorum as the executive officer of an agency in the state that birthed the code duello, Wade Hampton and the glistening swoon.

Tough as nails and committed as a prize fighter, Inez Tenenbaum is still a lady, an ever rarer sort in the Haley Age.

And no matter how badly one grinds one's teeth, a gentleman in South Carolina never attacks a lady.

And over her standards.

Zais: Our job is to train employees for manufacturers

Less than two weeks ago, Governor Nikki Haley traveled to Greenville to make some solemn pronouncements about how important it is that South Carolina train its children to be ready for hire by manufacturing companies when they locate in our state.

South Carolina is at the heart of manufacturing in the U.S., Haley said. Companies are looking to invest in South Carolina because the state has great things to sell: the cost of doing business is low and South Carolina is a very business-friendly state, she said.

But the state must ensure it has a trained workforce for these manufacturers, and people looking for jobs need to know what certifications they need and how to get certified.

“Companies coming here need to know there is a trained workforce ready to go,” Haley said. “And we must ensure these companies have a trained workforce to help attract them to South Carolina.”

As I wrote then, I interpret these comments to mean that Haley lumps the children of South Carolina's working families together with monkeys, hair, pigeons, rose bushes, dogs, dolphins and even fleas: Things that can and should be trained.

According to our governor, it is, in fact, our responsibility as citizens to raise up and train our children to be prepared, compliant, obedient and sufficient workers for their corporate owners.

This week, Haley's act is followed up by our Superintendent of Education Mick Zais, who traveled to the same region to deliver the same talking points in a strange color-by-number message scheme. Listen to what he told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal:

“As I travel around the state and talk to businessmen and women who own companies, they are desperate to hire skilled technicians to work in manufacturing,” Zais said. “We have an enormous shortage of these people, and that’s why our career and technical centers and academies make such an enormous contribution to our work force and, frankly, the economy of South Carolina.”

Let's play a word game. I'll take Zais's comments and replace some of his words with some words of my own, okay? Like this:

“As I travel around the state and talk to PARENTS and EDUCATORS who EDUCATE CHILDREN, they are desperate to HAVE SUFFICIENT RESOURCES to TEACH in SCHOOLS,” Zais said. “We have an enormous shortage of POLITICAL WILL, and that’s why our PARENTS and HARD-WORKING TEACHERS and CHILDREN LOSE such an enormous AMOUNT OF TIME WHICH JEOPARDIZES, frankly, the FUTURE of South Carolina.”

See? My version doesn't compare children to trainable animals. My version addresses public education as a public good, not a training program for future employers. And my version pretends that our superintendent of education is the state's chief advocate for public education, not the state's chief future human resources director.

Here's why Zais was in the Upstate:

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais visited all three of Spartanburg’s career and technology centers Friday as part of Career and Technical Education month.

Which begs a pertinent question: If we were to get the legislature to designate certain months as Public Education Months -- like, for example, all months whose names begin with a consonant or a vowel, just to be selective -- would the state superintendent of education use those special designations as a rationale to visit South Carolina's traditional public schools during those months? And would he talk about the importance of public education in South Carolina?

I have nothing against career and technology centers or schools. Students everywhere should be free to choose to attend them, once they determine that the services provided by these schools meet their needs best. I believe in making available a veritable smorgasbord of options within public schools for all of South Carolina's children.

I'm just curious about the habits of South Carolina's highest elected leaders, ones who avow a predisposition against traditional public education and who see their jobs as plant managers for corporate manufacturers, constantly demanding that the state provide more training! and better training! for their compliant employees.

Funny thing is, when Zais stops at any school -- traditional public or, in this case, career and technology center, he hears the same plea and answers with the same palaver:

After talking at length with administrators at R.D. Anderson, which serves students in Spartanburg districts 4, 5 and 6, Zais toured the school and was treated to a lunch prepared by culinary arts students. R.D. Anderson Director Sherri Yarborough said the school has grown about 200 percent in the past decade and offers more than 50 courses of study, several of which offer college credit.

