For the second year in a row, the NJROTC Academic Team at South Florence High School scored in the Top 10% of all NJROTC units in the nation during the annual National Academic Exam.
More than 1700 teams competed.
Following stiff competition against several other local NJROTC units, the South Florence Academic Team felt prepared and challenged the rest of the nation scoring extremely well. Many hours of studying and preparation paid off very well.
Congratulations for a job well done!
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.
A bi-partisan group of South Carolina legislators wants to create a uniform education funding system that boosts funding for most students while cutting property taxes for businesses and rental owners.
Catch that? One step forward, two steps back.
Arithmetic is simple. One plus one equals two. Five plus five equals ten. Ten is more than two.
Today, some schools are getting level-two funding. Some are getting level-ten funding. That's unequal.
Funding comes from tax revenue.
It's a great idea to create a single pot of tax revenue out of which all schools can be funded equitably.
It's a foolish idea to cut the tax revenue that will go into that pot, because cutting the tax revenue means that there's fewer dollars in the pot to improve school funding.
Republican Rep. Jenny Horne of Summerville led a news conference Tuesday calling for a revamping of South Carolina's fragmented, decades-old education funding formulas.
The five Republicans and one Democrat say a bill will be filed Wednesday to jumpstart the conversation.
The concept involves creating a statewide system of property tax billing for school operations and spending the same on students statewide. The amount per child would be weighted with additional spending, for example, for poor students and gifted and talented students.
Here's where this proposal will fail: By cutting tax revenues, these lawmakers are telling communities whose schools are currently funded at level-ten that they're going to have to settle for level-six funding, in order to raise level-twos up to level-six too.
They're not going to go for that, which means this has been an exercise in futility. You don't feed more children equitably by making the pie smaller; you feed more children equitably by making the pie bigger.
Most businesses would get a tax break.
Well, of course they would. This is South Carolina; night follows day, and the sun rises in the East.
Here's coverage of the same topic by the South Carolina Radio Network:
A group of state legislators unveiled a new proposal Tuesday that would make major changes to how public schools are funded in South Carolina.
Rep. Jenny Horne (R-Summerville) called the idea a "win-win" for public education and business.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers want to set a single property tax millage rate across the entire state and put that money into a single pot. That money would then be divided up on a per-pupil basis and sent back to districts, with weighted amounts for students with disabilities, low income or other factors.
The idea is to replace the state’s four-decade-old funding formula that has become a patchwork of different tax rates and funding levels.
“We’ve got 85 school districts in this state. We’ve got 85 different funding formulas,” said Sen. Paul Campbell (R-Goose Creek), who plans to introduce the proposal in the Senate Wednesday. “What we need is a comon funding formula in this state.”
A group of five Republicans and one Democratic legislator held a press conference in the Statehouse lobby Tuesday to unveil the proposal.
“We’ve heard for years that the money needs to follow the child,” Rep. Doug Brannon (R-Landrum) said, “Under the current education funding process, that’s just not possible.”
Brannon said education funding reform is needed before lawmakers can start tax reform, since property taxes mostly go towards schools and education makes up more than half of the state’s General Fund spending. While unlikely to pass this late in the session, Rep. Jenny Horne (R-Summerville) said it is meant to start a conversation for next year’s session.
Education groups agreed. Debbie Elmore of the South Carolina Association of School Boards said she was glad lawmakers recognized the need to change how school districts are funded. “It’s like a blast of cool water on a hot day. It’s refreshing.”
Molly Spearman, executive director of the South Carolina Association of School Administrators, said the original formula was created in the 1970s and has not been updated since– meaning many counties treated as “rural” under the formula have since seen a significant growth. Others are still treated as if they have a textile mill tax base, when that has not been the case for decades.
Horne called the new proposal a “win-win”: most residents and businesses would see a property tax decrease, while school districts would get a more efficient funding formula.
“This is where the campaign rhetoric ends and true, meaningful tax reform begins,” said Rep. Mia Butler-Garrick (D-Columbia), who joined Republicans in introducing the bill.
The bill will propose a uniform rate of 100 mills rate (a mill equals $1 of property taxed per $1,000 of its assessed value), which would be a decrease in 43 of the state’s 46 counties. Horne said lawmakers would work to find ways to keep the remaining counties (Beaufort, Charleston, and Georgetown) below that rate so that they will not be the only ones to suffer a tax increase.
The fashion magazine Vogue is featuring Gov. Nikki Haley in its May issue, part of her national promotion of her new book.
The article focuses on Haley’s time in office and includes two photos: one of her on a Lake Murray dock in a striped shirt, the other a leggy Haley leading a staff meeting.
The issue hits newsstands Tuesday.
“Haley in person looks even younger than her age: fit and attractive, with a face free of worry lines,” writes Christopher Cox in Vogue. “She and her advisers stand out from the rest of the Republicans in state government, a chummy bunch of white-haired men who spend a lot of time in the hallways of the state house telling jokes and greeting one another with intimate arm grasps.”
The article had the State House abuzz Thursday — and spawned a new round of sharp words from critics.
“What is the benefit to the working people of this state for their governor to be standing on some beach, wherever it is, taking pictures?” said House Minority Leader Harry Ott, D-Calhoun.
Haley spent two weeks this month – while House members were furloughed – promoting her memoir, “Can’t Is Not An Option,” on a national media tour and at book signings in South Carolina. The Senate also was furloughed one of those weeks.
Haley told The State she was monitoring state government, via phone and meetings, while on tour.
Former first lady Jenny Sanford also appeared in Vogue in September 2009, where she discussed the infidelity of then-husband, Gov. Mark Sanford.
It defies rational thought and good taste.
The Vogue text itself is, to be polite, embarrassing.
On a warm morning in early March, governor Nikki Haley calls three members of the South Carolina state legislature into her office. They look like truants sent in to see the principal: Haley is earnest and stern, smartly turned out in a black-and-white ruffled jacket, black pencil skirt, and platform stilettos, while the legislators, in baggy suits and cowboy boots, fidget and make excuses.
