Post & Courier uncovers ALEC's reach in SC

Reporters Robert Behre and Stephen Largen have outdone themselves with an investigative report on the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the South Carolina legislature, and by extension, on the public policy governing the lives of millions of South Carolinians.

With extensive background reporting, complete narratives, examples and facts, Behre and Largen set a standard that I hope The State and other papers in South Carolina will emulate in their own coverage of ALEC -- when they get around to mentioning it.

Read it and weep.

Sen. Mike Rose stood up on the Senate floor earlier this month to clear confusion over a bill and asked for a delay so he could check with the measure’s creator.

But the proposal’s author wasn’t a fellow lawmaker or anybody in South Carolina.

“This is an American Legislative Exchange Council bill,” the Summerville Republican told his colleagues. “What I would like to do over the break is to do the research now with ALEC and address the senator from Orangeburg’s concerns.”

The moment provided a rare public outing of a little-known player in the state Legislature — a Washington-based, mostly corporate-funded nonprofit that pairs lawmakers across the country with business interests.

Since 1973, they have worked together in private — often at resort-hosted retreats — to craft proposed laws addressing everything from health care to education to gun laws and even voting rights.

Some corporations behind ALEC, among the largest companies in the country, stand to profit from passage of the group’s ready-made, model bills.

The group identifies itself as nonpartisan and working to advance free-market enterprise and limited government at the state level.

ALEC has Democratic members, including a few in South Carolina, but its bills most often line up with the GOP agenda.

The extent of ALEC’s influence in the Palmetto State is difficult to nail down, as there is no complete or definitive public tracking of just how many of its model bills have been introduced or passed here in some form over the years.

But the group’s bills are materializing at the Statehouse.

It’s rare for state legislators to publicly admit that a bill they sponsor is actually the work of ALEC, but the similarities between the group’s model bills and some introduced here are undeniable. Whole sections of some, with a few words changed, match ALEC models.

Some of ALEC’s member lawmakers say the bipartisan group provides useful assistance in weighing the impact of legislation on corporations and job creators, assistance not unlike the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But more often, critics say the group has taken on an increasingly conservative tilt. Some say ALEC provides corporations a way to influence lawmakers without it being reported to state ethics watchdogs.

“We feel that for a group like ALEC, a lot of how they make these bills is done in secret through corporate money and without public input,” said Liz Bartolomeo, a spokeswoman with the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based, nonpartisan group that advocates for government openness.
Voter registration bill

Charleston GOP Sen. Chip Campsen is an ALEC member and among the co-sponsors of the state’s controversial voter ID bill that passed last year.

The bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Nikki Haley but subsequently blocked by the U.S. Justice Department, which said it discriminated against minorities.

The measure requires voters to bring a photo ID to the polls as a way to protect against fraud, bill supporters have said.

S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the federal government, arguing the state’s voter ID law does not discriminate.

South Carolina was among a group of states to pass voter ID measures last year.

Language in many of the bills, including South Carolina’s, bears some similarities to ALEC’s model voter ID bill.

Earlier this month, after a fund- raiser in downtown Columbia for a national group that supports voter ID laws, Campsen said he developed his bill on his own without input from any organizations, including ALEC.

He said there could be a couple of reasons for similarities between the group’s model bill and his own. “Maybe people copied me,” he said.

But Campsen said it’s more likely ALEC copied laws from two other states whose voter ID measures have been upheld by the courts.

“I’ve introduced a lot of legislation in response to Supreme Court decisions, and that’s been my practice,” he said.

While the state waits for a resolution to Wilson’s lawsuit challenging the federal block, Campsen has introduced another measure that would impact voting rights.

Specifically, the bill would limit the types of IDs residents can use to register to vote.

Currently, state residents who want to register to vote must provide a valid photo ID or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or government document that shows their name and address.

Campsen’s bill, titled the “Voter Citizenship Verification Act,” would limit acceptable forms of identification to a military ID, South Carolina or other state-issued ID, a birth certificate, naturalization documents or a passport.

The new measure, which has cleared a Senate panel, bears striking similarities to ALEC’s “Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act,” which lays out the same proposed requirements to register to vote.

The wording of the two bills also matches up closely in several sections.

Campsen did not respond to calls seeking comment on his new bill.

Another ALEC proposal that has passed in South Carolina was part of last year’s Fairness in Civil Justice Act.

That measure’s two-part trial, where a jury first determines compensatory damages, then punitive damages, is very similar to ALEC’s “Punitive Damages Standards Act.”

The interstate health care compact bill, which Rose identified on the floor of the Senate as ALEC-created, passed the Senate earlier this month.
How it works

Lawmakers pay $100 for a two-year membership in ALEC, but that makes up less than 2 percent of the group’s annual income. Most comes from corporate donations, conferences, advertising and publications.