Yarborough said some programs, such as the school’s popular machine tool courses, are not only at capacity but also turning away interested students. Asked by Zais how she would spend additional money, Yarborough said she would buy more equipment and build a wing on the school to serve more students.

Yarborough said career and technology educators are constantly in contact with area businesses and industry to keep up with trends. In many cases, she said centers are hindered because they can’t afford to pay for the courses, instructors and equipment needed.

“But we hear their cry,” she said.

Yarborough expressed that funding is an obstacle for the growing school, but she hopes an expansion will be possible in the next couple years.

What's the plea? More funding! More funding! We can't provide the necessary services on the meager pittances provided by our pretenders to leadership in Columbia!

And what's Zais's palaver?

Zais said the General Assembly must take a long look at the way education is funded in South Carolina.

“There are about 70 different pots of money that are earmarked and different sources of money,” he said. “It’s far too complicated.”

It's far too complicated, he says. You piteous people wouldn't understand. Just do what you're told, take what you're given and produce what is expected. We do not intend to graduate Einsteins here -- leave the educating to the private academies.

We only want you to take these little whelps, train them to read their instructional manuals and understand their numbers so employers will want them. The order is the same -- you should understand it by now -- as the order to train mill labor a century ago, and slave hands a century before that. Train them to do their tasks. Train them to comply. Train them to obey. Train them to do what they're told, when they're told, for as long as they're told, and to speak when they're spoken to.

As for yourselves, who are you? You have no standing to question your betters, and every last one of you can be replaced with cheaper help within a week, so you best be careful what you say aloud. Your job is not to educate, to administrate or facilitate; your job is to comply, and you'd better remember it.

Zais pointed out that the schools are educating an in-demand group of future workers. A news release from the state Department of Education, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, states that nearly one-third of the fastest-growing occupations will require an associate’s degree or a postsecondary vocational certificate.

“The most important thing that I think I need to work on is to make sure that parents and teachers understand that there are lots of high-paying jobs that don’t require a 4-year degree,” Zais said. “Kids who can come to our career and technology centers and go on to get a high-level certification from our tech colleges can start off making 50 to 60 thousand dollars.”

And without any additional credentials and critical thinking skills to weigh you down with ambition, you'll learn more quickly to comply, so as to protect those wages.

Take heed. Your job is to comply. Look sharp now; your corporate owner approaches.

Zais brings back more student tests; teachers wonder why

Because we don't test our students enough, and because the law requires it.

Parents of third-, fourth-, sixth- and seventh-graders, listen up: Your children haven't been suffering enough stress lately with fewer teachers and larger class sizes, so our state Superintendent of Education Mick Zais has the solution: More testing.

Trust me, this is going to work like a charm: Get ready for night sweats, stomach aches, bad dreams and nausea.

And when you write to Superintendent Zais, remember to thank him.

South Carolina Education Superintendent Mick Zais’ budget recommendation could mean reinstating some standardized testing South Carolina students have missed for a couple of years.

At the start of May students across the state will take the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards test, including reading comprehension, math, social studies and science. But only those in fifth and eighth grade will get an early dose of accountability, taking a separate writing section, at the end of March.

Since 1998 state law has mandated writing assessments for all students in the third through eighth grade. In the 2008-2009 school year writing became a stand alone section with a score independent of reading when the PASS test was implemented.

But in the past two years, because of budget cuts, the General Assembly opted to let kids in grades three, four, six and seven off the hook, saving $1.5 million each year. That money was instead distrusted to districts, based on their size, to be used wherever they needed it.

The state spends $14 to 15 million each year in standardized testing.

With state tax revenues up and the economy slowly recuperating, Zais said it’s time to get back to the law.

[Psst. General Zais. Over here.]

[Hey. I'm lovin' the law-and-order schtick. "It's the law, it's time to get back to the law." That stuff kills in the rural districts. You keep that up, you're lookin' at a landslide in 2014 -- that is, unless you're ready for the big leagues and you decide to primary Lindsay Graham. Catch my drift? Anyway, I got a hot tip for you.]

