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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

Zais's plan to discard public schools inches ahead

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

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

So we're one step closer to dismantling public education for good,

Read More

Ravitch comments on ALEC's reach into education

If you think citizens are in control of our government, think again.Since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of many states, there has been an explosion of legislation advancing privatization of public schools and stripping teachers of job protections and collective bargaining rights. Even some Democratic governors, seeing the strong rightward drift of our politics, have jumped on

Read More

Florence produces state Teacher of the Year

Ellen Meder of the Florence Morning News delivers the winner:A Pee Dee teacher took the state’s top honor for a South Carolina educator Tuesday night.

Amy McAllister-Skinner won South Carolina’s Teacher of the Year award, which was selected by the S.C. Department of Education and presented by South Carolina Future Minds. She teaches 11th grade English at Johnsonville High School, and with only

Read More

Goodwin named superintendent in Chesterfield

From the Florence Morning News:The Chesterfield County School Board has selected a new superintendent to take the place of its retiring longtime schools leader.

Harrison Goodwin will take the helm of the 17-school district in July after serving as an assistant superintendent at Spartanburg County District One for more than seven years. He will be taking the place of 40-year district veteran John

Read More

South Carolina: Where the rubber meets the road

Atlanta, the metropolis, identifies with several well-established brands -- Coca-Cola and CNN among them -- and is capital of the South itself, with Georgia generally known for peaches and peanuts. So Georgia feeds its people two ways, with the fruits of the earth and with intelligence about their world.

North Carolina transitioned from tobacco and marine fisheries to Research Triangle Park,

Read More

State program too successful, will be eliminated

Say a thing often enough and the people will believe it.

That was the credo of What's-His-Name Goebbels, minister of propaganda for the Third Reich, and it seems to have finally reached a critical mass of effectiveness as the operating strategy of lawmakers who have wanted to eliminate the Teachers and Employees Retention Incentive since its inception.

Reporter Adam Beam, writing for The State

Read More

Is Ware Shoals cutting educators' pay?

A note was published last week in the Greenwood Index-Journal about a proposal to cut educators' salaries to help balance the local district's budget, but I haven't heard whether the issue has been resolved, or how.

This was the original note, by reporter Erin Owens:Ware Shoals School District Board of Trustees discussed possible ways in which the district can cut its budget for the 2012-13

Read More

Ruling in Abbeville v South Carolina is long overdue

I've mentioned the Abbeville v South Carolina case several times before; it's the suit brought on behalf of several poor, rural school districts to force lawmakers to address inequity in school funding in our state, and it's the litigation at the heart of Bud Ferillo's documentary, "Corridor of Shame."

In the April 20 edition of the Statehouse Report, Andy Brack took up the topic and concluded

Read More

Ravitch defends educators' due process rights

Another reason to appreciate Diane Ravitch: She understands the need to protect educators' due process rights.Now that I have a blog where I can write what I want, when I want, I have the luxury of revisiting some good and bad ideas. In this post, I will revisit a really pernicious idea that appeared about a month ago in The New Republic. You see, the odd thing about our culture is that it is so

Read More

Sumter still churning, 'right-sizing,' changing

Ask Jay Schwedler, president and CEO of the Sumter Development Board, how his community earned accolades recently from Southern Business & Development magazine’s annual Top 10 issue, and he'll tell you "good things start with bold, smart leadership."“Every single one of these recognitions happened because leaders got together and made something positive happen,” he said. “Good things rarely just

Read More

Haley's cleared after threatening legislators

Corey Hutchens of Columbia's Free Times fills us in:South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley’s defense against an ethics probe into alleged improper behavior as a lawmaker could be summed up succinctly: Clear me or I’ll throw you all under the bus.

According to a copy of Haley’s defense obtained by Free Times, the governor’s lawyer wrote on March 30 to the chairman of the House Ethics

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

McCampbell School honored in Graniteville

Aiken reporter Rob Novit can unearth some real gems in his coverage for the Aiken Standard, and this is one of them.The Leavelle McCampbell school building received a historical marker on Saturday, with the event taking place in the school's 90th year.

Among the dozens of graduates and others in attendance was Minnie Ferguson, 94. She is living history, having started first grade at the school

Read More

Bamberg trustees address lunch money problems

I can understand the need to allow students to charge their meals. Children in poor, rural counties are likely the children of under-employed South Carolinians.

If Governor Nikki Haley finds a spare minute in her day -- I know it must be crowded with national media requests and fashion photographers, all clamoring for an audience with her grace -- she might give some thought to improving the

Read More

Congratulations to the South Florence NJROTC

High achievement is always happy news.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

Read More

Greenville News supports public school choice

The headline tells the tale: "Open enrollment is a good idea."

That's the verdict of the editors of the Greenville News, and it accompanies an editorial that lays out in flat facts the case for supporting public school choice, the substance of a bill sponsored by Senator Wes Hayes and now before the Senate for consideration.

This is not the private school voucher bill adopted by the House in

Read More

Supreme Court upholds public education as a right*

Next time I hear an American politician declare that we should be more like India, I'm going to shout AMEN.

Tucked away in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal last week was this nugget by Tripti Lahiri and Diksha Sahni:India's Supreme Court upheld a law Thursday that supporters say can transform access to education for hundreds of millions of poor children but critics claim infringes

Read More

Finn: Romney will push vouchers, despite flaws

Former deputy Secretary of Education Chester Finn predicts that we'll soon see an education plan from presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who heretofore hasn't bothered to let Americans know what he might do regarding public education if he were to assume the presidency.

Further, Finn predicts that a Romney plan will lean heavily on vouchers, mainly because every other conservative

Read More

Privatized bus drivers vote to unionize Dorchester

Hurray for exercising one's federal rights to organize with one's co-workers into a union, and negotiate the terms of one's own life, livelihood and career path.

This is called taking control of one's own destiny, and Dorchester's bus drivers deserve recognition for their courage and tenacity.

It happened a week or more ago, but it's worth the attention still, as our lawmakers seem dead-set on

Read More

Fairfield hires Charlotte firm for supt search

Hope that Broad Superintendents Academy experience isn't part of the search criteria. From reporter James Denton:After more than two hours in executive session Tuesday night, the Fairfield County School Board voted unanimously to hire a firm to spearhead their search for a new superintendent.

Board Chairwoman Andrea Harrison said Wednesday that the Board had selected Coleman Lew and Associates

Read More

Zais re-election campaign visits Orangeburg

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

What message does it send, when educators are invited to give their

Read More

Mills helped define state's economy, history

This item from the Anderson Independent-Mail, by reporter Jennifer Crossley Howard, is as fine a requiem for South Carolina's used mills and mill workers as any I've seen, and it deserves an audience across South Carolina and beyond our borders.J.L. Gaillard uses three words to explain why he lived 90 years on a mill hill. He leans back in his armchair, widens his eyes and smiles.

“I was

Read More

Re-enactments bring history to life

South Carolina has a colorful history, and I'm glad to see that re-enactments are being used to help teach our history to children in public schools, as in the case of the Battle of Anderson, as reported by the Anderson Independent-Mail.Early Friday morning, the tents were set up and the camp fires were burning. The large bronze rifle was primed to fire, and the cell phones were all tucked away

Read More

TAP creates a stir at Pickens board meeting

A Pickens County school budget workshop offered an opportunity to look more closely at state TAP programs last week.

If TAP is an acronym, I cannot tell it; there is no explanation of the word on the state Department of Education's website, though there is a concise description of the program:The SC TAP System was based on a model launched in 1999 as an initiative of the Milken Family Foundation

Read More

Central's Daniel High School has new principal

Word comes from Pickens County that Daniel High School in Central has a new principal:Danny Merck has been named principal of D.W. Daniel High School in Central.

Merck will officially begin his new duties July 1 and will succeed Sharon Huff. Huff has been named assistant superintendent of instructional services for the School District of Pickens County.

Merck has served as assistant

Read More

Lawmakers acknowledge inequity in school funding

In South Carolina, good ideas are rare to emerge from our State House -- no sense denying the truth -- but every good idea is chained at the waist to two or three bad ones.

Here's an example, as reported by WTLX: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

Read More

Fashion magazine photographs our present leader

I keep looking for some information in all of this coverage that benefits the children of South Carolina, especially the 700,000 children who attend South Carolina's public schools. But I don't find any.

On her recent media tour to Manhattan, I found chuckle-lines about her stiletto heels being useful in our state's political environment. I found trivia about our state's beverage on "The Colbert

Read More

California teacher is National Teacher of the Year

Rebecca Lynn Mieliwocki, a seventh-grade English teacher from Burbank, California, has been selected as the 62nd National Teacher of the Year.

Mieliwocki and all 2012 State Teachers of the Year will be recognized by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House on April 24. Mieliwocki is known for unconventional teaching practices, developed over her 13 years of teaching—the last 9 of

Read More

The self-mythologizing of Nikki Haley

Let's imagine, for a moment, a fashion magazine photo spread featuring the bare legs of former Governor David Beasley, the upswept coiffure of former Governor Carroll Campbell, the smoky come-hither glance of former Governor Mark Sanford.

Across the partisan divide, let's imagine former Governor Jim Hodges squinting icily at a sunset from the bow of a yacht, or former Governor Dick Riley

Read More

State of the State speeches demonstrate bandwagon effect

Found a clever note by Andrew Ujifusa in Education Week magazine that illustrates what happens when strange new ideas take hold in the political imagination.For the slackers and malingerers who failed to watch every governor's State of the State address this year, the Education Commission of the States performed a nice public service recently by tallying up how often, and in which states, certain

Read More

How many millionaires pay less in tax than you?