Let's read this as the audience outside South Carolina reads this: South Carolina's lawmakers are errant children up to no good; Haley is an icy headmistress, a disciplinarian with a sharp fashion sense.
The stakes seem pretty low -- they are arguing over a restructuring of the department of transportation that would give Haley more control over it -- but one gray-haired representative gets so angry his hands start to shake. He sulkily asks the governor whether she will even be around much longer to see through the agenda she is pressing on them.
The question of who will oversee and control multi-billion-dollar transportation projects in a rural state is such an unimportant one to journalists who cover more impactful issues of the day, like the construction of a smart dinner jacket, and how low this season's hemline will be, and which accessories from last year's collections are being jettisoned as gauche by the hottest new designers.
And, has anyone determined, who exactly was this gray-haired representative whose hands shook in anger at our governor's power grab?
The unspoken assumption here is that Haley, who had endorsed Mitt Romney for president before the South Carolina primary a few weeks earlier, has her eye on a spot on the Romney ticket. Haley assures the representative that she is in South Carolina to stay. “People ask the question, ‘If you’re offered VP, would you take it?’ ” she says after the legislators have left. “No, I won’t take it. I’m not going to leave the people that just gave me this chance.”
How self-serving of our leader.
Conventional wisdom determined months ago that Mitt Romney would prove himself a fool to invite Haley onto his ticket, for approximately 27 pragmatic reasons. But it suits Haley's ambition and narcissism to keep the fires stoked, and to hold herself up as a paragon of principle for declaring herself wedded to South Carolina's people for the long haul.
We have only to ask John Rainey for comment on Haley's principles.
As for sticking by South Carolina's people for the long haul, the people might appreciate a transition in the chief executive's office earlier rather than later.
For nearly 232 years, South Carolinians reliably selected a white male to be their governor, but somehow, in 2010, they chose Haley: 38, Indian-American, a woman. (It might have helped that her predecessor, Mark Sanford, had recently showcased the hazards of allowing men into the highest seat of power.) In her campaign for the nomination she secured the endorsement of both Romney and Sarah Palin -- a pairing you probably won’t see again anytime soon. Since then, she’s routinely been called a rising star in the party, which, when you’re talking about a governor, is code for White House–bound.
Her office, on the ground floor of the state house in Columbia, is just feet away from a Civil War memorial that flies the Confederate flag, but inside it is a different South Carolina.
"A different South Carolina?" A bold pronouncement from a glamour magazine, I'd say. We elected the conservative marked "R" on the ballot, rather than the conservative marked "D"? Checking our history, I'd say that's happened routinely, at least since Haley was in middle school.
On a shelf is the July 12, 2010, issue of Newsweek, with Haley on the cover striking a confident pose next to the words “The face of the new South.”
Using one magazine's deadline-headline to support the case of another: double self-aggrandizement -- and laughable, as the label of "New South" has been commonly misapplied since the 1920s.
Behind her desk sits a model of a Boeing 787 from an assembly facility that opened near Charleston last June.
A toy airplane in the headmistress's office?
And bustling in and out are her staff, who look as though they were piped in directly from a College Republicans meeting. The governor herself is relentlessly upbeat: On the stump she can sound like a motivational speaker. She has trained her team to answer the phone with “It’s a great day in South Carolina!” She repeats the phrase many times over the course of the day.
Haley in person looks even younger than her age: fit and attractive, with a face free of worry lines. She and her advisers stand out from the rest of the Republicans in state government, a chummy bunch of white-haired men who spend a lot of time in the hallways of the state house telling jokes and greeting one another with intimate arm grasps. When I ask her if her colleagues still treat her like a freshman legislator, she insists that “they do recognize that I’m the governor now.”
No doubt. The colloquial phrase for this recognition is "buyer's remorse."
But still, she continues, leaning forward confidingly, “it’s different for the guys upstairs. This is the first time they’ve had a female governor; it’s the first time they’ve had a minority governor.”
Ah, we're back again to minority status in Haleyworld.
Haley is the youngest governor in the nation, one of the scrappy radicals swept into office by the Tea Party in November 2010, and she’s tried to retain the vigor of those heady days.
Scrappy? Made of scraps? Is that really what the writer meant?
The transition has been a struggle: How do you govern after promising revolution? In Washington, the answer is simple: Throw your body against the gears of President Obama’s government. But in South Carolina, Haley has a state to run, hence the diligent courting of the legislators in her office.
The Tea Party, though, may be the most easily disappointed group of voters in the country. As soon it became clear that Haley would not simply hang a for sale sign on the state house and call it a day, her supporters began to desert her. Then her endorsement of Romney (a perceived moderate) really enraged them, leading several to claim they were duped by the governor—that she wasn’t a true conservative at all. Karen Martin, a Tea Party organizer who supported Haley’s election bid, told Bloomberg News that the state’s conservatives were “angry, disappointed, betrayed, hurt.” Haley, though, was convinced that Romney would be the nominee: “I think he’s going to get bruised and battered, but I think that’s what the public wanted to see. They wanted to see somebody that could take that.”
The truth is that Haley may be facing the same sort of battle herself. One statewide poll taken in December had her approval rating at 35 percent.
I'd swear that's inflated.
When Romney was routed by Newt Gingrich in the state primary, a former supporter posted a message on Haley’s Facebook wall: “never forget who elected you Ms Haley—the TEA PARTY just spoke loud and clear to you.” The governor is in danger of pleasing no one: too conservative for Democrats and independents, and too pragmatic for the people who voted her into office.
So, what is she -- exactly what we needed, or too far ahead of her time?
Haley has just written a memoir, Can’t Is Not an Option, that recounts her remarkable rise in South Carolina politics. She was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in 1972 in Bamberg, a town of a few thousand people midway between Charleston and Columbia. Her parents are from the Punjab, and moved to South Carolina in 1969, raising four children there. Her older brother Mitti remembers Nikki as a happy-go-lucky tomboy with a knack for bringing people together. “She always said she wanted to be the mayor of Bamberg,” he tells me.
What might have been.
The article drones on, but I haven't the stomach, and South Carolina's children haven't the time. They need our attention more.