[There's this whole other law: the Education Finance Act. It's been around a while, like, 34 years. It's got this formula in it, supposed to tell lawmakers how much money to appropriate for a base student cost every year. I mean, it's a law, just like this testing thing you're pushing again. Like this year, the EFA says this base student cost is supposed to be almost $2,800 per child, but the legislature's only looking at funding $1,700 and some per child. That's so weak. They don't get it.]

[So, I'm thinkin', because you're the law-and-order guy -- you know, steppin' up to the plate and tellin' everybody, It's the law, you've got to do this testing like the law demands -- well, I'm thinkin', if you work that EFA base student cost into your schtick, 'cause it's the law, too, then lawmakers will have to man up and make it happen.]

[I mean, what else are they gonna do? Break the law? After the law-and-order guy -- a United States Army General, no less, like Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal -- lays down the law and tells them, This is the law. In South Carolina, we follow the law, whether it's testing or base student cost, you know? 'Cause that's who we are. Do work!]

[Man, I can see it now. You tell 'em straight up, this is how it is, and they get in line behind the law-and-order guy, and there's no way you won't go to the majors in 2014: Senator Zais. You gotta admit, that's got a ring. Law-and-order. That's your ticket. You need to put Jay-Dub on that, like, now.]

Education Department spokesman Jay W Ragley said writing is, by law, the department’s second priority after reading and that having a standardized test is both a teaching tool and a way to make sure writing really is being taught in each grade.

“If writing is not going to be assessed then perhaps there’s not as much an emphasis on writing because there’s not an assessment at the end of the year,” Ragley said. “And so we’ve heard from English language arts teachers that we’d like to get back on the regular schedule of assessing our students every year in writing so there are not in lapses in progress.”

He said it’s “critically important” for teachers to be able to look at each student’s previous writing test scores and rubrics to see the areas they will need to help each pupil improve.

I'm glad Ragley mentioned the critical importance of teachers in the testing question.

And, coincidentally, one happened to be available to comment on the question:

But Jackie Hicks, the president of the South Carolina Education Association and a teacher in York County for 28 years, said standardized test score don’t help customize teaching.

Mm. That doesn't really support the whole "we need more testing" theme. And she's been a teacher for 28 years...

She said that each fall teachers get writing samples for each student from the previous year and that by the time information from standardized tests come in, they already know their students strengths and weaknesses.

So, the results of the big testing process come up a day late and a dollar short. That's definitely not a ringing endorsement from the educator community for more testing.

“I think we are focusing too much on standardized tests. The teachers themselves do an excellent job in the classroom to analyze the child’s writing and have the understanding of child development,” Hicks said.

I'm definitely getting the impression that education professionals -- experts in their field -- believe the additional testing is unnecessary, inefficient and duplicative. And if it's duplicative, I know Governor Nikki Haley will want in on this issue.

She also worries that adding more “big test” dates adds anxiety for the younger children, especially third and fourth graders, who she thinks need to first get a solid handle on reading skills.

Whoa. Education experts believe the testing, in addition to being unnecessary, inefficient and duplicative, may also be harmful to the children?

Whose idea was this additional testing? I'd hate to be that guy.

“In third grade what the teachers and the community should want more is to see how well the child is doing on reading and their understanding and comprehension. That’s important first,” Hicks said. “If they can read and comprehend they can really learn the other subjects and the writing will mature.”

Game, set and match. But wait:

On top of that, there’s the fear that with each standardized test component teachers feel pressured to teach students how to pass the test, not necessarily who to become better writers.

Man, o man.

I hope this doesn't discourage Superintendent Zais from pursuing his "it's the law" theme at the legislature. He might really make some headway on getting a modern-day base student cost, even if he has to give up the unnecessary, inefficient, duplicative, harmful and misdirected testing agenda.

Fingers crossed...

Haley: I don't want to pay for your kid's education

If it weren't for simple mathematics, Governor Nikki Haley might've succeeded at portraying herself as a compassionate conservative. Unfortunately for her, thanks to hundreds of thousands of fine math teachers across the land, Americans -- even we South Carolinians -- can comprehend simple arithmetic.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said her proposed budget for 2012-13 increases money for public schools, but a closer look shows her recommendations would actually decrease state funding by nearly $80 million.