Wait a second: Does this mean that WE, as taxpayers, pay the membership fee for these men and women to collect model legislation to use against us?

Can we not adopt a new law prohibiting the use of public funds to buy memberships in ALEC?

In return, lawmakers may attend a few meetings a year, such as its spring task force meeting set for May 11 in Charlotte. There, they break into committees with corporate members and work on model bills.

The elected officials’ expenses incurred attending meetings can be reimbursed by the group, or lawmakers sometimes pay their own way out of their campaign accounts.

“Why shouldn’t the private sector be able to sit at a table and discuss legislation that affects the country and them and people?” Rose asked. “The legislators that I know who are conscientiously trying to figure out what’s the best thing are using these organizations to obtain information. They’re certainly not a rubber stamp.”

Almost 2,000 lawmakers from all 50 states are members — about 25 percent — and ALEC bills itself as the nation’s largest nonpartisan individual membership association of state lawmakers. Its alumni include Haley and U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, R-North Charleston.

Rose likened ALEC to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a publicly-backed bipartisan group that also works on model bills.

State Rep. Liston Barfield, R-Conway, serves as a co-chair of ALEC in South Carolina and also as the secretary of its national board of directors.

Barfield said he first got involved with ALEC when he was a Democrat serving in the House in the 1980s.

“There’s no other organization that lets us hear what the business community is thinking,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we support them on every issue, but at least that gives us insight into what they’re thinking about and what is affecting their business.”

Respectfully, doesn't the state Chamber of Commerce do that? Really, the state chamber is well represented inside and outside the legislative chambers, and I would think that they have a chokehold on the best thinking of the state's business community, so no lawmaker has to look to any outside group for such expertise.

Nationally, ALEC claims more than a thousand of its model bills are introduced each year, and about 17 percent of them become law.

However, the group offers no full breakdown by state. Barfield said some of ALEC’s bills have become law in South Carolina, but, “I don’t have a list of them. I never sat down and tried to figure them out.”
Recent controversy

In recent weeks, ALEC has faced a crush of controversy in the wake of the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.

While the state waited more than six weeks to bring charges against neighborhood watch member George Zimmerman, who shot Martin, the national spotlight turned to Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. That law allows people to use deadly force if they feel threatened in a public place.

When applied, as it was initially in the Martin case, those using deadly force are immune from prosecution. Zimmerman was charged later through a special prosecutor.

While Florida’s 2005 law did not stem from ALEC’s work, the group did create a model bill along the same lines that expands the so-called “Castle Doctrine” to areas outside a person’s home.

ALEC’s push for stand-your-ground laws has resulted in some groups calling for corporations to end their support for the group, with some success.

And last week ALEC announced it would focus solely on economic issues going forward.

But the group had been under growing scrutiny even before Martin’s death.

The Center for Media and Democracy, a Washington nonprofit critical of the group’s influence, recently received more than 800 previously secret ALEC model bills and then posted them on its website, providing a rare public glimpse of ALEC’s workings.

Brendan Fischer, a law fellow with the center, said the group hopes this new sunshine will increase voters’ awareness of the previously low-key group.

“They have this huge influence on the laws that govern us, but the public isn’t even allowed in. The press isn’t even allowed in,” he said. “It’s all happening without any public oversight or accountability.”

Fischer said part of the center’s concerns stem from how the corporations working through ALEC aren’t named on most lawmakers’ state ethics reports.

South Carolina lawmakers who have received grants and scholarships to attend ALEC events have declared them as ALEC donations on their campaign disclosure forms, but the names of the corporations themselves don’t appear there. “It’s layering influence on top of influence and it’s all happening outside the bounds of state ethics laws,” Fischer said.

Well, then, here's another opportunity to bring sunlight and transparency to the process: Let's adopt a new law requiring lawmakers to identify to corporate sources of their "grants and scholarships" whenever they attend conferences they don't pay to attend.

ALEC critics in South Carolina focus less on the ethics angle than what they see as an increasingly partisan edge to its model bills.

Sen. John Land, D-Manning, said he once contributed to ALEC when it hosted a meeting in Hilton Head. But he said the group now has lost its way. He cited its voter ID bill as “highly discriminatory and totally unnecessary.”

Such laws may seem beyond ALEC’s scope of pushing for limited government and free markets. But, Fischer said, “You could see how this would indirectly benefit big business because if you can reduce voter turnout in populations that tend to vote Democratic, you’re going to be more likely to have Republicans in office, and those Republicans are more likely to pass the kind of laws you want passed.”

Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said he joined ALEC after first winning office in the mid 1990s but quickly left the group without attending a conference after discovering what he described as the group’s one-sided, conservative bent and one-size-fits-all approach.