We heard a lot last month about the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. It showed that teachers across the nation are demoralized and that their job satisfaction has dropped precipitously since 2009. The proportion thinking of leaving teaching has gone from 17 percent to 29 percent, a 70 percent increase in only two years. If this is accurate, it would mean the exit of one million teachers. I hope it is not true.
What has happened in the past two years?
Let's see: Race to the Top promoted the idea that teachers should be evaluated by the test scores of their students; "Waiting for 'Superman'" portrayed teachers as the singular cause of low student test scores; many states, including Wisconsin, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio have passed anti-teacher legislation, reducing or eliminating teachers' rights to due process and their right to bargain collectively; the Obama administration insists that schools can be "turned around" by firing some or all of the staff. These events have combined to produce a rising tide of public hostility to educators, as well as the unfounded beliefs that schools alone can end poverty and can produce 100 percent proficiency and 100 percent graduation rates if only "failing schools" are closed, "bad" educators are dismissed, and "effective" teachers get bonuses.
Is it any wonder that teachers and principals are demoralized?
Wow. Ravitch encapsulates a biennial perfect storm, raining hail on the heads of educators from all angles: economic, political, ideological, social, moral. What a hellish ride the past few years have been.
Another survey, released about the same time, has not gotten the attention it deserves. This one conducted by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is called Primary Sources: 2012. It contains valuable information about what teachers think.
Among other things, the survey asked teachers what they believe will have the greatest impact on improving academic achievement.
This is what teachers said were the most important factors:
1. Family involvement and support (84 percent said it would have a "very strong impact");
2. High expectations for all students (71 percent said it would have a "very strong impact");
3. Fewer students in each class (62 percent said it would have a "very strong impact");
4. Effective and engaged principals and building-level leaders (57 percent said it would have a "very strong impact").
These were the factors that teachers said were least important in improving academic achievement:
1. A longer school day (6 percent);
2. Monetary rewards for teachers based on the performance of the entire school (8 percent);
3. Monetary rewards for teachers based on their individual performance (9 percent);
4. A longer school year (10 percent).
Other factors that teachers thought were relatively less important: common assessments across all states (20 percent thought these would have a "very strong impact" on academic achievement); and common standards across all states (29 percent).
Teachers believe that families are crucial for improving student academic performance, but about half of the teachers surveyed say that parent participation in their school has declined, and only about 10 percent said that parent participation had increased.
Sixty-two percent of teachers say that the best measures of student performance are ongoing, formative assessments, the kinds that are integrated into daily instruction and give the teacher immediate feedback. Fifty-five percent of teachers say that class participation is "absolutely essential" as a measure of student performance. Performance on class assignments" is viewed as "absolutely essential" by 47 percent of teachers.
The least valuable measures of student academic achievement, according to teachers, are: tests from textbooks (4 percent); district-required tests (6 percent); state-required standardized tests (7 percent); and final exams (10 percent).
When teachers were asked whether the state standardized tests were "meaningful benchmarks" to measure students' progress or to compare schools, only 5 percent agreed strongly.
It is interesting that the least useful measures, in the eyes of teachers, are the state-required standardized tests that policymakers use to punish and reward students, teachers, principals, and schools. Only 7 percent of teachers consider them to be "absolutely essential" measures of their students' academic performance. Yet, to policymakers, this same measure is the only one that matters.
Here in South Carolina, what's the flavor-of-the-month proposal to change how educators are paid? To eliminate credentials and experience as determining factors, and go to a system that pays educators according to student test scores; it's called merit pay.
Always choosing the unwise option, that's us.
Teachers are quite willing to be evaluated, contrary to popular myth spread by politicians. But they want to be evaluated in a professional manner, by principal observation and review, by formal self-evaluation, by peer observation and review, by their department chair's observation and review, and by assessment of their content-area knowledge.
When asked about the challenges they face, 62 percent of teachers say they have more students "with behavioral problems that interfere with teaching" than in the past; 56 percent say they have more students living in poverty; 50 percent say they have more English-language learners; 49 percent say they have more students who arrive at school hungry; and 36 percent say they have more students who are homeless. Policymakers tend to dismiss all these social and economic issues as unimportant. Teachers don't, because they see them every day in real time.
Our policymakers often say that merit pay will lead to the retention of the best teachers. Teachers don't agree. They say that the factors that are "absolutely essential" to keeping them in the classroom are "supportive leadership" (68 percent); "more family involvement in students' education" (63 percent); "more help for students who have behavioral or other problems that interfere with learning" (53 percent); and "time for teachers to collaborate" (50 percent).
By contrast, teachers rank the following factors as least important in keeping them in the classroom: "pay tied to teachers' performance" (4 percent); "in-school teaching mentors/coaches for first 3 years of teaching" (15 percent); "opportunities for additional responsibility and advancement while staying in the classroom" (15 percent).
This bit of text is worth clipping and circulating to friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, church leaders, school board members, and everyone else in your email account.
So is the next bit:
What do teachers want?
They want to spend less time on discipline and more time collaborating with their colleagues and preparing lessons. They want more resources for the students with the greatest needs. They want more training to reach every student in their care.
Unlike the MetLife survey, the Scholastic-Gates survey found that 51 percent of teachers plan to teach "as long as I am able," even past retirement age, and another 32 percent expect to teach until they reach retirement age. So while MetLife concluded that 29 percent were ready to quit, Scholastic-Gates tallied this group as 16-17 percent.
To the policymakers who seem to think that teaching is an easy job, and to those who write letters to the editor asserting that teachers don't work hard enough or long enough, consider this: The Scholastic-Gates survey says in its conclusion that "On average, teachers work about 11 hours and 25 minutes a day." (Although on Page 13 of the report, the survey says that "teachers work an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes a day, three hours and 20 minutes beyond the average required work day in public schools nationwide.") Whether it is one or the other doesn't really matter. This is a demanding job that requires enormous dedication and gets inadequate support from families, from policymakers, from elected officials, and from the public.