"You'll see education gets an increase," she said in releasing her first executive budget last month.

The Republican governor is partially correct, but only by disregarding some pots of money. Her proposal represents an increase in recurring money for K-12 schools, when factoring in all state revenue sources - chiefly, the penny of the state sales tax that goes directly to education programs.

However, Haley's budget proposal does not include anything funded this school year with one-time money.

That includes $56 million legislators added to the budget to boost the so-called "base student cost" to $1,880 per student - money they added over her veto. Superintendent Mick Zais has asked legislators to at least maintain that key funding source, which primarily pays for teacher salaries, by funding the $56 million through recurring sources, plus adding $15 million to account for student population growth.

By doing neither, Haley's budget would reduce that per-student amount to $1,766 - in a year the state formula calls for it to be $2,790.

Educators call it disappointing.

This is not new. Educators have been disappointed for a decade now.

If a condition lasts a whole decade, can't we call it chronic? Are we suffering chronic disappointment in our state's leadership? Are our state's leaders guilty of chronic neglect of public education?

And what a stirring demonstration of commitment to the rule of law in South Carolina! The Education Finance Act and its formula for a base student cost, adopted in 1977, dictates that this year's appropriation should total $2,790, is absolutely ignored.

An untrained monkey can observe that Haley's budget shows public education is not a priority for her. It reinforces the position that many educators put forward in 2010, in actively supporting Sen. Vincent Sheheen for the post Haley occupies, that when data demonstrates a woman hasn't supported public education in the past, we might reasonably predict that she won't suffer a blissful epiphany once ensconced in the chief executive suite. Better candidates deserve our active support.

Yet educators remained divided then -- oh, I don't like politics; it's so dirty. And, we can't get involved in partisan bickering and make people angry at us; there's no telling what they'll do in retaliation when they get into office. And, let's face it, we're a conservative state; best to ask for what you want, be thankful for what you get, and work with everybody.

Result: Governor Nikki Haley.
Base student cost: $1,766.
State of the education professions: Demoralized.
Quality of public education: Suffering.
Value to long-term right-wing agenda: Priceless.

Here's a prediction: When educators organize, educators win.

Legislators say there's no chance they'll restore the base student cost to $2,790, which would cost $553 million, but they could provide some increase.

"Some increase." This is laughable. A base student cost of $1,800 would represent an increase, and it would still leave us at education funding levels somewhere near 1996, the year that Bill Clinton was re-elected to the presidency.

The extra $913 million projected for 2012-13 follows several years of budget cuts due to the Great Recession.

It's due to a surplus from the fiscal year that closed June 30, along with more money coming in this fiscal year than legislators budgeted, plus continued growth. However, required increases - including property tax relief, health care and reserve funds - gobble up most of it. And those surpluses from the current and last fiscal year are what's considered one-time money. Former Gov. Mark Sanford long railed about using that to pay for long-term expenses.

Yes, we need property tax relief, because high taxes on beachfront property discourages wealthy retirees from relocating here to shelter their nest eggs; it's the primary reason we've seen in-migration drop off so precipitously in the past two or three generations.

Haley has long complained that more money needs to go toward the classroom, rather than administration.

As Zais points out, that's precisely where the "base student cost" - considered a bellwether for state support - goes, in the form of salaries: "We ought to try and at least maintain funding for classroom operations."

"While the governor and I disagree on the dollar amount directed to the base student cost, we're in complete agreement that recurring dollars should be used to pay for recurring expenses," Zais said.

Sophistry: the tool of confidence men, fortune-tellers, magicians and pickpockets.

Try this: While the superintendent and I disagree on the need for public education funding, the Constitution and I are in complete agreement that the legislature is specifically empowered to raise the revenues necessary to fully fund the state's essential obligations and institutions.

Haley's budget also does not annualize the $20 million in one-time "hold harmless" money sent to districts to cover shortfalls due to an adjustment to a state funding formula. And it reduces lottery money to K-12 schools by $11.3 million, in order to fully fund lottery-funded college scholarships.