But Sen. Thomas Alexander, a Walhalla Republican who serves with Barfield as state co-chair of ALEC, said the group is best understood as an educational tool.

“I just think it’s healthy to be involved and listen to ideas and listen to national trends and get together with colleagues,” he said, adding that even the National Conference of State Legislatures has its critics.

Rose, the GOP senator from Summerville, said ALEC’s role in formulating bills should not be voters’ prime concern.

“In the end, our Legislature passes or doesn’t passes legislation, so the origin of the legislation really doesn’t matter,” he said.

Respectfully again, I suggest the origin of legislation does matter.

When boneheaded proposals crop up before our committees and lawmakers, I want to be able to identify the proposal with the person who proposed it. If our lawmakers have to cull through an ALEC legislative catalog to find the proposals to resolve South Carolinians' issues and concerns, then maybe we need new lawmakers. After all, ALEC isn't on the ballot -- the men and women representing us in the legislature are.

Equalization schools highlighted in Charleston

Having served briefly on the United States Supreme Court, Governor Jimmy Byrnes foresaw in 1951 that a number of low-level federal lawsuits would likely make their way to the nation's highest court within a few years and, given the Court's composition, might result in an order striking down the fifty-year-old "separate but equal" principle in public accommodations.

Byrnes made no secret of his thinking, and he pushed our state legislature toward a Hail Mary strategy: Adopt a massive tax increase to fund the building of hundreds of new schools, to illustrate to the Court that, at least in South Carolina, "separate but equal" was still a viable concept and should be maintained.

He said so in an address to the South Carolina Education Association's annual state conference within a few weeks of his inauguration.

The tax increase passed, the schools were built, but the Court issued its famous ruling in Brown v Board of Education anyway, ordering the integration of public accommodations, including public schools.

Sunday's edition of the Post and Courier of Charleston featured the results of Byrnes's strategy, the so-called equalization schools built in the 1950s, thanks to the work of a graduate student.

Rebekah Dobrasko stumbled upon a piece of relatively unexplored South Carolina history while working on her master’s degree in public history.

She learned the state passed its first general sales tax in 1951 to fund “equalization” schools. This statewide initiative was designed to improve black public schools as a demonstration of its commitment to separate but equal. The state wanted to avoid integrating its racially segregated facilities.

More than 700 new schools were built during the 1950s, but Dobrasko could find little research on these schools or what became of them.

She focused on Charleston County’s equalization schools for her master’s thesis and discovered that some were slated to be demolished.

Dobrasko alerted city officials about the history behind one building slated to be torn down, and her advocacy has led to a first-of-its-kind exhibit being planned for the campus of Charleston Progressive Academy.

School leaders will create the state’s first public display on equalization schools, and the public will have a chance to decide what should be included.

“It’s a chance to tell this story,” Dobrasko said. “It’s a part of our history that’s not the most pleasant, but it’s still something that shaped the education landscape today.”
Building equalization

The state’s equalization schools were built or renovated between 1951 and 1960 as part of the state’s response to the Briggs v. Elliott school desegregation lawsuit. That case originally accused Clarendon County officials of refusing to uphold the law’s requirement that segregated facilities be equal.

Within the first six years of the equalization program, the state nearly doubled the number of accredited black high schools from 80 to 145 in 1957.

South Carolina was one of three states — the other two were Georgia and Mississippi — to give money for school equalization in an attempt to prevent integration. Their efforts would be for naught when the nation’s highest court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that black students must be allowed to sit alongside their white peers.

As part of the equalization school effort, Charleston would receive $6.2 million to renovate, build or equip 46 schools. The majority of the funds went toward black school renovation and construction; black students received new schools first, but the money also funded white-only schools.

Dobrasko became interested in equalization schools during one of her graduate classes at the University of South Carolina. The class took regular trips to Charleston, so she decided to look further at the equalization schools in the county.

She used her Charleston-focused thesis to later create a website on the issue. She heard from residents across the state, and she expanded her work to include schools outside the Lowcountry.

Dobrasko now works for the state Historic Preservation Office, and her job as a supervisor of compliance, tax incentives and surveys has nothing to do with equalization schools.

Still, when she heard about the demolition of Memminger Elementary, an equalization school for white students, she felt compelled to write an email that evolved into a promise of a new public exhibit.
Preserving history

Bill Lewis, the district’s chief operations officer, said the school district can’t restore all the buildings built in that era. Of the equalization schools, the former Courtenay School, now home to Charleston Progressive Academy, has some of the most distinctive architecture, and its close proximity to the Visitor Center and downtown makes it an ideal site for tourists, he said.