The teacher comments that accompany each page of the report are illuminating. One teacher says, "In my school, we are feeding the children, clothing the children, and keeping many of them from 7:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m." Another says, "I am a general education teacher, but at least 50 percent of my class each year has special needs. At least 25 percent of these students have extreme behavior problems which interfere with teaching the other students to learn."
The goal of the survey "is to place teachers' voices at the center of the conversation on education reform by sharing their thoughts and opinions with the public, the media, and education leaders." Is anyone listening?
“Doubts on Romney’s Conservatism Help Santorum in the South,” reads the ABC News headline from March 13. The headline would have you believe that Rick Santorum trounced Mitt Romney in the Alabama and Mississippi GOP primaries. It obscures the fact that Santorum beat Romney by just 44-39 percent in Alabama and 42-39 percent in Mississippi. In other words, nearly half of GOP primary voters in these states voted for Romney.
The headline not only obscures the kinds of political divisions that divide the rural and more liberal urban parts of the South; it also feeds into the idea that Southern conservatives vote primarily on “family values” issues, and takes it on good faith that Romney – who has moved awfully far to the Right during primary season – is somehow the more civilized, sane, humane and/or liberal of the two.
In January, CNN contributor John Avlon wrote about the ugly stereotypes about South Carolina that he saw as that state’s primaries kicked off: “You know, the characterization of South Carolina as a swamp of sleazy politics and brutal attack ads, a Bible belt bastion of rednecks and racism, a state defined by Bob Jones University. Sometimes these stereotypes are floated in political conversations as evidence of how ‘real’ the state is in determining the true feelings of the conservative base.”
These stereotypes are nothing new. In fact, they often date back to the Civil War. They tend to denigrate the Southern poor, under-educated and rural in ways that bear striking resemblance to Republican rhetoric that demonizes the poor in general. But every election season, those of us who have spent most of our lives in the South are reminded of the devastating misconceptions that many other Americans have about us. The Right romanticizes us as the “real America” while the Left treats us a punchline. Polling organizations like Public Policy Polling design studies that target Southern states and reinforce the national sense that we are backward and dim-witted. Here are just a few of the ways in which popular political narratives distort the contemporary realities of Southern life in historical context.
First, Rawls points out with data from Ferrel Guillory, journalism and mass communication professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that we are not "predominantly rural."
Guillory told her, “There is this common wisdom out there that the South remains a rural place dominated by working-class people with no education past high school.”
Second, she observes, "We are disproportionately poor, but this does not mean we are lazy."
But more important, the tendency to dismiss Southerners as lazy is surely linked to the persistence of inequality and poverty in the region. As Guillory notes, “We have educational gaps that have not been fully closed. We have achievement gaps between young white people and young black people. We have gaps everywhere in the United States, but some of the Southern rates are a little deeper.”
Plus, he notes, we “have some of the highest dropout rates – and so we’re still dealing in many ways with the legacies of our history.” In other words, slavery and then Jim Crow created class distinctions between white and black Southerners that have proven very hard to eradicate. What’s more, the early suppression of the labor movement often meant the disenfranchisement of working-class whites and blacks. Ultimately, the region never fully recovered from its post-Civil War economic collapse.
Southern states usually relied on working-class jobs like textiles, cotton and tobacco. But rising labor costs in the South in the modern era meant that tobacco companies and other sources of employment moved production to other countries for cheaper labor. Guillory says that these new developments have “wiped a lot of that [previous industry] off the face of the state” in North Carolina.
Plus, he points out, older citizens throughout the South have often had trouble adapting to modernization: “They haven’t been trained. They don’t have the education that allows them to adapt… Some [rural towns] haven’t modernized their infrastructure.” So, despite modernization and industrialization, we are still poor states.
Guillory says, “Southerners themselves too often buy into the ‘laziness’ narrative.” But it has very little basis in truth: “Southerners work hard. You know, people worked in fields, in small factories in the heat. Southern states used to attract industry by advertising relatively inexpensive labor but people who would work hard and work independently.”
This linked to a long and troubled history of violent labor suppression in the South that has resulted in some of the worst working conditions in the country – and contributed to the region’s never-ending poverty. Indeed, Southern states often attracted industry based on the fact that they had crushed working-class activism in ways that ultimately produced a pliable – and fearful – labor force. During the 1940s, Jacob Remes, founding member of the Southern Labor Studies Association and assistant professor of public affairs at the State University of New York Empire State College, tells AlterNet, interracial civil rights activism sometimes combined the causes of racial justice and labor rights. But labor organizing was violently put down. People were killed, and both race and Red panic were used as wedges to divide white and black workers. Over time, says Remes, national labor rights activists sometimes gave up on organizing the South, and Southern workers were cowed into poor working conditions and low wages. Just as corporations have moved jobs overseas for cheaper labor, northern industry first came to the South because labor costs had risen in the north, and corporations – like the textile industry that ultimately landed in North Carolina – needed a cheaper labor force.
The entrenchment of Southern poverty may not have happened by design, but capital and history led to the circumstances that made it possible. Though the region was dominated for a time by industrial labor with high wages compared to what had come before, these jobs are no more.
Guillory is a sharp cookie, and he gets straight to the heart of some theses I've held for a long time.
It's on the subject of education that Rawls, and Guillory, unearth the deepest-held misperceptions of Southerners. Rawls declares, "We are not stupid."
The white-trash trope is part and parcel of the idea that we in the South are stupid. Part of this, Guillory notes, is related to the aristocratic education systems that pepper Southern history. He notes that education “wasn’t seen as everybody’s right – it was seen as what rich people do, and what the lucky and the elite do.” Not only this, he says, but “debates over evolution or…liquor or other cultural things” often perpetuated the “sense that Southerners were acting on little or no knowledge of science.”
My only caution to Guillory is the assumption that this view of education and rights to it are matters of the past; they are not. Just as our region's aristocrats restricted access to education two centuries ago, so does our evolving aristocracy restrict access to it today, through institutionalized inequalities determined by race, geography and socio-economic status.
It's no coincidence that the majority of South Carolina Education Lottery tickets are purchased along I-95 -- the Corridor of Shame -- but the majority of college scholarships funded by the lottery are received by graduates in the Upstate.