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];

Read More

Courson predicts clock will block voucher bill

Reporter Sarita Chourey of the Morris News Service posted this afternoon a news item that quotes Senate President Pro Tem John Courson predicting a stall in the progress of this year's House voucher bill.South Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore John Courson predicts the school-choice bill passed by the House in March will run out of time this year.

At the end of March, the S.C. House approved

Read More

WSJ praises South Carolina's factory system

What do these items have in common: rice, indigo, cotton, textiles and tires?

They're all products that South Carolina has used to turn cheap labor into high wealth for our state's evolving aristocracy. As the wealth bubbles created by each of the first four swelled and burst, the next took its place: Slaves tending rice gave way to slaves tending indigo, who gave way to slaves tending cotton,

Read More

Zais re-starts his campaign website

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

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

Conventional wisdom would suggest ramping up such campaign activity after this year's election

Read More

Senate advances choice within public schools

Now this is a horse of a different color: A Senate subcommittee this morning approved a measure that "expands students' educational options within public schools," according to reporter Seanna Adcox.

Notice: This is not the House voucher bill that offers tax incentives to parents who withdraw their children from public schools, or whose children already attend private and parochial schools, or

Read More

Workers being driven out of public service

Those committed to reducing the effectiveness of state agencies, shrinking the rolls of public employees and ultimately privatizing public services are winning their agenda, one retirement at a time.

Today's edition of The State reports that public employees are leaving their posts in droves, buying time and taking early retirement before devastating changes to the retirement system go into

Read More

Charter schools spend more on administration

I thought charter schools were supposed to be the less-expensive, more-innovative alternative to traditional public schools, but a brand-new study from Columbia University says they spend more on administration than on instruction.

I guess this means traditional public schools are more cost-effective at educating children, after all.

Here's the news, published this morning by Education Week

Read More

What educators want: To be heard, empowered

Diane Ravitch's columns are like B-12 shots; they give educators such a boost of spirit.

This week's note is no different. Ravitch compares the data from two recent surveys of educators nationwide, one funded by the Gates Foundation in collaboration with Scholastic Inc., the other conducted by MetLife. In some areas, the data showed widely divergent findings, and Ravitch tries to make sense of

Read More

South Carolina tops Georgia, North Carolina

In teenage pregnancy, that is.

Yes, in a national survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Carolina now ranks 11th in the nation in teenage pregnancy. While we're not the highest representative from the South -- Mississippi takes the top spot, thus diverting attention from us again -- we still beat our neighbors to the north and west resoundingly.

It's spelled

Read More

Editors question Haley's motives to publish

One of the benefits of small-town newspapers: Common sense, lack of pretense, no artifice.

Editors of the Greenwood Index-Journal have taken a circumspect look at Governor Nikki Haley's national book tour and observed that not only may Haley have jumped the gun as an author-politico, but she likely has taken valuable time away from the people who elected her Queen to serve her own interests.

Read More

South Carolina software company soon to be Canadian

Did anyone know that South Carolina was home to a $55 million-dollar education software company called Computer Software Innovations?

I didn't.

According to the media in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, it's about to be gobbled up by a much larger Canadian software company called Constellation Software.

Where's Governor Nikki Haley? Isn't she the self-appointed protector of South Carolina jobs?

If we

Read More

EOC asks for more teacher loan funds

Let's see: South Carolina sponsors a student-loan program that specifically targets students who intend to become teachers. The program's default rate is miniscule: only one percent.

Its annual allocation is $4 million hasn't been increased in the past four years, despite the fact that nearly 300 applicants have been denied loans because the program lacked funding -- a paltry $1.3 million, out

Read More

Bojangles donates books to honor Upstate teachers

First, congratulations to those teachers who have been selected as Teachers of the Year by their peers in those schools where that is the process.

Second, congratulations to Bojangles for recognizing the value of great teaching and for its donation of books to the honored teachers.

This note in today's Spartanburg Herald-Journal identifies that county's teachers of the year and gives credit to

Read More

Judge rules vouchers unconstitutional in Oklahoma

Last week, a judge in Tulsa ruled that Oklahoma's private-school voucher program for special education students violate that state's Constitution.

This is interesting because of the judge's rationale, explained by reporter Nirvi Shah of Education Week magazine:Reports by the Associated Press and Tulsa World say that Judge Rebecca Nightingale agreed with the school districts that the law violates

Read More

Longer life span linked to more education

Yet one more reason to encourage your children to stay in school, and to go to college, and to get advanced degrees.

A new study from the University of Wisconsin shows that the more educated one is, the longer one may live.

Reports Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times,Americans are living longer, but the gains in life span are accruing disproportionately among the better educated, according

Read More

South Carolina dodges Broad bullet

With huge checks come huge strings.

This is not ancient mystic wisdom; it is modern American reality. When billionaire education deformers come around dangling large sums of cash, it is always best to turn the other way and run, run, run.

Those foolish enough to believe that they can collect these "gifts" in the form of grants and expect no quid pro quo are deluding themselves.

This year, the

Read More

Voucherites complain House didn't go far enough

Here's the complaint, just as I found it. Read it and weep.There are essentially two strategies in diplomatic negotiations. One is to ask for more than you know you’re likely to get, then to demand a portion of it and claim you’ve “compromised” on your original demand. The other is to make very modest demands and hope they’re met in full. Neither strategy has worked for school choice advocates in

Read More

Poverty, low education correlates to teen pregnancy

How was a study published that addressed South Carolina data, but no major news outlet in South Carolina covered its findings?

Or did one, and I missed it?

As it is, I had to find out from The State Journal, West Virginia's "business newspaper," and from the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette that a study was published by Auburn University that connects high rates of poverty and low educational

Read More

Grade-changing policies attracting scrutiny

It started in January in Beaufort County, where a principal was removed for changing students' grades. Turns out, districts have policies that allow for grades to be changed, but only under certain circumstances.

Now, in Hampton County, the matter of grade-changing is getting additional study -- except in this case, there seems not to be a written policy.

This, from editor Michael DeWitt of the

Read More

Sun-News: New tax proposal offers another fine mess

It's never a good sign when a newspaper editorial begins with a string of county administrators' quotes. This one does, published a couple of weeks ago in the Myrtle Beach Sun-News about a new tax-cut proposal that editors predict will have plenty of unintended consequences.

In other words, it's an editorial about a commonplace, run-of-the-mill legislative product in South Carolina.“The bottom

Read More

This year's voucher bill was no compromise

Call this an oversight: The State newspaper published its annual editorial opposing a voucher bill, but I didn't cross-post it here at the time. So, to keep the record current, here's the text, delivered by editors well before the House committed itself to a costly and foolish endeavor to dismantle public schools.ADVOCATES call their trimmed-down plan to pay parents to send their kids to private

Read More

Darlington finds cheaper bus fuel solution

Again, a good idea comes from the Pee Dee region.

While lawmakers look for ways to privatize the state's school bus system and turn another part of public education into a profit-making enterprise, the leaders in Darlington County's school system are innovating and solving problems within the public school system.

Which seems to prove the old notion once again: Empower professionals to solve

Read More

Calhoun hears concerns over bus privatization

Concerns about the proposal to effectively privatize the state's school bus system were heard at a recent meeting in Calhoun County, according to the Orangeburg Times and Democrat.The proposed state bus transportation bill that would transfer the financial responsibility and maintenance of school buses to the local districts is like “a grenade waiting to go off,” says Jerry Sullivan, Calhoun

Read More

McLeod opposes bus privatization bill

The Newberry Observer reported recently that Rep. Walt McLeod has announced his opposition to the proposal to effectively privatize school buses across South Carolina. Reporter Natalie Netzel explained the bill and let McLeod outlines his opposition to it.The bill known as the School Bus Privatization Act of 2012 would turn over the ownership and purchasing of the school buses from the state to

Read More

Lottery proves to be a regressive tax in South Carolina

Columnist Dwayne Green, writing in the Charleston City Paper, took up recently an issue that catches my attention from time to time, the evidence that poor people who play the lottery the most get the least benefit from it, directly and indirectly.

Green writes, persuasively,What if the S.C. General Assembly announced a new tax that would be paid primarily by the state's poor and minority

Read More

"Examiner" pushes Haley as vice presidential material

I've never heard of the Examiner but it bills itself as a "dynamic entertainment, news and lifestyle network that serves more than 20 million monthly readers across the U.S. and around the world." It calls its writers "examiners," "thousands of writers who are self-motivated independent contributors."

One of these is Anthony Martin, who labels himself a "conservative examiner" and is described

Read More

Haley opts for cant in her vanity project

"Cant" is defined at Dictionary.com thusly:noun
1. insincere, especially conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness, or piety.
2. the private language of the underworld.
3. the phraseology peculiar to a particular class, party, profession, etc.
4. whining or singsong speech, especially of beggars.

verb (used without object)
5. to talk hypocritically.
6. to speak in the

Read More

The State tracks the money trail to House voucher vote

Following the money led Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to the Nixon Watergate scandal, and the Washington Post to a Pulitzer Prize.

This Easter weekend, The State newspaper hopped down the money trail to last month's vote on the House voucher bill and found dozens of voucher bunnies collecting their own Cadbury eggs from donor Howard Rich of New York.More than half of the S.C. state

Read More

Recipients of Rich voucher funds identified

The State newspaper performed a public service this weekend by publishing a list of legislators who received funding from Howard Rich, the New Yorker voucher ideologue who has invested millions in buying pro-voucher public policy across the nation.