Lewis is not sure what the exhibit will look like or include, but he said it likely will be housed in an outdoor courtyard and accessible to the public. It might have maps and plaques as well as photos, but he said that will depend on public input.

The school also might be able to feature some items in its library, but no decisions have been made, he said. The school’s construction budget has about $50,000 set aside for the exhibit.

“If we don’t collect these (artifacts) soon, the memories will be lost,” he said.

Dobrasko said she wants the public — particularly residents who attended or lived in communities near the equalization schools — to share their thoughts on what this exhibit could be. She encouraged residents to bring yearbooks, photos, graduation programs and their stories about whether the schools were important to the area; what the schools were like when they opened; and how they affected the community.

Some of the community’s leading voices on diversity issues — such as the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center and the Charleston NAACP — weren’t aware of the exhibit and said they haven’t been part of the conversation so far. Both groups said they’d like to know more.

Aurora Harris, diversity programs manager for the Preservation Society of Charleston, said she’s been involved in the planning and has helped publicize the upcoming public hearings.

“It’s really telling a part of the story that a lot of people aren’t aware of,” she said.

Bernard Powers, a College of Charleston history professor who’s serving as chief historian on the strategic plan for the International African American Museum, wasn’t aware of the proposed exhibit either but said these schools are an important part of the civil rights movement.

“There is the era of segregation … and the other side is a period of desegregation or integration,” he said. “But in between, there were at least sporadic efforts to forestall desegregation and integration by making separate really equal. And the (equalization) schools are probably the best example of this that you can possibly come up with.”

Peper finds examples of great teaching in Charleston

There are more than 50,000 great public school teachers in South Carolina. Highlighting each one of them with a column in one daily newspaper would take more than 137 years, but that doesn't mean we oughtn't do it from time to time.

I'm pleased to see that Post & Courier columnist Warren Peper took note of one last week, Mark Nadobny of Moultrie Middle School:

When you enter Mark Nadobny’s class at Moultrie Middle School, the number of signs and maps on the walls can be a bit overwhelming. The wall opposite the entrance shows a European map with sticky notes labeled “G,” “P,” “F,” “USSR” and “GB.” A poster directly across the room says, “Freedom isn’t free — just ask any soldier.”

Nadobny is the chair of the Social Studies department, and his passion is teaching history. His third-period class of seventh-graders starts at 9:52 a.m., and when it’s time to begin, you’d better buckle up.

The first 10 minutes of class is spent taking inventory of plastic bags various students have brought for a class project. Nadobny puts together care packages for soldiers serving overseas. As this day begins, he displays the toothpaste, candy, gum, shampoo, pencils and jelly beans some students have contributed. His lesson? During his deployments while in the Navy, there were always a couple of guys who never got anything during mail call. He wants his students to show the military serving overseas that people back here care.
Reveal and Review

For the next 10 minutes, students are asked to share any family stories pertaining to their current studies of World War II. A shy girl raises her hand to say her great-uncle was in Hawaii and saw Japanese planes approaching Pearl Harbor. Other class members mention specific moments their great-grandparents have shared with their families through the years. So far, we’re in class 20 minutes, and while no books are yet open, there’s some learning going on.

With the pacing of a game show host, Nadobny moves into what he calls “I Spy.” Using the classroom Smartboard, he begins to pepper the students with quick questions of review from the previous class. What was the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis? Why is this a propaganda poster? He moves around the room so the students stay engaged. Claire, Brandon, Stan and Griffin all come up with correct answers, and they’re immediately tossed a Dum Dum lollipop. When this session is over, the teacher has cleverly avoided calling on anybody twice, and before you know it, virtually everyone in the class has a Dum Dum and they’re clearly Not Not.
Time to take notes

The final 20 minutes of class are spent on new information. Students are then led into an interactive narrative that involves words like blitzkrieg and the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Again, Nadobny, in his seventh year at Moultrie Middle, navigates his way through the lesson plan with maps, posters, grease pencils and his computer-driven Smartboard. There’s no way anybody can sleep or disengage because he’s constantly on the move, calling on students and asking questions. They ask him, too. What does führer mean? The answer is leader. How old was Hitler? In his 40s, during WWII.

Before class is dismissed, it’s time to watch a Disney cartoon. Before you say, “What in the name of Mickey Mouse is going on here?” the cartoon is a production the U.S. government asked the Disney Co. to make that starred Donald Duck. It’s original title was “Donald Duck in Nutzi Land.” Yet another history lesson is squeezed in just before the bell rings.

Mark Nadobny’s love of history is very clear. His passion for sharing that love with his students reveals itself every time class begins.

Before his 17-year teaching career began, he was a signalman in the Navy. Then, his job was to receive and distribute messages. Looks like some middle-schoolers in Charleston County are fortunate he’s standing watch.