Even now, evolution remains a hot-button issue that seems to divide North and South. Indeed, evolution remains as controversial today as it was during the Scopes trial in 1920s Tennessee. And though Guillory says that the South has largely converged with the rest of the country when it comes to politics, he explains that it nevertheless “continues to differ with the nation on social issues and cultural attitudes. It’s not that much different, but on a whole series of things having to do with the classic construct of ‘God, guns and gays,’ the South tends to be somewhat more conservative, somewhat more churchgoing, somewhat more accepting of the freedom to own and use firearms and somewhat less accepting of same-sex unions. So, it’s on these cultural issues that there remains some distinctiveness.”
But these beliefs did not develop in a vacuum, and often have more to do with lack of adequate education than innate stupidity. Indeed, as Jane Mayer’s New Yorker exposé on Koch brothers affiliate Art Pope shows, national GOP coffers are pouring into the South to advance causes like school privatization and vouchers under the guise of freedom, equality and “school choice.” Luther says this very same anti-intellectual ideology is also being fueled by right-wing money pouring into Texas.
Often, the moneyed interests that shape Southern conservatism come from other parts of the country – like the Kansas-based Koch brothers – and exploit populations already underserved by their historically underfunded systems of public education. And conservative billionaires bent on privatizing education and dismantling the public system pour lots of money into campaigns meant to reinforce propaganda about untrustworthy “government schools.” These campaigns often result in statewide support for vouchers that further defund the public system. So, when under-educated voters base decisions on issues like “personal morality” rather than perceived economic self-interest, we should probably start talking about the powerful outside interests that are funding this ideology.
Like Howard Rich, the New Yorker who was named by lawmakers during the House debate on private-school vouchers last week?
And of course underfunded education remains a problem in Texas and throughout the South. Just this week, Southern Education Desk explained that Alabama has historically kept education funding low by using race – once again – as a wedge to keep white working-class people from supporting education funding. White working-class farmers had always opposed tax increases in Alabama, but the desegregation of schools left white Alabamans less committed than ever to funding public schools. Unsurprisingly, though, there has always been something in it for the moneyed classes, not the working class – that is, measures to defund education always “played into the hands of large landowners who wanted cheap, non-unified labor, more land, and very low property tax rates, which they have enjoyed ever since the state Constitution centralized power in Montgomery to the state’s planting class. One result of all this is that, across Alabama, there are significant hurdles to raising property taxes to increase local school funding, including mandatory referenda in a very anti-tax state.”
Continuing her list of misperceptions about the South, Rawls finds a couple more than sound incompatible with the national view of us. One is that "We have progressive activists and large liberal contingencies in our states."
The common perception that Southerners are stupid obscures the generations of progressive activists who have fought, sacrificed and sometimes died to make this a more hospitable and inclusive place. But progressive media outlets too often imply that we are an undifferentiated mass of ignorant bigots. In a 2004 Slate article, for example, novelist Jane Smiley wrote that “ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states.” Her conclusion? Progressives should just write them all off as potential political allies and marginalize these states as much as possible.
...
North Carolina politics are often reduced to the “Jesse Helms legacy.” Helms, of course, was the segregationist and Cold Warrior who served as a North Carolina senator between the early 1970s and into the 21st century. But as Guillory says, this is not the whole story of North Carolina politics. Living in urban North Carolina, one gets the impression that the civil rights movement is far from over – and that current political fights are widely understood in the context of a longstanding commitment to progressive activism in the South.
The fifth and final truth Rawls offers to counter misperceptions is "We are not a monolith."
Talk does not equal progress, and despite advancements in our rhetoric, white supremacist attitudes remain. Ferrel Guillory thinks that, despite all the talk, there is still some denial going on. He notes that it’s difficult to measure the severity of racism in the South, because people have found ways of justifying their own racism without admitting to it. For example, you will rarely hear anyone admit to being a proud bigot, but white people sometimes speak in hushed tones to advise fellow white people not to move to a “dangerous” – that is, usually majority black – neighborhood. Likewise, Guillory says that voters may explain a vote to pollsters by saying, “‘I picked him because he’s more conservative” rather than “because he’s white.” And we sometimes defend ourselves with the claim that we are more integrated than the North (which we are). But hastening to point this out sometimes obscures the changes we still need to make.
Guillory says, “I’m not trying to say that we don’t have real human issues to deal with, and we’ve got a polarized political system much as the rest of the country does. And part of the polarization has been that Southern white people – particularly working-class white people – have gotten increasingly mired – stuck — in their cultural conservatism and the white Southern portion of the Republican party has helped pull the Republican party nationally to the right. So, it’s a complex picture, but it’s important not to say the whole South is ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ or Mayberry.”
...
We in the South are not a monolithic population, not by any stretch of the imagination. We disagree among each other on social issues, as well as matters of faith. Our populations are facing some of the most severe reproductive rights restrictions and social services cuts in the nation. If our marginalized groups “count” to progressive Americans outside the region, it shouldn’t be controversial to point out that we could use solidarity, not derision, when we fight regressive Republican legislation. There is a political shift underway in the South.
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.
Gov. Nikki Haley opened the floodgates on her Facebook page Sunday afternoon, announcing that she would be riding in the car for a while and would be available to answer people's questions and comments.
Predictably, some of the questions were rhetorical in nature, and there was a rush of back-patting from her fans.
This is reportedly the only sort of interaction allowed by Haley on her Facebook page. Offer critique, and you're unfriended.
Haley also worked in a pitch for her upcoming memoir, Can't Is Not an Option, which is set for release April 3 (and by the way, if you're interested, she will be signing copies of the book on April 9 at 6 p.m. at Blue Bicycle Books).
Great head's-up to all those in the Charleston area who may want to organize themselves for the purpose of exercising free speech rights and communicating some messages to the state's chief executive. That's Blue Bicycle Books, April 9, 6 p.m.
But some of the legitimate questions got illuminating answers. Here are a few of the questions, followed by Haley's responses:
• Do you have interest to become a GOP senator in the future? I have no desire right now to run for US Senate. I am perfectly happy being Governor of the best state in the country!