The list includes members of both parties and in both houses, although a voucher bill has never gotten to the Senate for consideration before this

Read More

'Ed deform' and 'choice' agenda reveal Bizarro Robin Hood

Educator PLThomasEdD, who posts frequently at DailyKos, last week authored a column at SchoolsMatter.info, in which he described corporate education reform as a "Bizarro Robin Hood" universe.

Once I learned more about the "Bizarro" concept, I concluded that Thomas has devised an ingenious way of looking at not only corporate education deform but all the rest of the astroturf foolishness

Read More

Governor vetoes voucher expansion bill -- in Arizona

Sometimes, the day's news leaves the rational reader feeling light-headed, dizzy.

Among red states, Arizona takes a back seat to no one.

In fact, the historian and social scientist in me points out that the population of the Southwest reflects the western-most migration of eighteenth-century South Carolinians. Travel through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arizona, and

Read More

Brack, Free Times react to House voucher bill

Two sources I consult regular for clear-eyed reporting and commentary on the goings-on in Columbia are Statehouse Report, published by Andy Brack of Charleston, and the Free Times of Columbia.

Neither has disappointed in covering last week's passage of a voucher bill by the House.

From Statehouse Report comes this headline: "Back-door voucher bill defies logic."
If you ever thought the folks at

Read More

Florence 1 grows more agreeable to Apple

It once was verboten to have an open-book test in public school classrooms; we closed our books and opened our minds at test-time.

And, once, students could only use pencils, so as to keep their essays neat and free of ink spots and strike-throughs.

Likewise, there was a time when one couldn't use a calculator during testing, especially for standardized tests like the SAT. One had to know his

Read More

Pro-voucher columns sound strikingly similar

As I read this column by Rep. Christopher Murphy in the Summerville Journal Scene, I thought it sounded an awful lot like the one that Karen Floyd published in the Mount Pleasant Patch a few days ago. Both praise the House for passing its voucher bill last week.

O, I know there's no voucher-on-paper in the bill adopted by the House last week; it's just a shell game that uses public dollars to

Read More

How is Nikki Haley like a potato? Ask Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney, our governor's favorite candidate for president, visited Jay Leno last week -- apparently to shore up his numbers among cranky conservative insomniacs -- and played a little word-association game using a random list of contemporary American politicos.

So reports The State in a recent edition:Here is what Romney said when Leno asked him to say what came to mind.

N.J. Gov. Chris

Read More

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

Read More

When is public information not public?

Today, it's Summerville; tomorrow, South Carolina.

The Post & Courier reports that in Summerville, the rules about public information appear to be different from the rules elsewhere in the state and nation.

I reckon we can expect more of this bobbing and weaving as Governor Nikki Haley pushes for a statewide school bus privatization plan. As she seems to define transparency, we'll all have free

Read More

Misperceptions of the South rooted in education

Kristen Rawls of AlterNet published an insightful note at Salon.com yesterday about misperceptions of Southerners. Our region has gotten a bit of media coverage recently, Rawls notes, because of Mitt Romney's inability to win a Southern contest against Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

What does that say about us, if anything discernible?“Doubts on Romney’s Conservatism Help Santorum in the South

Read More

Burke students set examples, changed history

Thanks to the Charleston Post & Courier for this weekend feature article on the sit-ins of the 1960s at S.H. Kress on King Street and elsewhere.

What a tremendous message these events communicated: That high school students could and can, in fact, have a great impact on the history of their communities.

Today, I'm afraid to say, thanks to the super-saturation of pop culture, our high schoolers

Read More

Loftis, Byrnes, Tillman, Thurmond... Flair?

In some respects, Lake City has come a long way.

In 1898, Lake City's African-American postmaster and his infant daughter were murdered after a terrible lynching incident. Thankfully, we don't have incidents of this sort anymore.

Rather, Lake City is known today as the birthplace of astronaut Ron McNair and university benefactor Darla Moore, as well as a trio of professional athletes, Derrick

Read More

Good luck to Marlboro County educators and students

Anyone who has undergone an accreditation review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS, knows the anxiety that comes with the process to prepare for SACS visits and to put the best foot forward.

This is what the educators and students of Marlboro County face at the moment.The Marlboro County School District will start a three-day evaluation process Monday aimed at gaining

Read More

Congratulations to Florence District 1 students

Here's the sort of team I'd love to see lined up across the podium of the State House, draped with medals and receiving the adulation of an appreciative legislative body.

Perhaps in the next life.

Still, it's worth celebrating that the students of Florence School District 1 are given credit for their achievements in the local newspaper.Teams from five Florence School District One schools met

Read More

O'Gorman to become associate supt in Berkeley

News from Aiken includes this school personnel change, as reported by the Aiken Standard: Associate Superintendent Kevin O'Gorman will leave in June to begin work in Berkeley County.Like many other educators throughout Aiken County, Wagener-Salley High School principal Pat Keating was surprised to learn that Kevin O'Gorman, the associate superintendent for instruction, is leaving in June for a

Read More

Remembering King's sacrifice for America's workers

Chris Mahin, a union organizer, published this note in 2006 on that year's anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.

As today is the forty-fourth anniversary of our loss, it's appropriate to remember King, why he was in Memphis on that date, and what he exemplified for the rest of us.April 4 is one of the saddest days of the year. On that day in 1968, the Rev.

Read More

Did Stephen Colbert have the last laugh on Haley?

The present occupier of our governor's office, traipsing across America in search of buyers for her new mem-wah, stopped last night in New York City to appear on "The Colbert Report." Fitting, I thought, that she kicked off her media tour on the cable network named Comedy Central.

O, a fine time was had by all, as native son Colbert played a parlor game of state trivia with Nikki Haley, who

Read More

Floyd praises wealthfare, criticizes citizens' ignorance

In 2006, Karen Floyd of Spartanburg ran for state Superintendent of Education and tried diligently to avoid acknowledging her support for publicly-funded private school vouchers.

Now that the State House has approved such a measure for the first time, Floyd has published an opinion-editorial -- in Mount Pleasant, of all places -- praising that news and celebrating her long-time support for

Read More

Voucher bill passes, 65-49

By a vote of 65-49, the South Carolina House has just approved a statewide voucher bill on second reading.


var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : '

Read More

Johnson, Smith, Brown speak on the bill

Note: Following is an encapsulation of remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Kevin Johnson: The real losers here are our public school teachers, principals, students.

I am truly disappointed. I came up here assuming I was working with some of the most

Read More

Anthony, Allison, Brown speak on the voucher bill

Note: Following is an encapsulation of remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Mike Anthony: Where is the superintendent who represents 700,000 children in this state?

I said as a freshman, One of these days, you're going to awaken the sleeping giant of this

Read More

Govan makes the case against vouchers

Note: Following is an encapsulation of remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Jerry Govan: Back in 1712, this state provided a nominal amount of money to support school parishes and their teachers.

In 1720, most of these schools, around Charleston, had

Read More

Amendments over, debate on the bill begins

Amendments 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 were withdrawn, and 24 was tabled on a voice vote.

We turn to the bill.


var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www')

Read More

Pinson's Amendment 28 adopted

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Gene Pinson's Amendment 28 would restrict members of the General Assembly from participating in the tax deduction provided by this legislation.

Pinson: We should set

Read More

Stavrinakis's Amendment 26 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Leon Stavrinakis's Amendment 26: No poor child is going to escape any "failing" school in South Carolina and go to any private school as a result of this bill.

We're

Read More

Anthony's Amendment 25 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Anthony's Amendment 25 eliminates the PASS test and uses another test that can apply to private schools as well as public schools.

White moved to table; Anthony requested

Read More

Smith's Amendment 23 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. James Smith's Amendment 23 seeks to establish accountability.

Smith: This is an important amendment. We want to spend state dollars responsibly and accountably. We

Read More

Ott's Amendment 22 adopted

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon withdrew the next seven amendments, bringing the body to Rep. Harry Ott's Amendment 22.

Ott: This amendment says, Let's try it for five years, then look at it. If

Read More

Brannon's Amendment 15 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 15: Includes the definition of immediate family members, who cannot receive scholarships when a family member is on the private school's board.

Read More

Brannon's Amendment 14 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 14: A private school receiving SGO funds must be currently accredited.

Bedingfield moved to table; Brannon requested roll call.

Vote: 62-49, tabled.

Read More

Brannon's Amendment 13 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 13: A private school receiving SGO funds must have been operating in South Carolina for 12 months before receiving the funds.

Bedingfield moved to

Read More

Brannon's Amendment 12 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 12 adds disabilities or academic achievement to the list of characteristics that private schools cannot discriminate against.

Rep. Steve Parker: I

Read More

Brannan's Amendment 11 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon's Amendment 11 is technical. Various kinds of schools are defined in various parts of the bill; this amendment takes out one code reference because it's "fraught

Read More

Brannan's Amendment 10 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Amendments 4 through 9 are passed over; Amendment 10 is explained by Rep. Doug Brannon.

Brannon: Pointless, but this amendment deal with transparency and accountability.

Read More

Brannon's Amendment 3 is tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Doug Brannon, Amendment 3: If a private school offers any scholarships and they qualify under this bill to receive scholarship funds, then they must accept voucher

Read More

Anthony's Amendment 2 tabled

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Terry Alexander: Is this really apples to apples?

Anthony: No, different levels of deductions for different children, private schools versus home schools.

Alexander

Read More

Anthony's amendment 2 is debated

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Gene Pinson, debating Amendment 2 by Rep. Mike Anthony, asked if there's another measurement to use besides the PASS test.