I’m just sayin’...

EOC: Goals 2020 in jeopardy without 'new sense of urgency'

An opinion-editorial was published in the Charleston Post & Courier on Friday by Barbara Hairfield, social studies curriculum specialist and Teaching American History Grant Project director for the Charleston County School District.

Hairfield is also vice chair of the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee, which makes her the highest ranking educator on that body, as state law prohibits the Education Oversight Committee from being chaired by an educator.

That simple fact tells a great deal about how lawmakers view public education -- and educators -- in South Carolina, and it provides appropriate context for Hairfield's column.

She begins by ringing an alarm.

In mid-February, the state received an urgent wake-up call when the S.C. Education Oversight Committee (EOC) released the annual progress report on its 2020 Vision.

One reason why local news broadcasts didn't lead with this "urgent wake-up call" in mid-February and since then may be that an urgent wake-up call is delivered to South Carolina's people three or four times a year, or more, on the same topics. Urgent wake-up calls have been issued by education authorities for generations, and the responses to them have been so uniformly apathetic that it hardly warrants a press release to mark each new warning.

Why is this? Let's go back to the start: Lawmakers tell us precisely where public education ranks among their priorities when they establish business representatives as chairs of the state's highest authority overseeing standards and accountability.

And when they build a state budget by lining up their priorities first, including corporate tax breaks, then backing public education into the budget using whatever revenue is left over, dividing that revenue by the number of public schoolchildren, and calling that the base student cost.

When lawmakers makes public education policy and funding their last budget priority, their attitudes toward it spread out across the land like butter on a hot stove.

In its 2020 Vision, the EOC has set targets in four key areas--reading proficiency, graduation rates, workforce readiness, and at-risk schools--to ensure that by the year 2020, South Carolina students will have the knowledge and skills to compete in the global economy.

Remember Goals 2000, the initiative kicked off by former President George Bush -- the original one, without any initials -- at a conference chaired by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, convened in 1990 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville? Then, the objective was to meet various education standards nationwide by the year 2000. Bush invested some money in it during his term; Clinton invested some more money in it during his two terms.

But we didn't meet those goals. We all got caught up in one side of the equation -- standards and accountability -- but we neglected the other side: ensuring that every child had opportunities to learn in small classes, with qualified and committed teachers, in safe and secure environments for teaching and learning. Doing both cost too much money; we only chose to afford the standards and accountability, so Goals 2000 went by the wayside.

When Bush's son, George W., took the presidency in 2000, he established a whole new set of goals, based on standards and accountability, and using punishment rather than investment to improve the quality of education. Under his scheme, known as No Child Left Behind, he declared that every child would be proficient by 2014. Oops.

Well, that never was going to happen from the start, but it made a great slogan, and it went a long way toward accomplishing Bush's ultimate goal, dismantling public education and privatizing it, moving public services into the private sector where public dollars could pump up private profits.

Now, as even South Carolina has applied for a waiver to get around the mandates of NCLB and its 2014 deadlines, we've conjured up a whole new program: the 2020 Vision.

Prediction: By 2020, we will have declared this initiative unaccomplished, and we'll draft some new set of goals or objectives with 2025 in the title, or 2030, or 2040, or 2050.

Why? Because, like Uncle Albert said, if you keep doing the same things, you keep getting the same results. Want different results? Do different things.

The things to do aren't rocket science. But they do cost a lot of money, and they do include shrinking class sizes, and they do involve getting private sector profiteering out of public education, and they do involve empowering education professionals to do their jobs.

And, like a lot of states, South Carolina is nowhere near ready to do these things.

So, we have reports like this one from EOC vice chair Hairfield:

The stark data from the report revealed that South Carolina is not making measurable progress in many educational areas. Pockets of excellence do exist, but the state as a whole is static. Simply put, South Carolina is not going to meet the educational goals set for the year 2020 if the state does not set the stage for dramatic and sustained improvement.

All South Carolinians need a new sense of urgency about this limited progress. With a renewed commitment and a laser-like focus on educational improvement, our state must commit the needed resources and take purposeful and strategic action. We cannot afford to be complacent any longer.

Former Governor Dick Riley said the same thing in 1977. It took him eight years to pass an additional one-cent sales tax to support education initiatives, and within a decade, legislators had figured out ways to supplant their old funding mechanisms with this new one-cent stream alone -- and they stick to that attitude today. What the penny affords is what the penny affords.

New sense of urgency.

When educators have replaced the corporatists and retired businessmen in South Carolina's legislative chambers, there will be no need for a new sense of urgency; there will be results.

