South Carolinians for Responsible Government

It doesn’t take a lot of listening to the South Carolina General Assembly to know that most Republican lawmakers aren’t lining up to voice support for the Obama Administration. After all, South Carolina is a conservative state, right?

Some GOP lawmakers are moving forward with an agenda that should make voters wonder whether “conservative” will remain as an accurate description for the state. That agenda is taxpayer funding to implement Obama’s universal early-childhood education plan, a version of which is moving forward in the state budget process.

You should be concerned. Very concerned. Under the guise of “making high quality pre-school available to every child,” left-wing social engineers and pandering politicians are partnering to foist another controlling, costly and failed policy on taxpayers in South Carolina.

We feel confident backing up the description of “controlling, costly and failed.” After all, we are talking about a program championed by the good folks at theNEA to enforce government education of all children as quickly as they can get their hands on them. Specifically, the National Education Association stated in their 2013 Resolutions, that “the Association supports early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age eight,” and “mandatory kindergarten with compulsory attendance.”

Is this really about education, or control? The data doesn’t seem to indicate the latter, considering that the $7 Billion a year federal Head Start program displayed less-than-notable results. At least, that’s what the Department of Health and Human Services reported. According to DHHS, “there were initial positive impacts from having access to Head Start, but by the end of 3rd grade there were very few impacts found for either cohort in any of the four domains of cognitive, social-emotional, health and parenting practices. The few impacts that were found did not show a clear pattern of favorable or unfavorable impacts for children.”

So, an expensive, big government failure can get the attention of South Carolina lawmakers, but not an actual reform like school choice? Other states have rushed to implement school choice programs. That’s because – unlike mandatory compulsory early-childhood education – school choice actually works.

When State Senators vote on whether or not to fund the Obama education mandate, they aren’t making a casual statement about wanting young children to get the education they need. They are publicly proclaiming whether they think parents should bow out of the way for aggressive labor unions and leftist speculators. More than that, they are putting their own names down on paper to say whether or not they want South Carolina to remain a “conservative” state.

The red herring of “private school discrimination” is regularly thrown out to color discussion about school choice being a viable and desirable reform option. “What if private schools won’t accept students? They will just cherry pick the best students. Public schools accept anyone and everyone.”

This is a favorite talking point for many school choice opponents, and one that is too infrequently challenged with obvious facts . The easiest way to answer the question of so-called “private school discrimination in admissions” is to simply look at other states with existing school choice programs.

The recipients of scholarships via tax credits in states like Florida are low-income students from underperforming public schools. 37,578 low income students to be exact. Certainly detractors can’t think that low-income scholarship recipients who found access to private school classrooms are all “cherry picked” for their good behavior and academic achievement?

Consider the 1,600+ children zoned for violent, underperforming schools in the District of Columbia who are currently benefitting from private school education because of school choice. They weren’t turned away, or selected because of a privileged educational background.

Instead of speculating about how private schools could possibly marginalize students who participate in school choice programs, doesn’t it make more sense to look at all the concrete instances of where that isn’t happening?

Additionally, private schools are forbidden by law from discriminating on the grounds of race, color or national origin. House Bill 4894 – which passed the House in 2012  - specifically detailed discrimination under these terms as unacceptable. If someone were completely frank, they would have to acknowledge that state school districts are often segmented along economic/wealth lines, as well as simple geography.

At this point, someone might retort with the statement that schools can still base admissions on academic background or achievement, while public schools don’t. This is patently false, as magnet schools, charter schools, and Governor’s schools ( all public schools) can currently refuse admission to a student who doesn’t make the cut. Consider the widely-respected Academic Magnet High School in Charleston, whose admission requirements state, ” Students must have a minimum national percentile rank of 85 on norm referenced achievement tests.”

Private schools across this state serve a wide-variety of students and learning needs, the same as private schools who are enrolling school choice scholarship recipients in other states. To decry school choice on the speculative grounds that private schools will “inevitably discriminate” is condescending at best, and intentionally misleading at worst.

For some, maybe it’s difficult to acknowledge that there are independent school educators who have just as much of a desire to help any student who comes their way as their counterparts in public education who “have to.” We would encourage skeptics to visit schools like Capers Christian Academy (Johns Island) and Hidden Treasure School (Greenville) who are completely focused on providing quality education to underprivileged and special needs students.

From The Voice for School Choice

Alberto Carvalho, Superintendent of Miami-Dade School District, wasn’t talking about the “Gangnam Style” sensation when he told the education establishment to “Ride the wave, or succumb to it.” He was talking about school choice options for families.

Here is the full quote - “Change is going to accelerate. And you need to learn about what the change is, impose your own change just to survive. We are now working in an educational environment that is driven by choice. I believe that is a good thing. We need to actually be engaged in that choice movement. So if you do not ride that wave, you will succumb to it. I choose not to.”

Superintendent Carvalho’s statement is a telling statement on the national shift in dialogue about whether parents should have the final say in where their child attends school. For some it may come as a huge suprise to hear the top official of a metropolitan district openly contradict the rhetoric of influential unions and  education “advocate” groups. Maybe it shouldn’t anymore.

After all, Mr. Carvalho is working every day in a district that has improved as a direct result of school choice. Miami-Dade District has one of the state’s highest concentrations of students participating in Florida’s many magnet school, charter school, and private school choice options. Not only are there more parents in Miami-Dade seeking out school choice options, but they’ve seen actuable, measurable progress accompany those opportunities. No school district in the state – which The Voice has already noted has seen dramatic improvement – has made bigger gains with students.

The old stand-by oppositions to school choice ( “It is unproven, won’t help the poor, and will hurt public schools”) simply don’t stand up to the reality of what has happened in Superintendent Carvalho’s district. He has the liberty of acknowledging the benefits, because denying them would pretty openly undermine his own credibility.

As more parents get better access to data about how school choice really works, and mesh that with the already-desirable notion that they should be able to have a choice in something as vital as education, the entrenched establishment that refuses to budge will appear less and less relevant. How do you present yourself as having the best interest of children at heart while opposing a proven means of helping them? Even Fiscal Frank Morgan ( where you been, Dr. M?) doesn’t want to show up as the bad guy in “Won’t Back Down II: The Kershaw Story.”

School choice is gaining momentum. More and more states are enacting school choice legislation, and more and more parents are willing to hold lawmakers accountable for not prioritizing choice as a necessary reform.

South Carolina legislators and educators would be wise to read the writing on the wall.