Anthony: Each state has to declare a state

Read More

Voucher debate begins in the South Carolina House

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Rep. Rita Allison has offered Amendment 1 to HB 4894, the voucher bill. Allison was one of several Republicans who voted against the voucher bill last year. Her amendment

Read More

A selection of texts on vouchers in South Carolina

Given the possibility that our lawmakers may consider the 2012 edition of their voucher bill, I thought it helpful to offer a catalog of readings on vouchers.

Anderson Independent Mail weighs in against vouchers

Vouchers and "school choice" remain political, not educational

Kozol: Vouchers are part of corporate privatization plans

Loftis op-ed on vouchers, tuition tax credits doesn't mention

Read More

Vouchers on the House agenda today?

Word has it that the South Carolina House intends to debate its voucher bill, HB 4894, this afternoon.

To review its content, read the full text at the legislature's website.


var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;

Read More

Greenville News defends public employment penalties

Editors of the Greenville News praised today the legislature's move to raise public employees' required contributions to their retirement fund, calling it "not perfect" but "necessary."

Indeed, it's imperfect. It's also unnecessary, as lawmakers could have adopted -- could still amend themselves and adopt -- a host of alternative strategies, from raising sufficient revenue to address the state's

Read More

Royster tapped to succed Fisher in Greenville

The Greenville Board of Education voted last night to hire deputy superintendent Burke Royster to succeed retiring Superintendent Phinnize "Penny" Fisher as leader of South Carolina's largest school district.

In a split vote, Royster edged out Lynn Moody of Rock Hill and Eugene White of Indianapolis, Indiana.

The process to reach this decision was long and presumably intense, as the board met

Read More

Haley attacks Rainey, hides behind secrecy rules

Despite his service as chairman of the state's Board of Economic Advisors, John Rainey is likely best known in South Carolina politics as the man who recruited Mark Sanford to run for governor in 2002. To put that decision in context, Sanford's reputation in 2002 was as a principled ultra-conservative -- even Libertarian -- Republican who was famous for limiting himself to three terms in Congress

Read More

Rainey continues fight for transparency, ethics

Former chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors John Rainey continues to fight for clean government, transparency and ethics, with a terrific column in today's edition of the Orangeburg Times and Democrat.The resignation of former Lt. Gov. Ken Ard, followed shortly by his indictment and guilty plea, marks another milestone in the long road of ethical lapses by public officials in South Carolina

Read More

PLThomasEdD: Zais lacks experience, expertise

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

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

Read More

Haley ignores education questions, promotes book

A huge thank-you to Paul Bowers of the Charleston City Paper for catching Governor Nikki Haley's book-promotion gimmick on Facebook yesterday and documenting the interaction. If such things happen again, we should share the word as quickly as possible, to get as many interested South Carolinians as possible involved in asking questions.

That is, the ones who are Haley's Facebook friends.

Here

Read More

Parents defending public schools offend right wing

Here's the good that has come from this post: Anyone wishing to communicate their support for traditional public schools in South Carolina are armed with a great set of talking points!

As I understand it, a family moved to a small town in South Carolina because of the "notoriety" of its public schools. (No, I don't understand that reference, either.) And when they arrived, they joined the local

Read More

Study: Southern abstinence-only policies not working

Anyone who's landed on such unfortunate programs as "Teen Mom" and "16 and Pregnant," or who has spent a few hours in a normal middle or high school in our state could confirm some of this: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

Read More

AT&T sets its sights on education in SC

Uh-oh.

Another corporate giant has discovered that there are potentially billions of dollars to be made once South Carolina converts all of its public schools to private alternatives, and it's laying down a big, fat marker on those future profits.

From Midlands Biz comes the announcement:As access to skilled workers becomes increasingly vital to the U.S. economy, AT&T is launching a

Read More

Sanford-Haley advisor denies critique of state's economy

A couple of old adages come to mind here. One is that a kicked dog barks. The other is that figures lie and liars figure.

I think the average South Carolinian feels the truth as it's described in an economic report issued by TD Economics recently, which says that our state lawmakers' budget decisions over recent years contribute to our inability to rebound after the recent recession.

Ordinary

Read More

Zais insults students, schools receiving awards

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

And why not? In South Carolina, where public schools are denigrated daily by ideologues who favor privatization, corporatization, segregation and elimination, the news that so many students and schools

Read More

Supporters propose a memorial for Judge J. Waties Waring

Here's wonderful opportunity to do a good thing for our state, our children and ourselves. I hope our state's educators will support this wholeheartedly and actively.

I've written several times to praise Judge J. Waties Waring of Charleston, a man whose leadership did much to change -- against the wishes of Charleston society -- the course of South Carolina's and America's history.

In this

Read More

Daily Gamecock: Charter expansion a poor plan

Look at this: Even the students at the University of South Carolina agree that charter school expansion in South Carolina isn't the panacea for our ills. Reporter Angel Hollen wrote in The Daily Gamecock last week:Decisions regarding South Carolina public schools are currently being discussed in the general assembly.

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais’s top priority is passing a bill to

Read More

Privatization bill catches national attention

South Carolina's costly and unnecessary proposal to dissolve and privatize the state's school bus transportation system has attracted the attention of a national publication that focuses on student transportation.

Ryan Gray of School Transportation News reported on Friday that the school bus privatization bill under consideration in our legislature has been amended but the issue is still

Read More

Greenville board has adjourned without decision

News comes from Greenville tonight that after a day-long debate among school board members over the selection of a new superintendent, the board adjourned at 11 p.m. without a decision.

And it appears that a decision by Rock Hill school administrators to hold classes during last year's Martin Luther King Jr Day has emerged as an issue in the public discussion, if not the private one.

This

Read More

Lawmakers punish public employees, expand charters

The South Carolina Education Association publishes by email a weekly update of legislative activity, and the update from the past week documents the damage done by our lawmakers to the state's retirement system.

To wit:The House passed H.4976 (Ways and Means Committee), the bill that changes the S.C. Retirement System this week. Included in this bill are:

• Increases in employee contributions

Read More

Study: Charter expansion has re-segregated schools

Language can't get much plainer than this: "The expansion of charter schools has led to classrooms being more segregated today than they were 30 years ago, according to a recent report that provides policymakers with detailed recommendations on how to ensure all students have access to a quality education."

This is the chief conclusion of a study produced by researchers at the University of

Read More

Ravitch: Who demeans teachers harms children

Diane Ravitch, who would be U.S. Secretary of Education in a perfect world, commented this week on the Metlife Survey of the American Teacher in her weekly blog at Education Week magazine's website.

As usual, the logic of her commentary is crystalline.By now, you have seen the latest Metlife Survey of the American Teacher. It shows that teachers' satisfaction with their job has plummeted since

Read More

Haley begs for national attention in Pennsylvania

Two months ago, Governor Nikki Haley spent two weeks with presidential candidate Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, a state that does not appear among South Carolina's voting precincts.

Then she squired him around her own state, which may have been the kiss of death, as opponent Newt Gingrich cleaned Romney's clock in the South Carolina primary -- a primary, I might add, paid for entirely by South

Read More

History repeats: The State on vouchers, 2007

It's possible that our leaders will pull out their warmed-over voucher bill this week for debate in the House.

Haven't we been here before?

We have. The State newspaper published the following editorial on March 27, 2007, almost five years ago to the day:LET’S SAY THE city police have abandoned some neighborhoods. When residents complain, instead of sending the police back in, the city council

Read More

Hutchens: State's history reflects rot from within

Award-winning journalist Corey Hutchens of Columbia's Free Times turned in another fine article this week with a study of South Carolina's intimacy with corruption.

As one who studies our state's past -- partly in search of clues to determine where we went wrong, partly in search of a rational path out of our morass -- and its chief antagonists, I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation.To stroll

Read More

"At-will" and "right-to-work-for-less," illustrated

There are states in America where employees -- public and private -- have rights, thanks to the centuries-old concept of collective bargaining. South Carolina and Florida are not among them.

In these two states, and 20-plus more, employees have no rights under the law; we can be hired or fired "at will," which is where the happy label "at-will" comes from.

If you work for me, and you're sitting

Read More

Greenville finalists White, Royster, Moody profiled

Biographical sketches were published this week by the Greenville News of the three finalists to succeed Dr. Phinnize "Penny" Fisher, retiring superintendent of Greenville County Schools.

I caught the sketches of two -- Lynn Moody of York County and Burke Royster of Greenville -- but didn't see the sketch of Dr. Eugene G. White of Indianapolis, Indiana. I found his biography online, however, at

Read More

Optional reading: "Can't Is Not An Option"

Google "Sentinel HC", or plug that into the internal search engine at Amazon.com, and you'll find what resembles the right wing's secret library. Imagine a Bizzaro-world catalog of Thomas Jefferson's treatises on democracy, perverted.

You'll find titles like "She's the Boss: The Disturbing Truth About Nancy Pelosi," which posits the frightening question "Why Is Nancy Pelosi the Most Dangerous

Read More

Solidarity among educators, workers is imperative

Mark Naison, professor of African and African American Studies at Fordham University in New York and chair of the department of African and African-American Studies, authored a great column I found over the weekend. Given what's happening in our legislature, funded by out-of-state contributors, I thought it appropriate to feature Naison's thoughts here.All over the nation, teachers are under

Read More

Profit motive fuels forced privatization

Today's online edition of The State newspaper includes a reader survey on the bus privatization issue; go here to weigh in, and be sure to forward the link to friends and family who will vote, too.