In reading proficiency, the goal is that by 2020, 95 percent of all students in grades 3 and 8 will be reading on grade level. Analyzing state and national assessments, South Carolina is not on target to meet this goal. In addition, the percentage of all students who read on grade level actually decreases as students move through school. As reported on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation's report card, South Carolina currently ranks 39th in fourth grade and 38th in eighth grade reading proficiency.

The report also reflects sobering statistics on South Carolina's achievement gaps among students of different ethnicities. For example, 2011 NAEP results for South Carolina's fourth graders show that the number of African-American students reading on grade level trails the number of white students by 30 percent.

South Carolina also is not having dramatic, needed improvements in graduation rates, a second area addressed in the 2020 Vision. This goal is that by 2020, 88.3 percent of students will graduate on time. In 2011, South Carolina schools are still 15 percent below that target, and no demographic group -- white, Hispanic, African American -- will meet this goal if current trends remain.

So, what are state lawmakers willing to invest to achieve these goals?

Yawn.

Workforce readiness is the third 2020 Vision measure.

And why is that? Because the corporate community owns our legislature and its various properties, including the Education Oversight Committee, which by law must be chaired by a businessperson.

Workplace preparation was once the responsibility of the private sector. Get a job in a bottling plant, and you'll be trained in the bottling plant how to do that job. Work in a mill, and the supervisor would demonstrate the task. Then the private sector figured out that if it owned government, it could own public schools, too, and use public schools as its own training program at public expense.

Hence, "Workforce readiness is the third 2020 Vision measure."

The fourth accountability measurement is the number of schools rated "at risk" based on the standards for academic achievement and graduation rates. The goal is that by 2020, no school in South Carolina will be "at risk," but as of 2011, the state still has 69 schools that fall into this category.

The message revealed in the 2020 Vision progress report is a critical one for all South Carolinians. Improving education will take every person in this state stepping up to the plate and sharing in the responsibility.

That statement is true to a degree; it does take every person supporting a system of public education, whether or not they have children enrolled in our schools.

But that statement sidesteps a major issue that can be resolved by restating it thusly: "Improving education will take the necessary and unprecedented commitment of our lawmakers to make public education their first and highest budget priority, and to empower education professionals, through policy and resource allocation, to govern and deliver our system of public education for the benefit of every child."

Hairfield understands this intuitively, and she says so:

As an educator, I ask other educators to recognize that we cannot rectify this dire situation alone. True educational transformation will require all of us -- educators, parents, students, business and elected leaders -- working together to achieve educational excellence.

But as vice chair of the state's authority overseeing standards and accountability for the legislature and its corporate owners, she can only go so far.

What's left is a plea for help.

We face a large challenge, but rising to meet the challenge is the right thing to do for South Carolina's children and our state's economic prosperity. Now is the time for us to renew the promise of providing all children in South Carolina with a world-class education, so that our state and citizens can succeed in the global economy.

Educators, I suggest, are at the table. Fewer of them than necessary, overburdened and underappreciated, but present, willing, and waiting for those with power to show up.

Columnist pays tribute to teacher Mildred Almond

Just a reminder: Have you reached out to thank the teachers who helped you become who you are? Columnist Stephanie Harvin of the Charleston Post & Courier does in today's edition.

In every school, there are teachers who inspire us long after we have graduated. When we were seniors, in that final flurry of classes, exams, proms and graduation, we didn't think too hard about them.

They were our social studies teachers, our math teachers, our French teachers, our coaches. They were fixtures in our lives and we were ready to move on. It was only later that we discovered some of their lessons went far beyond the classroom.

Mildred Almond was one such teacher. She taught social studies, public speaking, economics and drama at Middleton High School for 21 years. But for many, she also was an example of how to live your life. She was someone who never took no for an answer, who didn't listen to excuses, who demanded the best of everyone in her classrooms and who helped those who were struggling, whether she taught them or not.

She taught history, and made it relevant to what was happening in the world. She taught public speaking, and was patient enough to wait until a nervous student got up the courage to start their prepared remarks.

And she was honest about the results, saying "You can do better next time" with a stern look and then a smile.

She passed away on Christmas Day at age 77 after a short illness. It's hard to think of the world without her. She was a tireless member of Cherokee Place United Methodist Church, and was a volunteer at the Naval Weapons Station pharmacy.

After she retired, she became a driving force in the Charleston County Retired Educators' Association. They had their February meeting at the church, one that Mildred had already planned. It turned into a celebration of her life.

The Culinary Arts students from the Garrett Academy of Technology came up with the menu, and then served it to the filled fellowship hall.

Then the chorus from the School of the Arts filed in to sing.