Items Haley highlighted when releasing her $5.7 billion budget plan include further tax cuts - reducing revenue from state and corporate income taxes by $140 million - and the addition of about 100 law enforcement officers. She would put $75 million of one-time money toward encouraging counties to take over the maintenance of some state roads.

The conservative South Carolina Policy Council says Haley is right to insist that education by funded only with recurring money.

"If increasing base student funding is a priority, it should be treated as a priority, not a benevolent afterthought," said spokesman Barton Swaim, who formerly worked for Sanford. "All this confusion highlights the fact that our funding structure doesn't make sense. Our K-12 education system isn't underfunded - it's funded inefficiently."

Translation: It isn't that we're not feeding our children enough, it's that we're feeding them a little bit from four major food groups, three times a day, when one Flintstones chewable a day would be more efficient.

On the plus side of the equation, Haley would give the statewide public charter school district an additional $10 million.

"The problem that I think we've had in the past with government is we tend to just look at the dollars that go into education."

Yes, I can see where that's a problem. When citizens can look at a budget document and see how many or, har har, how few dollars go specifically to public education, it tends to impede the governor's ability to undermine, dismantle and privatize public education and other services. Apparently, parents want their schools to be funded at ever-increasing levels, similar to the annual increases in cost-of-living, inflation and the forces of the free market. It's as if they take to heart that old saw from the King James: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

I don't want us to do that anymore. It's not what we get; it's how we spend it," she said, adding that's why she put more money toward charters.

Hm. Sage advice. It's not what we don't have, it's how we manage the void.

I can see Haley telling a poor family at Thanksgiving: It's not important that you have no turkey and dressing with all the trimmings, it's important that you have a whole afternoon free, since you won't be napping from turkey overload.

Or, telling poor children at Christmas: It's not important that Santa Claus brought you no toys, it's important that you swallow your disappointment at those in whom you previously placed your trust.

Or, telling slaves on our old antebellum plantations: It's not important that you're deprived of freedom, and of learning to read and write, it's only important that you have plenty of time and opportunity to get your work done.

Hilariously, even Haley's own charter-school lieutenant undercut her specious argument:

Superintendent Wayne Brazell said that money would only cover student growth in his statewide district, which consists of charter schools that chose not to organize through their local district.

Remember, several years ago, when local school boards were refusing to approve charters for fly-by-night bands and snake-oil salesmen to open charter schools in their districts -- and siphon precious public dollars from their district budgets -- former Governor Mark Sanford pushed lawmakers to set up a statewide charter school district with its own board of trustees.

So Haley's generosity toward charters in this budget proposal only benefits the charters who couldn't get approved by their local boards and had to resort to the Sanford dodge to open their doors. That's nice. It sends a good message to the children: Play by rules and lose; create loopholes and win! Yay!

The $10 million would be on top of the $25 million legislators added in the current school year, to help make up for the fact its schools get no local taxes. Ironically, since the district otherwise relies on base student cost, Haley's budget actually reduces per-student spending on its schools.

Haley redirected some money that comes in through the penny sales tax added under the 1984 Education Improvement Act. That penny funds specific things such as gifted and talented programs, summer school, student testing, 4-year-old kindergarten, and bonuses for teachers with a national certification. Both Zais and Haley recommend closing that incentive program to new entries.

The penny is expected to generate an additional $42 million over the recurring amount legislators budgeted for this year, to nearly $607 million. However, after factoring in a one-time allocation from a previous surplus, the extra is less than $9 million.

New programs she funds include $2 million toward Teach for America, which puts top college graduates who didn't major in education into low-income schools, and $1.75 million to launch a STEM curriculum, which stands for Science Technology Engineering Math, aimed at preparing students for careers in technology.

Education Oversight Committee director Melanie Barton praised the additions of those EOC initiatives.

"Having successful leaders in the classrooms of our most challenged schools is critical to change the expectations and culture of many of our schools," she said.

This hurts my brain.