Notice the qualifier "right now." Ugh. Guess that means Lindsey's terms are numbered.
But also notice the generic "best state in the country." Not the "state where children are treated best, and domestic violence is non-existent, and rural communities thrive, and public education is best supported," because, unfortunately, none of those qualifiers would be true. Good that she went with "best state in the country."
• Carolina or Clemson? Go Tigers!
• It seems almost daily here in SC where a parent or person is being arrested for child abuse. What can be done to make longer sentences for child abusers? Contact your legislators to push for tougher standards on child abuse.
Ah, the old "contact your legislators" dodge.
I'm the governor, here. Passing laws against child abuse is not part of governor-ing. And why bring up child abuse in a Facebook chat anyway? Don't be such a downer. Geez. I'm trying to sell a book, for Pete's sake.
• How's the SC tax reform coming along? The House did not include our tax reform in their budget. Please contact the Senate and remind them that it is your money.
Ooh, good one. Beat up on the House for not kowtowing to the Queen, and the Senate for not acting fast enough. Classy.
• Governor Haley, serious question: How do you think other states should improve to be more competitive for jobs? Right to work state's [sic] and fair and balanced tax structures are the key to job growth and retention.
Anytime [sic] has to appear in text, it's not a good sign. But look at her, selling the old "right-to-work-for-less" ideology like its ice cream: Poor people, be happy with the meager pittances you get for your hard work; ignore your hunger by imagining the taste of ripe strawberries in your mouth!
• What can we do to bring good clean prosperous industry to Williamsburg Co? The way we help Winnsboro is the way we help every other part of our state, we have to seriously reform our tax code, increase educational options, strengthen our workforce training so that we match those unemployed with companies that need jobs, and continue to reduce regulations on businesses. all of the things we work on everyday [sic]. thanks!
Did Haley really mean to suggest that Winnsboro is in Williamsburg County? I just re-read the question, and the question definitely asked how industry could be brought to Williamsburg County, yet Haley's response was about Winnsboro, in Fairfield County, a full 111 miles northwest of Williamsburg's county seat.
It must be a right-wing-governor thing. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin didn't know that the head of government in Great Britain is the prime minister, either, or that "the Fed" refers to the Federal Reserve System, which regulates American monetary policy. Here in South Carolina, our governor doesn't know Winnsboro from Williamsburg County.
That's our governor!
• Just want to know...have you and the kids seen The Hunger Games??? We have not seen The Hunger Games but can't wait!
I haven't seen the film either, but according to the synopses readily available on the internet, the Haley family needn't wait to see "The Hunger Games," or even go to a theater to see it. They can see the film's basic themes played out just by taking a leisurely drive through their city and state.
• I live in NC and am very impressed with your jobs creation. Do you have any plans to meet with Pat McCrory when he is the new NC governor to discuss how SC is bringing jobs to the Southeast? I have already been campaigning some with Pat McCrory and look forward to partnering with him to better the Carolinas.
So in addition to flitting about various northeastern states to campaign for her favored presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and in addition to meeting Georgia's governor in secret in Augusta to discuss their plans for the port at Savannah, Haley has also found time to cross our northern border and meddle in the affairs of North Carolina.
Hopefully, while she's in North Carolina, she might ask questions about how that state achieved and has maintained a respectable education budget during the past forty years, even paying its teachers at the national average -- way better than the tired old "$300 above the Southeastern average."
• What are your thoughts on open carry? I believe SC is one of 6 states that doesnt allow it. As a CWP holder myself, I have and would support open carry laws in SC.
• Why is unemployment so broken, I have had people steal from us and then get benefits. Why can't SC at least drug test people that want or need assistance? I support drug testing FTP receive unemployment benefits.
Saints be praised. I wonder how long our governor has been packing heat?
This is why the rest of Western civilization stares at us with their mouths open. It's not awe, it's disbelief.
The questions that Haley chose not to answer were also noteworthy. Here are a few of the queries she left hanging:
• You're doing a great job Nikki! One comment though: our son has special needs (verbal apraxia) and we've recently set up our education plan with our Greenville County School District. They could not provide a special ed classroom for him because of the high criteria, even though he is non-verbal and cannot communicate with the students and staff at his private preschool. There is a gap for children with only communication needs that needs to be filled, and soon!
• What can you do to help the FIRST robotics teams of the state...existing and up and coming...fund their season. Nick Zais actually did show up at our competition this weekend and got to see what we do with our kids first hand. The problem is teams are struggling from lack of funding. This is too good of a program to let slip away.
• Are you a supporter of TFA [Teach For America] and other programs like it, seeking to get the best teachers/leaders in front of ALL classrooms, no matter the ZIP code?
• Why does your budget call for more cuts in spending for education? I'm an educator and with all these cuts on top of local and federal bureaucracy it is making it harder and harder to want to stay teaching.
• Do you have any plans to be more supportive of the teachers and the law enforcement in our state? The retirement bill that is being passed doesn't appear to be showing any support. Taking more money, lowering the benefits and extending the time to work. We haven't gotten any pay raises in a quite a while and the government is talking about taking more from us. The pay raises that were talked about a month ago won't amount to anything if this retirement bill passes. What is your explanation for this?
Crickets.
So let's review the highlights.
Talking about her upcoming book? Great.
Leaving the state to campaign for wingnuts elsewhere? Great.
Supporting Clemson? Great.
Promoting a new film about killing the children of the 99 percent for the entertainment of the one percent? Great.
Burnishing her chick-with-a-gun credentials? Great.
Denigrating poor people who rely on our social safety net for subsistence? Great.
Tightening penalties for child abuse? Ugh: Pass the buck to lawmakers.
Tax relief? Great AND pass the buck to lawmakers -- a two-fer!
South Carolina geography? Ugh: Pivot to the talking points. Who cares that Winnsboro isn't near Williamsburg County? Both start with Dubya!
But anything having to do with addressing parents' concerns about public education, and service for their children, and protecting innovative school programs, and supporting teachers and other public employees?
Next.