Mildred was a big supporter of the school's singers after she retired. And she would have been so proud of them. Robin Rogers directed them in a favorite from "A Chorus Line" that described Mildred perfectly:

"One singular sensation
Every little step she takes
One thrilling combination
Every move that she makes
One smile and suddenly nobody else will do
You know you'll never be lonely with you know who ..."

To end the program, Sabrina McIntyre, a senior this year, and former Middleton High School 1982 graduate Ann Marie Spearman Fairchild sang "The Prayer," an operatic duet, that made hearts in the room soar.

In his introduction, Rogers repeated what a friend had said of Mildred at her passing: "God needs a break so Mildred can be in charge for awhile."

I had to laugh when I heard that because it was so true. Mildred also never minced words and she taught all of us important skills, like how to form a clear idea, and how to project a voice so a large crowd can hear and how to research details on a story until it is accurate.

Every person that day had a special Mildred Almond story to tell, so I'm passing on one of my own.

Years after I graduated from college, I started writing for The Post and Courier. A few months later, I ran into Mildred again, and couldn't resist asking what she thought of my writing.

She was as straightforward as ever, and her response was typical "It will get better. Just keep on writing."

So for all the teachers out there who have moments when they pull their hair out over students, remember that some of the best lessons are the ones you are teaching about how to live life.

Press conference brings attention to educator salaries

When was the last time you saw The State and the Charleston Post & Courier publish stories about restoring educator salaries, on the same day?

Both are trailing the Charleston City Paper by a day, but better late than never. Nothing beats a trend, and news of this one may reach the Upstate by this evening or tomorrow.

The spark for this feeding frenzy by the media is a press conference held just a couple of hours ago at the State House, featuring fourth-grader teacher Patrick Hayes of Charleston. Hayes initiated the online petition -- at the advice of his wife, we've now learned -- in frustration at having his salary frozen for four years. Hayes previously taught in California, where he was a member of an educators union, and where educators are accustomed to organizing in support of their interests.

Thanks to that experience, Hayes is a motivated fellow.

Hayes used a fellow teacher, Lindsey Egloft, as an example. Egloft said she makes $36,679 teaching fifth grade at Drayton Hall Elementary. According to the salary schedule or her district -- given the credits she has earned in a Master’s degree program -- Egloft said she should be making $38,050.

Next year, with lawmakers’ 2 percent raise, Egloft said she would be making $37,360.
...
“I’m going to stop talking about this issue when I’m being paid the salary I was promised when I took the job,” Hayes said.

A pretty pithy summary of the press conference, according to non-media sources who were there. Still, it's coverage. Maybe a later iteration will offer more detail of the dialogue between Hayes and Egloft.

The Post & Courier published a bit more background in its report:

His online petition, Restore Teacher Salaries, has amassed nearly 7,000 signatures since he posted it about a month ago, and his goal is to reach 20,000.

"There's a huge well of resentment about the way teachers have taken the brunt of the state's mismanaged finances," Hayes said.

South Carolina has seen a 24.1 percent drop in per-pupil spending from 2008 to 2012, which is the biggest decrease of any state, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Hayes, a married father of two, isn't one of the district's well-known teacher leaders, but he stays informed on local and statewide issues.

When he heard about the governor's "inflammatory" budget proposal -- which would decrease education funding by nearly $80 million despite a statewide surplus -- he said he felt compelled to act.

Hayes wrote emails to lawmakers and encouraged his co-workers to do the same, and his wife suggested an online petition. He told fewer than 100 people about it, but support grew fast.

"It's the nature of the cuts we've seen the last few years," Hayes said.

Lawmakers have slashed the funds that go to school districts, and they've given local education officials permission to ignore the salary schedule that dictates what teachers are supposed to be paid.

In Charleston, that has meant teachers haven't had a cost-of-living adjustment in three years or a step increase for additional experience in two years.

"It's the only career advancement we have unless we leave teaching and become administrators," Hayes said. "It's not a lot of money, but it's something that's going to happen every year and makes life a little easier."

Charleston County Superintendent Nancy McGinley has said giving teachers the pay they deserve is her No. 1 budget priority, and Hayes said some teachers plan to focus their advocacy on the local school board.

Hayes knows that part of the challenge is raising awareness, and he said a lot will have been accomplished if teachers' salaries can be restored in one year.

"It will take a combination of the state spending more money and districts prioritizing it," he said. "Most people have no idea that this has been going on, but when they hear about it, they want to help."

More local fallout, comment on Haley vetoes

Not all of the state's newspapers have correspondents in Columbia to cover the State House -- unfortunately -- so many papers opt to wait for lawmakers to come home and brief the 'lectorate before tackling some of the big issues of the past week or two. Such is the case with Governor Nikki Haley's vetoes and the legislature's quick disposals of them.

