Educators defeat massive charter expansion bill*

Ah, Alabama.* You give us hope. If only you were nearer, so we might see more easily the lessons you offer.

Word from Montgomery this week informs us that the Alabama Senate has defied its more radical ideologues -- the far right-wingers demanding an immediate dismantling of public education in that state -- and replaced a massive expansion of Alabama charter school statutes with a bill

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Spartanburg doesn't want unfunded bus mandate

Editors of the Herald-Journal last week detailed their skepticism of Governor Nikki Haley's scheme to privatize the state's school bus system, declaring that they don't want another unfunded mandate sent down from Columbia.

I doubt that Haley will suddenly reverse course upon reading the editors' commentary; after all, they endorsed Vincent Sheheen against Haley in 2010, cautioning their readers

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Lawmakers seek to punish unemployed educators

Let's begin with vocabulary.

"Employed" means having a job, and working.

"Unemployed" means not having a job, and not working.

"Unemployment benefits" are the weak, thin and pale safety net that South Carolina lawmakers pretend to offer our state's unemployed citizens as subsistence -- the barest minimum in funding that might help buy groceries and little else.

Because some public employees

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Leventis speaks truth to entrenched power

Sen. Phil Leventis has many fans and many detractors, and that's likely because he's been in office many years.

As he wraps up his last term, it's pleasant to see him still swinging for the fences, as he does in this opinion-editorial, published last week in The State.

Tell it, Senator.With my legislative tenure coming to an end, I want to share something with my fellow South Carolinians. Our

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Education deform, straight from the horse's mouth

The fact that the Wall Street newspaper Investors Business Daily has given FreedomWorks president and CEO Matt Kibbe space in its publication to discuss education "reform" is informative.

It reflects that, from the corporate community's perspective, the privatization of public education represents a treasure trove of profits potentially reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.

Somebody, after

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Because Spartanburg needs a Texas-based charter school

When I first scanned this note, I thought High Point University, way up in North Carolina, was trying to open a charter school in Spartanburg. Why, I thought, would someone in North Carolina want to entangle themselves in running a charter school down here?

I read it more closely and discovered that the people initiating this charter school in Spartanburg aren't from North Carolina, they're from

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Beaufort mourns loss of student leader, musician

This is a beautiful note and worthy of sharing statewide, by Island Packet reporter Erin Moody.When Craig Washington talked, everyone listened, his brother Charles said.

It was the same when he played his guitar.

One of the first black children to integrate Beaufort County schools and a jazz musician of local and regional renown, he died Tuesday at the Medical University of South Carolina in

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