Reporter Gina Smith catches the crux of the issue in her opening statement: "South Carolina school systems are fearful they are about to be handed a bill for tens of millions of dollars by the S.C.

Read More

Statesman Smith fights for South Carolina's children

When building a South Carolina statesman from scratch, one can't do better than to use Rep. James Smith as a model. His Twitter bio encapsulates the case: "Husband, Father, Soldier, Lawyer, Legislator, Musician & devoted American & South Carolinian; thankful for our freedom & dedicated to an even better SC for all."

In a meritocratic world where earned experience and achievement count for

Read More

Could Glenn McConnell become Governor?

If John Rainey gets his way, it will be so: Glenn McConnell -- now less than a week into his service as Lieutenant Governor -- may succeed Nikki Haley before her first term ends in January, 2015.

As widely respected as McConnell is for his whipsmart political mind, today's news from Columbia may show that McConnell is also the cleverest person in the entire legislature.

The news? It comes from

Read More

Scholastic/Gates study: Teachers are happy workaholics

Today's Washington Post features the summary conclusions of a study conducted by Scholastic and the Gates Foundation, which include the news that educators work a lot, educator don't mind being evaluated, and educators are "satisfied" in their jobs.

I know, I know: This study was funded by the Gates Foundation, so rest assured that I'm not taking the results too seriously -- especially the

Read More

Support for public schools elevated Courson in Senate

According to the account rendered in The State newspaper this week, Sen. John Courson became Senate President Pro Tempore thanks in part to his long-time support for public education in South Carolina.

Reporter Gina Smith writes:Longtime Columbia state Sen. John Courson was elected to the top post in the state Senate Tuesday, but the political musical chairs may not be over.

The 67-year-old

Read More

Anderson Independent Mail weighs in against vouchers

The headline tells the tale: "Here we go again."

Editors of the Anderson Independent Mail, hometown newspaper to Rep. Brian White, chairman of South Carolina's House Ways and Means Committee, have issued their position on the newest-and-unimproved version of the voucher-and-tax-deduction bill sure to arise in the next couple of weeks.Funding private education with public money via tax credits or

Read More

Riley: America depends on quality teachers and schools

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

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

Read More

Wisconsin lawmaker explains ALEC's position on education

Can't add much to this analysis. Listen for notes that will sound similar to the coming legislative debate on vouchers in South Carolina.




var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' ==

Read More

In Beaufort, clothes make the gentleman, and the lady

Approaching three hundred years ago, the sons and daughters of South Carolina's elite had private tutors and governesses to teach them etiquette, and English-made finery to make them presentable.

Today, at least in Beaufort County, students of ordinary South Carolinians have access to the same training and clothes, thanks to the nonprofit Peters Group Foundation and its Gentlemen's and Ladies

Read More

Parent-activist warns parents, educators in Sumter

Forewarned is forearmed, and long-time parent-activist Ceresta Smith, now of Charleston, rang the alarm in Sumter on Tuesday -- and her remarks were covered by the Sumter Item.Is the "public" being taken out of public schools?

That was the topic of a public talk given Tuesday in Sumter, sponsored by the South Carolina Education Association and the Sumter Education Task Force.

Ceresta Smith, a

Read More

Rock Hill's Moody is a finalist for Greenville supt

This, from today's Rock Hill Herald online:Rock Hill schools Superintendent Lynn Moody is one of three finalists in the running to lead Greenville County schools.

If chosen Moody would take charge of a district with more than four times as many students as Rock Hill’s.

The other finalists are Burke Royster, Greenville County schools’ deputy superintendent of operations, and Eugene White,

Read More

Louisiana's teachers denigrated by governor, lawmakers

Is this what the new conservative world order will look like? Teachers locked out of their State House, interrogated by lawmakers for daring to speak up on the issues that affect them?

Is this where we're headed in South Carolina, too?With the 12-6 vote -- which came almost 11 hours the committee convened -- two of the four principal measures of Jindal's overhaul of primary and secondary

Read More

South Carolina native poet Finney speaks at USC

Here's a great candidate for South Carolina poet laureate: Nikky Finney, the Conway-born daughter of retired Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney and a Newberry-born elementary school teacher, Frances Davenport Finney.

Raised right here in South Carolina, Finney attended public schools through our delayed period of integration, and graduated Sumter High School in 1975. She studied here in the South,

Read More

Educators blocked from State House in Baton Rouge

Shades of Governor Nikki Haley?

Weeks after sharing a luncheon table with our governor at the White House, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal blocked thousands of educators from gaining entry to the State House in Baton Rouge this morning, while a package of his proposals to dismantle public education in that state was being rolled out in a legislative committee.

There's more to this story -- and

Read More

Congratulations to Beaufort County high school seniors

Who doesn't love a banquet held in honor of high students for their academic achievement?

Anyone who spends time at the State House has seen team after team of high school basketball, baseball or jerseyed football players lined up along the House rostrum, necks draped with striped ribbons and awards of some sort, being regaled by Representative Proud O'Mine and the whole Pickyer County

Read More

National educators group offers lobbying tips

The American Association of School Administrators, the national association with which the South Carolina Association of School Administrators is affiliated, has published a helpful note on its website on the topic of gaining greater funding for public education.

It is helpful because it reminds educators in South Carolina of two facts: One, public education and its funding is under attack

Read More

Popular versus expert: Who should be trusted in education?

Blogger PLThomasEDD, who posts at DailyKos and elsewhere, has shined a light on a significant topic in his most recent note: Should education be governed by individuals who happen to have amassed certain popularity or by individuals who have earned expertise in the field?

This hits my sweet spot, as I have noted here many, many times that in our blessed state, public education is governed wholly

Read More

Out-of-state readers: Welcome, and help!

I've noticed something about the readers of Educating South Carolina over the past year, and it has both entertained and puzzled me: Many of ESC's readers are reading from outside South Carolina.

I don't mean that a bunch of South Carolinians are taking vacations across the border and checking-in via their Blackberries. I mean there have been a good many readers from across the nation, regularly

Read More

Florence 1 votes against vouchers, bus privatization

They're only resolutions that express the school board's consensus views on issues being considered at the State House, but the two statements adopted last night by the Florence 1 school board ought to be considered by the rest of our elected school boards.
Florence School District 1 trustees Thursday night at their monthly meeting took a stand against legislation that would provide tax breaks

Read More

Lieutenant Governor Ken Ard has resigned

Adam Beam of The State newspaper has reported that Lieutenant Governor Ken Ard has resigned his office, via a press statement.The resignation comes after a nine month investigation by a state Grand Jury into ethics violations, including allegations Ard used campaign money to buy personal items, including iPads, clothes, football tickets and a TV. Attorney General Alan Wilson and SLED Chief Mark

Read More

Report: State's graduation standards reflect definition of rigor

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

Jay Ragley, Zais's press

Read More

Poll: Americans reject attacks on public employees' rights

Give average Americans an opportunity to demonstrate their humanity and intelligence, and they'll take it.

Bloomberg News Service conducted the poll and is reporting its findings, so no one can argue that this is a liberal-biased poll.A new Bloomberg News national poll finds that Americans believe, by a wide margin, that public sector workers should have the right to collectively bargain. 64

Read More

Tax exemptions, meet transparency

Phil Noble of Charleston published a great column in the online magazine Like The Dew -- "A Journal of Southern Culture and Politics" -- that I highly recommend:It is often said that South Carolina is a one-party state, and usually this is understood to mean the Republican Party. However, in many areas, it’s really the ‘good old boy’ party that is in charge – the party of legislators in both

Read More

Lawmakers in 2008 voted to hide public information

Yesterday's Greenville News weighed in on a strange addition to the 2008 budget bill that blocks the public from knowing what lawmakers -- and others -- collect in retirement benefits. In this era of transparency -- and the avoidance of it -- the News explains why that hidden change in the law was so important:The South Carolina Legislature has done it again: It has passed a law that few

Read More

Vice President Nikki Haley? Or, is it President Nikki Haley?

The capricious young woman we elected Queen is baring her teeth again, this time incomprehensibly at legislative leaders in her own party.

Speaking to a gathering of followers who desire a government of no government, and no public services, Governor Nikki Haley lashed out at conservative legislators for crafting a budget bill that doesn't immediately dismantle government in general -- and more

Read More

House robs veteran state employees' retirement benefits

If this action occurred at the intersection of Main and Gervais streets in Columbia, the police would be called, someone would be arrested and 220,000 charges of grand larceny -- felonies, all -- would be filed.

But because it happened a couple hundred yards away, in the House Ways and Means Committee meeting, it's entirely legal. It's still highway robbery -- still grand larceny -- but it's

Read More

Rock Hill Herald advocates pay raise for state employees

And the people said Amen.State workers deserve a raise this year - if only to help offset the anticipated rise in health care and pension costs.

State employees haven't had a raise since 2007. Since then, they have faced furloughs, layoffs and pay cuts.

This year, the S.C. House Ways and Means Committee has approved a 2 percent pay raise starting July 1 for state employees and teachers. Some

Read More

Cobb-Hunter raises equal-standards argument in voucher bill

Although House Ways and Means Chairman Brian White told WJBF yesterday that he has enough votes to pass his $37 million voucher-and-tax-deduction bill from the House, Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter has raised concerns about using public dollars without public accountability.At the committee meeting, State Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, said the plan also doesn't hold private schools to

Read More

Kozol: Vouchers are part of corporate privatization plans

A good memory is useful.

Some years ago, I read a note by renowned education researcher and author Jonathan Kozol in a magazine, in which he mentioned reading a prospectus by a Wall-Street type interested in penetrating the public education market.