Sen. John Matthews told the Times and Democrat of Orangeburg that it was "telling" that legislative majorities of Haley's own party overturned so many of her vetoes.

"Those issues were vetted on the floors and we thought they were important. The four or five vetoes that were sustained were not significant. It was telling that the Republican leadership is not on the same page with the governor. It would seem to show she is out of step with many South Carolinians."

Drafting her memoir might have distracted her from the needs and wants of the citizenry. After the book is published in January, she may be able to focus better on her work, Senator.

Sen. John Land rapped Haley's attack on funding for public schools, and her inscrutible positions on economic development.

"She vetoed $110 million in the Capital Reserve Fund bill that had 60 to 70 needed maintenance projects for higher education without adequate explanation," Land said. "This was excess revenue we didn't get until late, and she said we didn't need to spend it on education.

"There was even a section where money was allocated for the Department of Commerce to recruit jobs. It didn't make any sense at all."

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, reflecting a general concern that Haley is not as well-versed in the affairs of the state as a chief executive needs to be -- or merely as observant of conditions on the ground, offered some advice:

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg said Haley's request that lawmakers use Capital Reserve Fund cash for future budget contingencies is disingenuous.

"To Gov. Haley I would say, ‘Wake up and smell the coffee, the storm is here,'" Cobb-Hunter said. "We are way beyond a rainy day in South Carolina.

"Until the governor is willing to exert the leadership required to deal with the tax mess, there is no real reason for her to lecture the General Assembly on a rainy day fund."

Rep. Bakari Sellers echoed his veteran colleagues.

"She vetoed measures that would improve public education and we can't stand for that in South Carolina," Sellers said. "She is out of touch with the people. We need the Arts Commission and ETV. In this I'm glad to see that common sense prevailed."

Editors of the Charleston Post & Courier issued their own verdict on Haley's misguided vetoes and found the new boss the same as the old boss. "This was pointless," they declared. They advised South Carolinians to pay attention.

To which I offer, politely: 'Tis too late for that. Haley may be a poor excuse for a governor, even a malignant one, but she's what we have for the next 42 months or so. Where were the attention-paying editors of the Post & Courier when the window of opportunity was open? Who did the Post & Courier support in the last election?

Nevertheless, the editors make the most of hindsight, and they make their points well:

We're coming off an instructional week for South Carolina's electorate. Nearly six months after Gov. Nikki Haley took office, everyone finally got to see what she's really all about.

Haley's budget vetoes -- a small percentage of the budget -- were concentrated largely on education, the arts, the environment and routine maintenance to keep the state running. Programs to keep public school teachers in the classroom and train the workforce were inexplicably discarded.

At least when Mark Sanford differed with lawmakers, whether or not you agreed, he always had a serious point. But this was pointless, and the damage could be permanent. The one area where Haley had Sanford beat -- her relationship with lawmakers -- is now out the window.

No wonder the state's business ranking has dropped.

The editors do express gratitude for the General Assembly.

Lawmakers overrode most of Haley's anti-public-education vetoes. They restored $56 million for per-pupil spending in schools and $20 million to some relatively wealthy school districts, like Charleston's, that suffer under the existing funding formula.

And they put back $13 million to help technical colleges train workers for jobs like those at Boeing. Which the governor took ample credit for bringing here.

Sure, the state needs to put a microscope on every dollar it spends. But those are core functions of government. And someone who claims to be so interested in catering to business should realize that companies look at more than tax rates when scouting new locations.

Perhaps some of those areas where the state is lacking, or has little political support, hurt South Carolina's ranking in CNBC's ranking of "America's Top States For Business 2011." This year it dropped to 37, down from 31 last year.

The Legislature gets it. The governor, apparently, doesn't.

Quite right. What this governor got was the Post & Courier's endorsement.

It takes a big editorial board to admit it was wrong. Of course, the Post & Courier hasn't actually done that, yet.

Rather, they put the onus on Haley.

The biggest damage Haley did last week was to herself.

Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate publicly derided her for not keeping her word; they said her staff had misled them. Of course, Haley couldn't be distracted to confirm or deny the charge.

Well, she'd already boarded her flight for New York. Fourth of July weekend was coming, and there were a lot of yet-to-be-disclosed activities to do there. Planes can't wait forever, even for state business.

Back in January, Haley offered few specifics for cutting the budget, but made a point of mentioning the negligible funds devoted to ETV and the Arts Commission. Republican leaders say that later the governor's staff instructed them to just stick those line-items in various other corners of the budget and they'd be fine.

So much for transparency. When Democrats pointed out the shell game, Haley was forced to make good on her threat and veto the money.

The upshot? The Legislature restored the money, publicly derided Haley and swore they wouldn't make the mistake of trusting her again.

And so, we are back to where we started.