The leader of the Education Oversight Committee affirms that "having successful leaders in the classrooms of our most challenged schools is critical." Yet she praises the Haley plan, which (1) reduces per-student spending, (2) eliminates incentives for National Board certification, a program to improve the quality of classroom professionals, and (3) diverts funding from four-year-old kindergarten to pay for Teach for America (aka Teach for A While), a program that "puts top college graduates who didn't major in education" into the most critical classrooms for only two years.

This is praiseworthy? I understand that the EOC isn't really a body of educators -- even some of its "educator appointees" are business people rather than education professionals -- but praising an anti-education budget for its scraps and crumbs is weak.

Haley also added $10 million for technology and $2 million to help failing schools while eliminating money for some university-sponsored programs. She puts $5 million toward leasing school buses, as she pursues legislation transferring bus responsibilities to districts.

"I don't want to buy any more school buses," Haley said.

Well, that's what it's all about: What Haley wants.

I don't want to look at how many dollars we spend, she says. I don't want to buy any more school buses. I don't want to pay for any more textbooks or dictionaries. I don't want to hire any more teachers. I don't want to keep SCETV on the air. I don't want to pay retirement benefits to our public employees. I don't want to provide health insurance to anyone. I don't want to build any more schools. I don't want to read criticism from newspaper editors. I don't want to talk to reporters who print what I say and make me look foolish. I don't want my support for Mitt Romney to count against me. I don't want to learn about Caesar's wife from John Rainey. I don't want Darla Moore to overshadow me. I don't want to hear any more about transparency. I don't want anyone to question me. All I want is to be obeyed.

Her spokesman Rob Godfrey used that as an example for how her budget increases money for K-12: "It doesn't burn tens of millions of dollars on buying buses, which are expensive, which rapidly depreciate, and which we don't need to own anymore," he said.

The state hasn't spent "tens of millions" on buses in years.

Oops.

Yeah, that's right. Scrapped school buses from Alabama and Kentucky and Tennessee don't cost tens of millions of dollars; those states may even pay us to come and take the buses off their hands.

The current budget designates up to $12.3 million for new buses from unclaimed lottery prizes - the first designation for buses since 2007. The education agency has received about one-third of that, said Zais, who added he's fine with decentralizing buses.

Zais did request $36 million to buy enough new school buses to comply with the state's 15-year replacement cycle law, to get buses from the mid-80s off the road. Legislators have ignored that law since passing it.

Of course they have. This is South Carolina, where the law is a mighty rubbery thing.

South Carolina relies on national charity for homeless children

They're not our state lawmakers' children, so I suppose it's reasonable that our lawmakers have no interest in providing for them.

That's the logic that applies to providing adequate funding for children enrolled in public schools, and it appears to be the logic applied to South Carolina's homeless children, too.

The national charity Feed The Children is distributing 1,900 backpacks and supplies to homeless school children from South Carolina.

Feed The Children is giving the backpacks to officials of the State Department of Education on Friday in Columbia. They will pass the backpacks on to representatives who work with homeless students in more than 60 school districts throughout the state.

O, fudge. For a moment there, I was hopeful that homeless children might benefit from this out-of-state charity, until I read that the out-of-state charity is turning over its donations to the Department of Education. Does that mean Superintendent Mick Zais and Jay Ragley will get to decide where the backpacks go?

If so, no homeless children may ever see them. Or, they'll get them late. These things have to be considered carefully by the higher-ups in the Rutledge Building, and Zais isn't exactly on the job five days a week.

Feed The Children spokesman Mark Opgrande says the backpacks are filled with school supplies, non-perishable food, personal hygiene items like toothpaste and combs, and children's books.

Opgrande says Feed The Children is working with Staples, Inc., and the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth on the project to distribute 150,000 backpacks during the current school year.

Better plan: Ask local superintendents to appoint a teacher representative to receive and coordinate distribution of the backpacks directly from the charity. Teachers know how to get things done, and they have a much better notion of which children need these supplies.

I doubt our state superintendent knows any children who attend public schools.

And why should he? They're not his children.