It has taken me a little while, but I found the article. It was published in Harpers Magazine in August 2007, and the anecdote is just as I recalled

Read More

Voucher bill passes House committee, 16-8

Adam Beam of The State is reporting that the House Ways and Means Committee approved this year's voucher-and-tax-deduction bill by a vote of 16 to 8.

Assuming that the bill will be "read out" tomorrow, it could be taken up as early as Thursday by the full House of Representatives. With out-of-state billionaires breathing down the necks of moderate House conservatives -- and promising primary

Read More

John Dewey's "pedagogic creed" is worth reviewing

Earlier today, I posted a review by Diane Ravitch of Pasi Sahlberg's most recent book, and Ravitch mentioned in her review that Finland's education system is heavily influenced by the Vermonter, early education psychologist and educator John Dewey.

I recall fondly first learning of Dewey as a child, when I would take home my report card in a brown envelope featuring a quote by Dewey in large

Read More

Educators win major pension victory -- in Florida

Hooray for Florida's educators and public employees. Thanks to a lawsuit filed last year by the Florida Education Association, changes made by the legislature to the public employee pension system have been blocked.TALLAHASSEE – Circuit Court Judge Jackie Fulford ruled today in favor of the Florida Education Association in its lawsuit on public employees’ mandatory pension “contribution.”

Last

Read More

Ravitch: Lessons from Finland that America won't learn

Every time I read Diane Ravitch -- who takes on Louisiana's governor and ALEC in her most recent blog post -- I learn something new and useful. Last month, I learned a new acronym thanks to her: GERM, which stands for Global Education Reform Movement. Poetic, isn't it?

For the New York Times Book Review, Ravitch reviewed "Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in

Read More

Vouchers and "school choice" remain political, not educational

Since today may turn out to be a bellwether day for so-called "school choice" advocates in South Carolina -- those who, for economic or ideological reasons, want to dismantle and privatize public education -- I thought it was instructive to review an article written by Kevin Carey, policy director of a D.C.-based think tank called Education Sector, published in the January edition of The Atlantic

Read More

Should we pay private-school tuition for the children of wealth?

It appears that today may be a red-letter day for those out-of-state funders who have promoted voucher legislation in South Carolina since former Governor Mark Sanford's first run in 2002. After striking out several times before, they're back in an election year with gallons of red paint, ready to put targets on the backs of any conservatives who vote in support of public education.

And we're

Read More

Report: Virtual learning no less expensive than schools

For those who advocate virtual learning as a cheaper way to "deliver" "education services" -- as if effective teaching could be bottled and distributed like Coca-Cola -- word comes this morning that a recent study suggesting was off-base.

Have to watch those studies; slap "study" on an issue and ideologues perk up like mini-Pinschers.

Says the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and

Read More

Florida teacher charged with voter registration fraud

Watch out, South Carolina. Bad ideas don't take long to get here.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
People Who Are Destroying America - Teachers
www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive



var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga =

Read More

McCarty: War against public education funds campaigns

Veteran political operative and blogger Brian McCarty has recently made a monumental declaration at his blog, Voting Under the Influence. I'll let you read it there, but I made note of another post of his that begs more attention, and I'm glad to give it that attention here.

McCarty previously covered the topic of campaign financing, and the election cycle of 2012, and he tied the need for

Read More

Wilson: Tenure laws protect effective educators

Here's a welcome perspective that great public school teachers don't hear every day in the debate over tenure and seniority.

John Wilson, former executive director of the National Education Association and now an education columnist for the Washington Post, says that tenure laws don't protect ineffective education professionals; they protect effective ones.Okay! Okay! I know teachers do not have

Read More

Multiple studies show our betters behave worse

I had to read this note from Too Much twice; it doesn't sound at all like the wealthier denizens of our gorgeous state.Academe has historically paid scant attention to the rich. Scholars have placed poor people under all sorts of microscopes. Rich people have largely gone unstudied. But that’s changing. Recent years have seen an explosion of academic interest in how affluence affects behavior.

Read More

Betty A. Padgett, career educator, dies in Spartanburg

From Sunday's Spartanburg Herald-Journal:Betty Aiken Padgett, 83, of Boiling Springs, died Friday, March 2, 2012 at RoseCrest. Born September 28, 1928 in Spartanburg County, she was the widow of the late Glenn Hicks Padgett and daughter of the late Tommy Dee Aiken and Annie Mason Aiken Hayes.

Mrs. Padgett retired from Boiling Springs High School after 28 years of service, a member of Boiling

Read More

South Carolina lags in citizens with college degrees

Poor South Carolina can't catch a break -- but until we decide to join America and move forward, should we expect something different?

This time, it's new Census Bureau figures that show us lagging in higher education. A story from Florence uses a 29-year-old non-traditional student to illustrate the data: "30 percent of the nation's population, aged 25 or older... hold a bachelor’s degree or

Read More

Grade-changing costs Beaufort principal his job

An item in the Island Packet reported Friday that the principal of Beaufort High School, Dan Durbin, had resigned immediately at the request of Superintendent Valerie Truesdale "for changing grades."

But there's clearly a bigger story here.Truesdale says Durbin violated district policy and state law in changing 200 grades for 33 students over the past two years. Durbin never denied making the

Read More

How much does BMW pay our state in corporate income taxes?

Great news from the Spartanburg Herald-Journal: "Germany-based automaker BMW's Spartanburg County production plant was the country's largest vehicle exporter in 2011, the company announced Thursday. The value of Spartanburg-based BMW Manufacturing Co.'s exports through the Port of Charleston totaled $7.4 billion, a 68 percent increase over $4.4 billion in 2010."

Great questions: (1) How much did

Read More

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

Read More

Good, bad and ugly: Notes from an education professional

This appeared last week in the New York Times, but it bears reading here in South Carolina. The author is special education teacher William Johnson, who also blogs at Gotham Schools.I AM a special education teacher. My students have learning disabilities ranging from autism and attention-deficit disorder to cerebral palsy and emotional disturbances. I love these kids, but they can be a handful.

Read More

Could Scientologists open a charter school in South Carolina?

Let's see: We have a charter school law that gives interested parties a way to get around local school boards to open charter schools.

And we have a legislature that seems bent on adopting voucher laws that would funnel public money to parochial and private schools, eliminating any wall between church and state.

So, I think the answer is yes, Scientologists could open a charter school in South

Read More

Brack: South Carolina can do better for its public schools

Andy Brack does a great job producing a handy legislative summary called Statehouse Report, and I've praised him for it many times before. In the current edition, he outdoes himself with a superb analysis of our lawmakers' unwillingness to meet their responsibilities when it comes to public education.

To wit:Despite overwhelming evidence that investing more money in early childhood education

Read More

Voucher school leader indicted on federal charges

From the nation's voucher capital -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- comes news that the administrator of a school that operated on voucher funds has been indicted on federal charges of theft and fraud.

Further evidence that voucher schemes are tricky things.United States Attorney James L. Santelle announced Wednesday that Gregory L. Goner has been indicted by a grand jury of theft and fraud counts.

Read More

"Study": Charter progress suffered for lack of state funding

Two of South Carolina's charter school advocates who left our borders for opportunities elsewhere have reached back to deliver a new report on the stresses and strains suffered by the charter movement in South Carolina since former Governor David Beasley signed the first charter law in 1996.

One of their conclusions is half-comical: That charter schools struggle in their early years because they

Read More

Free Times details state's pension reform dilemma

The cover story in this week's edition of the Free Times of Columbia digs deep into the mess that's been stirred up around our state retirement system and the punitive measures being considered by lawmakers to right the ship.

The entire matter can be boiled down to a simple fact which leads to a simple solution.

Simple fact: During the past 12 or so years, thanks to deep and damaging budget

Read More

Baker Maultsby returns to covering public education

Baker Maultsby lives a double, maybe even triple, life: by day, a former reporter for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and communications guy for Wofford College, and small businessman -- and by night, twang-and-rock musician who's performed on "Prairie Home Companion" and had his lyrics quoted in the Wall Street Journal, of all places. And he's a family man, married with children, the whole nine.

Read More

Uh-oh, "the help" are gettin' ideas; time to crack down again

If there's one thing that frightens lawmakers and their corporate sponsors, it's the idea that hundreds of thousands -- even millions -- of low-paid workers might one day realize that millions of low-paid workers have greater electoral power than a few hundred corporate sugar daddies.

It's what led South Carolina's electeds in 1954 to make our state a "right-to-work-for-less" state, meaning that

Read More

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

Read More

Watch: Today's press conference on educators' salaries

Thanks to the South Carolina Education Association for the links to this pair of videos!

This is brilliant, and I'm hopeful that all 19 of my readers will forward this blog link far, far, far and wide, wide, wide to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, long-lost cousins, brand-new acquaintances and people you encounter at gas stations, convenience stores and the Piggly Wiggly.

Remember: When

Read More

Hicks: Where would state scores be without NBC teachers?

This week's edition of the Free Times of Columbia takes up the topic of national board certification and the stipends paid to educators who earn that credential.

It's a topic of discussion again because, just as we've seen every year for the past six or eight years, lawmakers looking for more ways to undermine and dismantle public education are trying to eliminate those stipends.

I have to give

Read More

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

Read More

Educators need full restoration of salaries before bonuses

This is embarrassing.

A salary is compensation for work. A bonus is a reward.

For four years, South Carolina's electeds have frozen -- withheld -- restricted -- effectively cut educators' salaries. Educators went on working, prices went on rising, cost of living went on growing, so the real value of educators' pay went on shrinking.