Which is precisely what many of us are saying about Haley's place in the line of South Carolina's governors.
As a mother of four, the first of which entered public school last year, keeping up with my children’s education is extremely important to me. I’ve heard the stories of children fearing the end of the world due to global warming and seen the history books that exclude any Republican or Conservative from the important events that have shaped our country. My husband and I moved to a small town in South Carolina due in part to the notoriety of the schools. I immediately joined the PTA, looking forward to communicating and working with other parents to help our children achieve the high standards to which we hold them accountable.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, this PTA had an agenda and used its access to my email address to push that agenda.
So here come the good parts. Take note:
Action needed
Please contact your House representative by 1 p.m., Tuesday, March 20, 2012 and urge him to vote against the tuition tax credit/voucher bill, House bill 4894 (see contact information below).
Background
Having completed the budget, the full House may take up the tuition tax credit/voucher bill this week. To see a longer summary of the bill from the March 14 Day At The Capitol handout, click here. Basically, the bill would:
Provide a state income tax deduction of up to $4,000 for tuition (fees for attending the school and school-related transportation) paid by a parent or legal guardian for their child or ward to attend an independent school defined as a school, other than a public school.
Provide a state income tax deduction of up to $1,000 for tuition (fees for attending the school and school-related transportation) paid by a parent or legal guardian for their child or ward to attend a public school outside the child’s or ward’s resident school district.
Provide a state income tax deduction of up to $2,000 per home school student per year for instruction related expenditures.
Provide a dollar-for-dollar credit on state income tax, insurance premium taxes or bank license fees for contributions made to non-profit scholarship funding organizations that would provide “grants” to low-income students in public schools to attend an qualifying independent school.
Here's where the parent realizes that the PTA actually has a mission, which includes strengthening the public schools attended by its members' children.
After providing this fairly benign review of some of the specifics related to H.4894, the email turned into what amounted to a Democrat party spam email as the PTA laid out the position echoed by the South Carolina School Board Association (SCSBA) which apparently the school PTA is on board with.
Well, I would have phrased it differently: "...with which the school PTA is apparently on board." But when there's a bill on the floor to dismantle public education, who's worrying about terminal prepositions?
"Democrat party spam email"? Really?
A word of historical context. In the past eight years or so, attempts have been made to pass voucher legislation in South Carolina roughly nine hundred times. And each time, it's been defeated in the House of Representatives which, during that same period, has had a group of Democrats commonly referred to as the House Minority. "Minority" means "not the majority."
For a bill to be defeated, the House minority relies upon a good number of votes from members of the House Majority -- in this case, Republicans.
So, if a good number of Republicans agree with Democrats that dismantling public schools is hardly a good idea, then the PTA may not actually be distributing "Democrat party spam email." Rather, it may be contributing to a dialogue that reflects mainstream South Carolinians' views on destroying public schools.
Further, unless I'm mistaken, the PTA is a fully autonomous body, made up of parents and educators who determine their own positions on legislative proposals. If a PTA opposes the destruction of public schools, it may be because the parents who live in a given community oppose that destruction. Hmm.
All right. Here, the parents discovers the state school boards association's position on destroying public schools:
Position statement
SCSBA opposes state or federally-mandated efforts to directly or indirectly subsidize elementary or secondary private, religious or home schools with public funds.
The smoking gun! And the parent expresses her outrage at being informed thusly:
After giving contact info for representatives, the PTA helpfully provides talking points for any parents who don’t have any idea why they should care about this.
Okay, folks, here are the talking points. Cut, paste, distribute freely and thank our offended parent later:
Talking points
How can the General Assembly consider a bill that would result in a loss of $37 million in state revenues (just in the first year alone) when:
public schools have had their funding cut by more than $700 million;
the base student cost is presently at $1,880 per student but should be at $2,790 per student;
and fully funding the BSC would require some $600 million
the state cannot meet existing obligation to adequately fund vital state agency and services, including law enforcement, healthcare, local government funds, etc.
Tuition tax credit/voucher programs are unaffordable, unaccountable to taxpayers and unproven.
The proposal is inconsistent with recent calls for comprehensive tax reforms, including the elimination of some sales and service tax exemptions by creating four more exemptions.
The proposal is inconsistent with conservative principles including the creation of a government entitlement program for private schoolers and home schoolers and grows government by adding new duties for the Department of Revenue and the Education Oversight Committee. Funding for public schools must be a top priority! Until we meet our financial commitment to public school students, there must be no consideration for a plan that would divert public tax dollars to private schools for tuition.
But there's more! Our angry parent erupts, "Even a sample message to send!" and gives us the sample message offered to PTA members to use in communicating with their lawmakers by email.
Sample message
Dear Representative :
I urge you to vote against the private school tuition tax credit/deduction/voucher bill, H.4894. The bill’s negative fiscal impact to the state’s general fund of $37 million is staggering when our state cannot meet its existing obligations to K-12 education and other vital state services, including local government funding. In addition to the significant funding cuts to education in recent years, the base student cost (BSC) under the Education Finance Act is presently at $1,880 per student when it should be $2,790 per student by state law. In fact, fully funding the BSC would require some $600 million.
Finally, lawmakers’ recent calls for the need to eliminate certain tax exemptions and loopholes and supported by businesses, citizens, and educators seems to contradict a proposal that would create yet another special-interest tax exemption through for paying tuition to a private school or for homeschooling with no accountability equivalent to the public schools. Another tax credit program would only add to the horribly unbalanced tax system already in existence in South Carolina.
I can't believe how much time and effort this offended parent has saved those of us who have been drafting talking points of our own, and laboring to craft our own messages to legislators.
Sadly, this parent didn't use the information; she lashed out instead, seeking retribution to those who would defend public schools in her community. She writes:
Immediately I wrote back to them, including the school principal and the local chairman of the Republican party, expecting quickly to receive an apology and a promise not to misuse the PTA email privileges again; or at the least a response from the Republican leader that he would look into the matter.
