This gets more and more interesting. A moment ago, our good friend
Nikki Haley was up speaking for the execrable notion of school "choice" via individual tax credits.
On the one hand, big deal. Nikki hasn’t been so publicly opposed to such proposals in the past as Mr. Bingham has.
But I do hate to hear her advocate for it, even though she does so only for "failing" districts.
And I hate to hear her use such hackneyed and illogical arguments as the old saw about how if we let tuition grants and other disbursements from tax moneys go to private institutions … well, let’s use her words:
It it’s OK for college, why isn’t it OK for K-12?
Well, Nikki, I’ll answer that with another question: Do colleges and universities attempt to educate the entire population (which, by the way, is why we have public schools — because the market would never, ever have any rational motive for trying to do that; it’s one of those few things that only government can or would want to do)?
The answer, of course, is NO. Here’s another: What proportion of the population do colleges and universities try to educate?
Here’s a hint: It’s not the most academically challenged.
Oh, I take that back. Some colleges do have open-enrollment policies. What sort of reputation do those schools have? If someone who went to a choosier school were inclined to be harsh, they might look down and call them "failing."
But you know — even those schools don’t try to educate everyone. Only society as a whole, pooling its resources through the thing we call "government," could or would even contemplate such a task.
And society can only accomplish it as long as it has a consensus that this is a high-enough priority to dedicate the necessary resources to it.
That’s why it’s positively tragic to see elected "leaders" taking up the cudgels for those ideological groups who hold in contempt the very idea of public education.
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What does educating the entire population have to do with vouchers? Nothing.
Vouchers are fine for college, because they have allowed administrators to get away with sloppy management, raising tuition every year at rates 2 and 3 times that of family incomes. The better universities didn’t want to educate every student. They didn’t want to grow. They were happy to use vouchers to get more of the cream, and the lower-tier colleges are happy to have students who don’t belong in college.
Vouchers are opposed for K-12 because they would allow families AND TEACHERS to abandon schools where management is inept and unresponsive to innovation and personal needs.
Funny… I’ve never been prouder to call Nikki Haley my representative than I was yesterday when she took to the well to explain her support of this excellent amendment.
Brad, this isn’t about “destroying” public schools. It’s about making the education system stronger by introducing free market concepts of competition, something that brings unadulterated fear to the entrenched education bureaucracy because it works and because it challenges their power base. You wouldn’t accept the government forcing you to eat nothing but McNuggets, why force that same lack of choice on parents and children trying to better themselves through education, stuck in a state with the worst SAT scores and graduation rates in the country?
Do yourself a favor, and stop drinking the edu-crat Kool-Aid.
Joshua Gross
Lexington, SC
Talk about Kool-Aid.
What we write about is based upon actual observation of what goes on in the world.
What the other side does is cite cliches. Let’s take one — the one-size-fits-all canard (Joshua’s “McNuggets” analogy is a variation on that).
The difference between public school and private schools, in general, is that private schools ARE one-size-fits-all, and public schools are not, because they can’t be.
It’s one of the biggest reasons we took our kids out of Catholic schools long ago. One of my children was having trouble getting through the first grade. He was dyslexic. He had this awful time reading or writing, and all the teacher knew how to do was stand over him and keep telling him to do the work — taking away recess and doing anything she could to MAKE him do the work that he could not do without some kind of help.
Why? Because at private schools, you’re expected to show up ready to do the work. You’ve got to fit the mold of their idea of a student.
So we put him in public schools, which are used to taking kids as they are and finding a way to teach them. From Day One, we got help from district specialists that a little private school could never afford (but public schools CAN provide because of the volume and variety of students they deal with, which is the REASON why the ONLY way you can educate the whole population is if we pool our resources as a society, rather than going shopping as individual consumers).
With the help of people used to the idea that students don’t come in one size, he made it through school. He made good grades. He’s now a college graduate. That would never have happened in the excellent private school where he was.
Yeah, I know what you’ll say next — that private schools will emerge to address each individual special need, and that all the newly empowered parent has to do is go shopping and choose between them.
Har-de-har. I just got out of an interview with a Republican candidate for superintendent of education. She was talking about the dilemma she faced with one of her children who needed extra help. There was a private school available to provide just what the child needed. Twenty thousand dollars a year. As she put it, “$4,500 a year (which is up at the top end of the various amounts the various versions of PPIC have offered) doesn’t even begin to touch it.”
That’s for an upper-middle-class type. Some single mom in Allendale County (which would never have enough students to attract specialized private schools to start with) who can’t afford a beat-up used car to drive the kid to school in, or even a decent place to live, is going to be “saved” by such a tax credit?
You’re joking, right?