Now, despite South Carolina's uber-regressive tax policies

Read More

Kelly: "Workers are better off with unions than without them"

So Patrick Hayes of Charleston, thanks to having been a member of an educators union in California, knew that organized citizens can be effective at guiding their own destinies.

And veteran firefighter MichaelAnthony Parrotta of Myrtle Beach, president of the state firefighters association, pointed out that South Carolina is home to tens of thousands of unionized workers already, working daily

Read More

Unionized employees are our working neighbors, not demons

Patrick Hayes, who initiated the online petition to restore educators' salaries, told the Charleston City Paper that he previously taught in California:Hayes previously taught in California, which allows teachers to join unions. In South Carolina, teachers are barred from collective bargaining.Perhaps because of Hayes's experience as a union member, he knew that citizens have rights, and that

Read More

When educators organize, educators and students win.

I'm a great believer in organizing.

I believe that when educators organize, educators and their students win.

Even better, when educators and parents organize together, nothing stops them from achieving their mutual goals, because even in a state like South Carolina -- where the legislature has total control of everything -- what motivates lawmakers is motivated, organized voters.

So I'm so

Read More

An officer but no gentleman: Zais attacks Inez Tenenbaum

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

In fact, I believe Tenenbaum was so popular a state superintendent that she collected more votes than anyone else running statewide in 2002,

Read More

South Carolina ranks 45th in overall child well-being

Good thing that India's ambassador to the United States, Nirupama Rao, won't be visiting South Carolina long enough to attend next month's annual conference sponsored by the USC-Upstate Child Advocacy Center. Learning that Governor Nikki Haley presides over a state that ranks 45th in the nation -- out of 50, mind you -- in overall child well-being might tarnish Haley's international celebrity.

Read More

Haley snubs President of the United States, ditches banquet

What a sweet scoop from The Times of India, a property of the Times Group family (which includes, among other hot properties, the Pune Mirror, the Bangalore Mirror, the Ahmedabad Mirror, the Mumbai Mirror, and Indiatimes).South Carolina's Indian-American Republican Governor Nikki Haley criticised President Barack Obama's "failure to handle America", but said "personal plans" kept her and husband

Read More

Lawmakers propose robbing, then punishing, public employees

It's the same old song.

State Constitution empowers lawmakers to raise revenues necessary to fully fund the state's essential obligations and institutions. It doesn't give that power to the rest of us, only to the 170 men and women sitting in judgment in Columbia.

And when their decisions to rejigger how we invest retirement system funds, at precisely the moment of an economic downturn, results

Read More

Obama tells Haley: Invest in schools, hire more teachers

I suppose this isn't what Governor Nikki Haley wanted to hear from President Barack Obama during the national governors' luncheon at the White House last week.Obama said at Monday's session that he sympathized with governors whose state budgets have been badly squeezed during the economic downturn. But he said that was no reason to trim resources from schools.

"The fact is that too many states

Read More

Our lawmakers giveth, and our lawmakers taketh away

Tears of joy may have erupted across South Carolina last week as a House committee approved a plan to raise state employees' and educators' salaries by two percent (and law enforcement officers' salaries by five percent), effective July 1. These folks have had their incomes frozen by the legislature for years, with some not seeing an increase since 2007.

But they've dried up pretty quickly as

Read More

Retired teachers ask lawmakers to do the right thing

Issues like these don't get the coverage they deserve. In support of the retired educators in your area, I hope you'll forward this note to your own friends and family, and encourage them to support retirees' efforts to get the benefits they've been promised.

Last week, a group of retirees came to Columbia to speak with lawmakers.Retired Barnwell County school teacher Jerry Bell says he flirted

Read More

Media: Romney kicks "toxic" Haley to the curb

Do you reckon this means Governor Nikki Haley's chances of joining the Romney ticket as a vice presidential nominee are down the drain? This is depressing; I was looking forward to the discussion of Lieutenant Governor Ken Ard's succession.For the two weeks leading up to January's S.C. Republican primary, presumptive nominee Mitt Romney and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley were seemingly inseparable.

They

Read More

Zais: Our job is to train employees for manufacturers

Less than two weeks ago, Governor Nikki Haley traveled to Greenville to make some solemn pronouncements about how important it is that South Carolina train its children to be ready for hire by manufacturing companies when they locate in our state. South Carolina is at the heart of manufacturing in the U.S., Haley said. Companies are looking to invest in South Carolina because the state has great

Read More

North Carolina transplant reflects on South Carolina home

Mary Garrison, now a resident of Flat Rock, North Carolina, and a columnist for the Blue Ridge Times-News, published this weekend a reverie of her old home in South Carolina.

"How often have we heard the familiar phrase 'Times have changed'?" Garrison writes. "These past two weeks, I have thought a lot about the timeline of history and change. I just returned from a visit to South Carolina,

Read More

How much do Americans love South Carolina? It depends.

Polls are fun, and some are funny. One was released this week that is a little sad, a little scary.

It comes from Public Policy Polling, a company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, that has had phenomenal results in its short history. In fact, the Wall Street Journal ranked PPP as one of the top swing state pollsters in the country during the last Presidential election.

So PPP conducted a

Read More

Horry students win prizes for historical essays

Congratulations to the students of Horry County who participated in the essay contest co-sponsored by the Historic Myrtle Beach Colored School Museum and Education Center in Myrtle Beach and Horry County Schools Adult Education. An awards program was held last week at the Center.Students were to write a poem or short essay on the theme “One Person Can Make a Difference,” which was to honor unsung

Read More

U.S. marshal speaks to middle-schoolers in Conway

Does everyone know who is the U.S. marshal for the district of South Carolina?

I didn't know we had one. It appears we have only one, U.S. Marshal Kelvin Washington, and he spoke this week to students at Black Water Middle School in Conway.A native of Hemingway, Washington has held various law enforcement positions, including sheriff of Williamsburg County. He was appointed to his current post

Read More

This matters. Go here. Sign this petition.

Educators: Are you tired of working harder, with more students and fewer colleagues, for the same salary you earned three years ago, and seeing its value decrease as your cost of living goes up?

Go here. Sign this petition.

Parents: Educators never came into their professions to become wealthy, but they never expected to have their salaries frozen and to take, in many cases, a second and third

Read More

Clyburn: South Carolina still exhibits "strain of resistance"

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn is living history, having been present through some significant tribulations of the 1960s in South Carolina. In addition, he's a great guy, an encyclopedic resource and, as House Majority and Minority Whip, he's one of the most powerful men ever to serve in the U.S. House from South Carolina.

So when he speak in his district, or across the state, it's a good idea to pay

Read More

Retired public employees blamed for budget instability

The way the dialogue is being framed tells the tale; we can see from a mile away who the bad guys are going to be:South Carolina taxpayers should expect the amount of money they pump into the state pension system to increase in the coming years as the program struggles to close a widening $13 billion shortfall.

At the same time, the state might be forced to shift resources from areas such as

Read More

Crayton students have once-in-a-lifetime learning experience

I have no doubt that a science teacher is responsible for this event, and if I knew who that was, I'd celebrate their name.

If it's Ann Carbone, thank you! Thanks for helping to illustrate the strength and potential of our public schools.The Crayton Middle School greeting echoed through the school auditorium and across the galaxy as students and faculty welcomed some special guest speakers to

Read More

Corporations once helped, not hurt, public education

This is a great story that illustrates how corporate America once stood in partnership with public education and educators. If only to remind us of what that was like, this story should be shared far and wide.Building construction student Frank Kay has worked on framing a building before. But the one he’s helping build on the Tri-County Technical College campus in Anderson is different.

Kay, 41,

Read More

Zais brings back more student tests; teachers wonder why

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

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

Trust me, this is going to work like a charm: Get ready for night

Read More

Haley: Our job is to train employees for manufacturers

I can't make this stuff up.

Spend a little time reading about the history of education, public and otherwise, in the South and, after a long hard slog through a lot of ugly history, you'll happen upon what occurred in 1959 in North Carolina.

In truth, North Carolina's public education history was much like ours up to that year, subject to demagoguery and political whims through the nineteenth

Read More

Could charter school employees lose state retirement benefits?

No, this isn't a new proposal from Governor Nikki Haley, though she may adopt it soon. This comes out of the blue, from a charter-school advocacy group's website.A little-noticed proposed change in Internal Revenue Service regulations could have devastating effects for charter school teachers by making them ineligible for state retirement plans, and they could stand to lose much of the money that

Read More

Will this encourage lawmakers to fully fund public schools?

I'm going to refrain from wondering aloud how students from Buddhist families, or Hindu or Taoist, or Muslim or any of the other world's religions, who attend our public schools feel about this.The Bible is back. Just this year, five states – Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Oklahoma – have passed laws promoting academic study of the Bible in public schools.

The Pennsylvania House

Read More

Congratulations to Robert Jackson, Irmo Middle School

Always good to see a local career educator succeed.Robert S. Jackson, current assistant principal for instruction at Dutch Fork High School, has been named principal of Irmo Middle School, effective July 1, 2012, according to a Lexington-Richland 5 release.