Apparently, however, the issue was so important that no one even bothered to email me back. While it’s never happened to me before, I am left to assume that inserting one’s personal political agenda into official school emails is so commonplace that it is unworthy of discussion. It was a big surprise for me personally. Our area in South Carolina is very red and our schools are among the best in the state.
Can you believe the nerve of these PTA parents, that they should want to preserve schools that "are among the best in the state"?
Surely, I thought, no one local would have a problem with people in other areas working to provide the best education for their children.
I must confess, the logic of this set of assertions escapes me: Our own local schools are excellent, therefore we must support the destruction of public schools elsewhere in South Carolina.
The parent goes on, and I'm almost embarrassed to include her further remarks. But, for your benefit, I will:
I’m not planning on taking my kids out their public school
Well, don't do anyone any favors, please. Follow your bliss where it leads.
but I fully support the right of other parents to choose a different option; and they shouldn’t have to pay for my children in addition to theirs. School Choice is something that people from both sides of the aisle should be able to agree on as it does nothing but promote competition for tax dollars and gives families much needed choices.
Respectfully, I think that most South Carolinians want precisely what this parent has: Well-funded public schools that benefit from the support of a healthy local tax base and engaged parents.
I’m fortunate that my kids attend a school that gets high marks, but many schools do not.
True, and we've been working on improving this for a while. A long while. Decades. Generations. Often against the opposition of a lot of narrow-minded and stingy lawmakers who believe some children don't deserve to learn.
Let’s stop rewarding them and focus on what’s best for the children: having options in education.
I think that if we were to commit to making all of South Carolina's public schools great, the options would resolve themselves.
Young people in the South have higher STD and teen pregnancy rates than their peers in other US regions, and the solution may be comprehensive sex education, according to a recent study by Auburn University-Montgomery's Center for Demographic Research (AUM-CDR).
The study concentrated on 10 states -- Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. AUM-CDR researchers estimated teen childbirth expenses in the region cost the local, state and federal government $2.3 billion in 2008.
"We knew that abstinence-only is not really working as much as we would like," said principal investigator and AUM-CDR Director Yanyi Djamba. "It's not a bad thing, it is just not working." Parents, teachers, elected officials and youth should insist upon greater access to quality sex education in schools, Djamba said.
According to the report, upwards of 90 percent of parents are not against presenting evidence-based, age-appropriate sex education in schools. All 10 states were granted new federal support for adolescent sexual health and teen pregnancy prevention education encompassing abstinence, healthy relationships, contraception and STDs.
"We can't afford not to address this as a medical profession," said Dr. Bernard Eichold, head of the Mobile County Public Health Department. "It does not surprise me that young people are not going to make good decisions if they do not have good sources of information," he said. "They need to know everything before they reach reproductive age."
A recent TD Economics study, which is disputed, paints a bleak picture of South Carolina’s ability to recover to pre-recession levels anytime soon, based on a gap between the revenue the state needs to spend on services and the amount it needs to account for inflation, population growth and potential cuts in federal spending.
“South Carolina, for example, has one of the largest adjusted-revenue gaps in the country, with Georgia and Florida not too far behind,” the TD report says.
“In fact, South Carolina’s fiscal hole is so deep that even if revenues were to grow at 7 per cent a year, the state wouldn’t close its adjusted-revenue gap until 2021.”
Chad Walldorf, chairman of the South Carolina Board of Economic Advisors and budget director during Gov. Mark Sanford’s first term in office, said TD economists used “misleading” revenue data by focusing solely on the state’s general fund.
If memory serves, Walldorf is also a co-founder and former co-owner of the Sticky Fingers barbecue restaurant chain, featuring locations in Mount Pleasant, Charleston, North Charleston, Hilton Head, Columbia and Greenville, and elsewhere in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, now headquartered well beyond South Carolina's borders, in Atlanta.
And he's the man tapped by Governor Nikki Haley to replace her principled nemesis, John Rainey, as chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors. This must be why Greenville-based Community Journals turned to him for a response.
Walldorf, who was asked by the Journal to read the TD report, was particularly concerned by the conclusion that South Carolina’s “real per student K-12 education funding is 24 percent below 2008 levels,” which TD said was the largest cut in the nation and will take time to restore.
That, Walldorf said, “is just not true. Per pupil spending has consistently gone up, whereas the report states the opposite.”
In fact, he said, spending was $10,566 in 2008 and “every year it has been increased. In the current budget, it is $11,754 per student.”
Walldorf added that in defense of the TD economists, education funding “is just so convoluted that unless you’ve spent a lot of time looking at it and talking to people, it is going to be very difficult.”
Yes, it's very complex.
Tax revenue is collected and deposited in the General Fund, including the full revenue from the one-cent sales tax implemented by the Education Improvement Act of 1984.
The Education Finance Act of 1977 dictates by formula the amount that will be appropriated from state funds annually as a "base student cost." This amount is to be transmitted to school districts, from which these districts adopt and implement their own budgets.
Additional revenue from local taxes can be added to those local budgets, and funds from the federal government are intended to be passed through the state to districts, too.
So far, so simple.
Where it gets complex is here: Conservative ideology encourages the dismantling and privatization of public schools, because wherever dollars flow, private-sector profits may be realized.
Public education, when appropriately funded, represents the largest part of any state's budget -- a pretty big pot of honey to tempt the average corporate bear.
So, to undermine public confidence in public schools, ideologues conspire to underfund them, starve them of resources, over-burden them with bureaucratic red tape and paperwork, complicate them with overbearing high-stakes testing models, strip the rights of their employees and encroach on the authority of local school boards.
At the same time, these ideologues invent and promote every sort of alternative to public education, from charters to vouchers to virtual schools, to give lawmakers optional channels through which to get public dollars into the private-profit sector.
And, as propaganda demands a skewed truth to fit this alternate universe, it must be insisted that public schools are better-funded than ever, leading the ordinary observer to the most obvious question: If we're spending all this money, why aren't we getting results?
Therefore, former Governor Mark Sanford's former advisor is absolutely correct in his complaint that education funding “is just so convoluted that unless you’ve spent a lot of time looking at it and talking to people, it is going to be very difficult.”
I bet George Orwell would understand it in an instant.