Next, you’ll say, “single moms shouldn’t be having kids.” You’re right. But they do. And it’s not the kids’ fault. So what are we going to do with the kids?
Brad,
Do you have any RECENT day-to-day
experience with the SC educational system? Your experience with your son would seem to be from sometime at least back in the 90’s.
The help your son received back then has now become the standard. Most parents think their little darling deserves an education tailored specifically to his or her needs. Discipline is a joke as parents automatically assume a teacher is “out to get my kid”. Go on a field trip sometime and listen to to how many kids are on Ritalin/etc. I’m chaperoning a trip to D.C. with 100 7th graders in late May.
Maybe I should consider myself an embedded reporter and document life on the frontlines.
By the way, there are plenty of private school-style opportunities within the public school program. They’re called “magnet programs”. Trouble is, you have
to be a high achiever to escape the masses.
Careful, Brad, don’t try to tell us what we’ll say next and then knock down the straw man.
Just remember that we live in a state whose children drop out at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country, and who also average the lowest scores on SAT in the country, this in a country that tests out 22nd of 29 among industrialized nations.
At what point would you suggest that the status quo isn’t good enough? I’m already there.
Show me an advocate of socialist schools or socialist education, and I’ll show you someone looking to avoid paying his own way in life, or someone hoping to run one of the local monopolies, at a pay they could not likely get in the private sector.
“If it’s OK for college, why isn’t it OK for K-12?” WOW. South Carolina boasts a fantastic 54% HIGH SCHOOL graduation rate. I think it’s about 16% of our population that holds a 4 year degree or higher—less than 20% for sure. Can we master high school first?
“You wouldn’t accept the government forcing you to eat nothing but McNuggets, why force that same lack of choice on parents and children trying to better themselves through education, stuck in a state with the worst SAT scores and graduation rates in the country?”
So, I’m trying to understand the point…based on this analogy…should folks on WIC start demanding filet mignon with a fine merlot instead of milk and bread? OR are you saying that the upper middle class should go to the health department and demand face lifts? Maybe serve wine and cheese on City bus rides. I mean…if we’re going to offer vouchers for a private education at the taxpayers expense….why not just go all out for everyone using public services?
If the folks that can afford filet mignon, merlot and face lifts want the benefits of a private education then they should pay for it. And the rest of us should keep working to make public education work for the masses.
“Show me an advocate of socialist schools or socialist education, and I’ll show you someone looking to avoid paying his own way in life…” I don’t have a problem with socialist education and I don’t have a problem with paying for a $6000 a year for private school without whining for a voucher from the state to compensate me from public school funds either. If I choose that I’ll pay for it and I expect you to do the same.
Was that Karen Floyd you spoke with? Her kids go to school in the District I live in. Our school district is a mess. The District is 60% black and 40% white. The public school my children (who aren’t school age yet) are zoned to attend is 97% free and reduced lunch. WOW, you think to yourself…is that legal? In Spartanburg, South Carolina it is! Karen’s children get to go the school that is 80% white and 20% black. Why does she support vouchers? She already has a private school for free.
I digress…anyway…
The bottom line is the people that need public education the most…are getting shut out and our communities and state are suffering because of it.
Recent experience with the K-12 schools? Yep. That’s my third child I was talking about. I have two younger ones. My youngest is 17. I also have a grandchild now going to the same public elementary school her aunts and uncles attended.
One of these days I’ll have to write about my varied experience with different types of schools. Aside from my children’s experience in public and private across three states, I attended a total of 14, all over the U.S. and in South America. (Navy brat.)
I attended public, private, segregated and integrated, rural schools and suburban, praying and nonpraying. I was in advanced-placement courses, then had to start over in lower-achievement classes upon every move. I was on the honor roll, and experienced failure. I was teacher’s pet, and despised underachiever. I was popular, and I was a pariah. I was in the minority more than once, and took history, geography and science in Spanish, giving me an idea what immigrants deal with in this country.
All of it was helpful.
So why do you think the same free market system which delivers all the best values and choices in food, clothing, housing, transportation and medical care in the world cannot be trusted to do the same for educational services?
WHO said the government delievers the best values in food, clothing, housing, tranportation and medical care in the WORLD? WHO SAID THAT? The U.S. sucks in all those and S.C. is 50 in the U.S. in everything so we really suck.
I’ve used the public services. And would be MORE than happy to ride a bus if only it went from my city home to my rural job. I used to go to the health department when I needed a year supply of birth control at one time, but now as BCBS subcriber I get their FINE services (insert sarcasm please). 🙂
I’m not too good for public health, transportation or other “welfare” services…I’m only trying to point out the hypocrisy of those in my class that seem to think they are too good for one, but not the other. I simply don’t get it.