Jackson replaces Marie Waldrop, who accepted a job as the law enforcement instructor at the district’s new Center for Advanced Technical

Read More

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

If it weren't for simple mathematics, Governor Nikki Haley might've succeeded at portraying herself as a compassionate conservative. Unfortunately for her, thanks to hundreds of thousands of fine math teachers across the land, Americans -- even we South Carolinians -- can comprehend simple arithmetic.South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said her proposed budget for 2012-13 increases money for public

Read More

Engineer brings respect for educators to Atlanta

From today's New York Times:ATLANTA — For years, Beverly L. Hall, the former school superintendent here, ruled by fear. Principals were told that if state test scores did not go up enough, they would be fired — and 90 percent of them were removed in the decade of Dr. Hall’s reign.Some would call this professional terrorism. I would call it that.Underlings were humiliated during rallies at the

Read More

Loftis op-ed on vouchers, tuition tax credits doesn't mention cost

Curtis Loftis has been a pretty good treasurer so far, questioning the expense of giving so much of the state retirement system to strange investments by contract investors, pushing Governor Nikki Haley to honor her campaign commitments on transparency, and generally blocking Haley's attempts to steamroll her policy preferences through the Budget and Control Board.

Last year, I recall that

Read More

Kershaw public school parent demands, "Show me the money"

Public school educators have been raising the issue since 1977, when the Education Finance Act was first adopted. It was a compromise, which means it didn't meet the complete need even then. Still, it established the base student cost, a formula-driven dollar amount that South Carolina lawmakers would appropriate each year to fund public schools statewide.

That commitment didn't last a hot

Read More

"I believe the children are our future."

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-21155563-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];

Read More

The SCEA releases Sumter public forum summary

For the past two weeks, I've been waiting diligently for the Sumter Item to publish its coverage of the Sumter parents' and educators' public forum. Feedback from ones who attended the event said that the Item covered the event, but that its reporter left halfway through, after conversation turned toward a critique of the Item's coverage.

Specifically, it seems that the Item covers abundantly

Read More

Haley's budget ranks among five most harmful to education

Columnist Sarah Jaffe at Alternet.org casts Governor Nikki Haley's budget proposal for 2012-13 dead-center among the five most harmful to public education, in a column posted here this weekend.

Budget plans offered by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and Ohio Governor John Kasich ranked first and second in her list, and Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear

Read More

Senators approve unqualified candidate for Haley's Cabinet

Let me ask some questions.

If someone with no experience in health care or public relations wanted a job in public relations for a regional hospital, could they get one? In South Carolina, sure; Nikki Haley did it.

If someone who had no background in education whatsoever wanted a job teaching children in public schools, could they get one? In South Carolina, sure. Happens all the time. It's

Read More

Study: Affluence predicts educational opportunity, success

Here's new evidence that the far-right political agenda -- benefiting our wealthiest citizens and corporate interests at the expense of our poorest citizens, working families and their children -- is working perfectly.

The headline in today's New York Times tells the tale: "Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say."

And a graphic accompanying the text illustrates the point: "The

Read More

Spartanburg's Cleveland Elementary considering new format

One of Spartanburg District 7's historically challenged schools may get a radical makeover in format, if the local board and the state department agree to allow it -- and if an additional $400,000 per year can be found to fund the change.

The plan calls for a start date of July 13, extending the school year by five weeks and extending teacher contracts from 190 days to 215 days, which accounts

Read More

South Carolina relies on national charity for homeless children

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

That's the logic that applies to providing adequate funding for children enrolled in public schools, and it appears to be the logic applied to South Carolina's homeless children, too.The national charity Feed The Children is distributing 1,900 backpacks and supplies

Read More

Florence 1 opposes privatization, vouchers, 1989 funding

The Florence District 1 Board of Trustees voted unanimously last night to oppose three proposed bills that, if adopted by the legislature, would devastate the small district and those like it.

The bills in question happen to be ones favored by Governor Nikki Haley, Superintendent Mick Zais, and the Florence legislative delegation. One privatizes the state's school bus transportation function,

Read More

State's science teachers make South Carolina look good

It's a tough job -- making South Carolina look good in the eyes of the nation, given our elected leaders, our high national rankings in bad things and low rankings in good things, and especially our desire to keep citizens separated into first-, second- and third-class categories -- but our science teachers get it done.

According to a Fordham Institute report, "The State of State Science

Read More

Heroic Mick Zais benefits from "politically weak" educators

When Superintendent Mick Zais appeared before a legislative committee to press his agenda to starve public education, he seemed out-of-place and fumbled for words to answer lawmakers' questions. But in a puff piece published by a right-wing organization online, Zais is absolutely eloquent, even accusatory of "weak-willed Republicans" who support public education and educators.What distinguishes

Read More

State to retirees: Eat less, drive less, turn down your heat

Let's think about this.

If you were a state government dominated by corporate interests, and your ultimate goal was to privatize all state services, how might you dissuade citizens from viewing their government as a viable resource for public services?

For one thing, you might make public employment so unattractive that few people would want to work for the state. Then you could say to citizens

Read More

What will lawmakers do to fill the time?

This year's session is scheduled to run through June 7, which means some tough decisions will have to be made now that a very important issue has been taken off the table. What will they do?The S.C. Legislature will not require USC and Clemson to face off annually in football.

A House subcommittee Wednesday shot down the idea of requiring the teams to play each other every year, saying it is

Read More

Gaffney's Quincie Moore is named Cherokee superintendent

It's taken nearly two years, but Cherokee Board of Trustees have named a new superintendent. Quincie Moore, a Gaffney native who has built a career in education in Cherokee and Spartanburg counties and at Limestone College, was the unanimous choice after a four-hour executive session on Wednesday.Moore, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Spartanburg District 2, was one

Read More

PASS tests may be replaced with SBAC tests

Tests themselves aren't evil; they're tools that can be useful in diagnosing learning gaps and guiding the work of instructors. But that's not how our punitive command-and-control lawmakers have chosen to use them.The reading and math tests South Carolina third- through 12th-graders take this spring likely won't exist in three years.

The state Board of Education signed off 10-3 Wednesday on a

Read More

Imagine South Carolina public schools, governed by educators

What a concept. This column appears in the current edition of Education Week magazine, co-authored by a set of "2011-12 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows; participants in the program must be practicing teachers with a minimum of five years' experience and demonstrated leadership."

They describe a world so incredible that it's difficult to visualize, at least here in South

Read More

Who's in charge at the Department of Education?

I suspect it's Jay Ragley. He certainly has the extensive background in public education and the commitment to advocacy for public schools and public educators, as detailed here.

Which is good, because our elected superintendent apparently doesn't enjoy his job.South Carolina Superintendent of Education Mick Zais took twice as much personal time during 2011 as the average state employee is

Read More

How SC's Gressette Commission invented vouchers, tuition tax credits

This year, for the fifth or sixth time in a decade, South Carolina lawmakers are trying again to pass a bill that diverts public revenue to private and parochial schools through vouchers or, more subtly, through "tuition tax credits."

It's a ruse that has failed each time it's been tried, thanks to lawmakers straining mightily to drag South Carolina, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth

Read More

Why is Williamsburg County losing its student population?

An official three-month study of Williamsburg County's loss of student population is yet to come, but trustees who met last night began the conversation using these troubling figures:Student enrollment by year:
1999-2000--------6,409
2000-2001--------6,253
2001-2002--------6,144
2002-2003--------5,893
2003-2004--------5,759
2004-2005--------5,633
2005-2006--------5,502
2006-2007--------5,314
2007

Read More

Child poverty characterizes South Carolina's image again

One day, when enough South Carolinians are sick and tired of hearing stories like this one, our lawmakers will take steps to correct the problem. Until then, South Carolina will continue to be known as the state that doesn't take care of its impoverished children, and the state where public school educators care as much for their students' well-being as for their standardized test scores.

This

Read More

Congratulations to young scholars in Beaufort

Here's a little good news, thanks to the fine public school educators in Beaufort County.Two Beaufort County School District students have been named finalists in the National Achievement Scholarship Program, an academic competition established in 1964 by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to recognize outstanding black scholars.

Bluffton High School’s Tibra Wheeler and Hilton Head

Read More

Charleston superintendent advocates for teacher pay raises

Let's read this silently once:"If we do not put this out as our highest priority, we can have the greatest programs in the world, and we're going to lose our talent," McGinley said. "We're already losing talent because they can't afford to live in the county."Now let's read it again aloud together:"If we do not put this out as our highest priority, we can have the greatest programs in the world,

Read More

Lawmakers concede: No more important issues to discuss

Education. Unemployment. Transportation. Crime. Poverty. Domestic violence.

All these weighty matters must have been resolved while we weren't watching, because lawmakers have turned their attention to a matter that, before now, probably ranked lower than 3,000th on the list of "most important things that lawmakers should spend time, breath and taxpayer dollars to consider":USC and Clemson will

Read More

Roosevelt Institute exposes privatization's motives

The more I know about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, the more I love who they were, what they did for America, and the legacy they left behind.

One more example is the Roosevelt Institute, a nonprofit organization "devoted to carrying forward the legacy and values of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt by developing progressive ideas and bold leadership in the service of restoring America’s health

Read More

Lawmakers: League of Women Voters dangerous to democracy

Let's remember that although the Constitution was amended in 1920 to grant women the right to vote, South Carolina did not ratify that amendment until 1969.

Context is important, and we live in South Carolina, where an evolving elite aristocracy has ruled state matters -- and attempted mightily to prevent, avoid and delay federal intervention in those matters -- for more than 340 years.

Now it

Read More

Part 2: FreedomWorks peddles vouchers in Spartanburg

The second half of Dennis S's first-hand account of last Thursday's FreedomWorks dog-and-pony show in Hub City.After loading up with enough school choice propaganda to do Pravda proud, I surveyed the room for a table with a close-up view of both the speakers and an escape route.

I spotted a partially filled table about 10 feet from the speaker’s podium and 5 feet from the door. I surmised the

Read More