If you’re going to deal with poor folk at the health department you should learn to deal with them in public education and quit demanding stupid crap like vouchers in an effort to get away from them. If you think you deserve better…then buy better…but we did set up public education for them…but now we can’t escape “them.”
That’s all I’m saying. Just think, if you went to health department instead of investing in insurance coverage you could afford private education and wouldn’t have to worry with vouchers. It’s all in how you budget in the middle class. Using public education just sounds so much better than public health or public transportation…don’t it?
😉 t
Lee, you sometimes just make my blood boil. I have to wonder if you have an ounce of compassion anywhere in your soul! I have to tread lightly, or I will end up having to apologize again, which I do not WANT to do under any circumstances, especially to someone who advocates extremist (and what seem to me to be manifestly racist, arrogant) positions.
I’ve written it as ad nauseam as Mary has written her “piece of trash, pompous hypocrite” routine, but I’ll write it again: human nature, not even American human nature, can be trusted to do what is right for the whole. Let the free market do it, and the result will be a real monopoly. Oh sure, Bill Gates will give a billion here or a billion there out of his surplus for some cause he thinks is worthy, but the real result is that, just as Microsoft dominates and controls the software industry (and that makes my blood boil, but try using anything else but MS Office and behold the compatibility issues you have), the free market, given free reign, means justice for a few, wealth for fewer, and misery for a lot of people. And at some stage, the misery is going to cause a backlash. “Let them eat cake!” — seems to be the only answer you rightwingers can give us. Sure, people need to take responsibility for their lives.
I am not a socialist; I think I am a moderate, which seems to me, at least for a lot of people on this blog, not to exist at all. And I like Brad’s ideas, in general, because he seems to look down the line, and see where we are going.
We need public education, we need it funded properly, and we need faith-based initiatives to catch up and help kids that are going to otherwise grow up with no mentors whatsoever. And I weep, because I don’t see our church people who could be moving out and doing something, not doing anything, because they can’t agree on what needs to be done. OK, if they don’t like the model that Tony Evans came up with in Dallas, fine. Invent a different one. But we need to act on a massive scale.
Call me a pompous hypocrite if you want. I don’t care. I think that I do care about kids. Mostly because there was a man, over forty years ago now, who cared about a gangling teenager like me, and got alongside me.
I got distracted, and was going to add a sentence to the end of that second paragraph. It should read like this:
Sure, people need to take responsibility for their lives. But unless someone gets alongside them, and shows them how, it ain’t going to happen.
Government has to help make people do what is right, because we are incredibly selfish. Then again, the people have to hold the government to account. The balance between the two is what I call being a moderate.
The people who call themselves “The Government” are just as incredibly selfish as the people they want to control.
America is supposed to be a nation of “self-government”. That means each person governing their own lives.
Today’s paper announces with astonishment that the number of children born to poor mothers, mostly unwed mothers, increased 30% since the last survey. Those are the children most likely not be educated by any amount of money. South Carolina cannot improve its overall educational level until it decreases the numbers of students who are socially doomed to failure. That requires a moral education effort outside the public schools that liberals are unwilling to attempt. It was there libertine dismissal of morality which created this mess.
Why not a “voucher” type system where education money follows the student as in some other countries (Poland?). No money goes to parents, but to the school the child attends.
Certain core subjects are paid for and would include “readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic”, real US history, real state history, etc. Money for these core courses is paid to ANY school that a child attends (can get to) including public, private, religious or home school. Any subjects outside the core are NOT paid for such as religion or whatever. Most kids would go to the school closest to their homes. Others may want to go across town, across county, whatever. Free choice.
There already is a voucher system for illegal immigrants. They can attend any school they want at taxpayer expense, and the school is barred from asking there real, legal home address.
In South Carolina, figure $6,500 to $12,000 in taxpayer vouchers for each illegal student.
If a parent files an income tax return, they can claim all the children back in the ir real home country for their Earned Income Tax Credit. Of course, they wouldn’t lie about having a big family back in Mexico or wherever, just to scam some more tax refunds…
You won’t find many politicians or journalist calling for a end to vouchers for illegal aliens, or for unqualified college students.
The problem with vouchers is the problem Brad pointed out earlier –
A single parent in Allendale with limited transportation options isn’t going to be able to move his/her child anywhere.
Vouchers aren’t perfect, just far superior to the socialism without choice that students have now.
Black parents are overwhelmingly in favor of vouchers, but do gooders know better than those parents. They tell the blacks to just keep on sending those children into those failing schools, and the school establishment will stay happy, and the status quo is maintained. Great work, liberals, keep it up.
One component of modern white liberalism is its patronizing racism, by which white liberals, from socialistic to moderate, attempt to elevate themselves by declaring blacks incapable of making good decisions.