Category Archives: Education

Boyd and Jim column

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Up close, even the most clear-cut,
polarizing issue turns gray

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
LET’S SET aside all the partisanship and polarization and stupid name-calling for a moment to remind ourselves that when you dig into them deeply enough, things aren’t nearly as bad in our politics as they tend to seem. Or at least, not always.
    That’s because you have people involved. And people are more complicated, and therefore better, than the boxes we would put them in. God bless them for it.
    Look, for instance, at the S.C. House District 75 race in which Richland County Democrat and political newcomer Boyd Summers is challenging Jim Harrison, a 17-year veteran Republican representative and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
    In his recent endorsement interview, Mr. Summers said one of the main reasons he was runningSummersmug_1
was that Rep. Harrison had swung to the “hard right” on such issues as support for public education. The incumbent has been a prime pusher of the “Put Parents in Charge” bill, which would use tax credits to pay parents to abandon public schools.
    The challenger is adamantly against PPIC because “I am firmly in favor of public education,” and he doesn’t want to see finite public resources diverted away from our schools to the private sector.
    Mr. Summers brags that he’s supported by the S.C. Education Association, while the Republican is on the side of “South Carolinians for Responsible Government,” an organization that exists only to push PPIC. It doesn’t get more black-and-white than that.
    But it does get less so. Mr. Harrison chafes at being painted as anti-public school. “I think you’ve got to look at 17 years, and not just one bill,” he says. And he’s right. Besides, he says, his two children went to public schools all the way through — Rosewood Elementary, Hand Middle and Dreher High.
    In fact, Mr. Harrison began his interview by aggressively challenging Mr. Summers’ support of public education, pointing out that his challengers’ two young children do not attend public schools. Of course, one of them is only 3 years old. But the older one, Mr. Harrison says he has heard, is in first grade at Hammond School.
    Not true, Mr. Summers says: The older child is in 5-year-old kindergarten at Hammond.
“What my wife and I have made,” he said, “is the decisions we think are best for each child.” OK, so what about the future? “We evaluate it on a year-by-year basis,” he said, and “we haven’t made any decisions yet” about next year.
    But, he insists, he is a firm believer in the importance of public education, and voters can rely on him to make policy on that basis — a confidence he says they cannot place in the incumbent in light of his advocacy of an extremely destructive idea.
    Has Mr. Harrison caught his opponent in a fatal contradiction? Maybe, maybe not. I understand him. I have always believed in public schools, yet our oldest children started their educations in a Catholic school in Tennessee. We switched to public in 1988.
    Still, I wasn’t running for public office on a platform of “I’m for public schools and he isn’t.” The issue is relevant. It gives voters in the district reason to question Mr. Summers’ level of commitment. He may have a good answer, but it gives them a good question.
Harrisonmug_1
    Mr. Harrison says it’s especially relevant because parents who live in Mr. Summers’ neighborhood behind the VA hospital worry that the local school, Meadowfield Elementary, hasn’t been doing well on the PACT.
    They believe, he says, that if parents in the community would “stick together to work to improve their school rather than bailing out,” it would show improvement.
    He said they felt parents turning to the private option were “not giving Meadowfield a chance.”
Not good news for Mr. Summers. But it also complicates things for Rep. Harrison. I couldn’t help pointing out that he had just described very well what was wrong with PPIC — that it would entice the most motivated, most involved parents to leave troubled schools behind, and those schools would only get worse as a result.
    He didn’t disagree. In fact, he reminded me that he had talked in his earlier interview about how he had been motivated to champion “choice” only for children “below a certain income level.”
    “I could live very easily without that provision in the last bill that gave a thousand-dollar tax credit, no matter where you lived and no matter what your income was,” he had said. “It ought to be focused on failing schools and low-income families.”
    Of course, PPIC had included the tax credit for the affluent, which was politically necessary to generate the bill’s only in-state constituency: those who already home-school or send their kids to private schools. And Mr. Harrison had pushed it in that form.
    Still, I had to sympathize with his lament that it was unfair to use that as an excuse to call him “hard right,” or anti-education, in light of his record otherwise. He said there was something wrong with a system in which “people in the middle that are trying to find some viable options get labeled as extremists.”
    I couldn’t agree more. Of course, I think his advocacy of PPIC is quite a bit more relevant to his public education credentials than where a Summers 5-year-old attends kindergarten.
    But I don’t think the issue is as up-or-down as the likes of SCEA and SCRG would have us believe.
Fortunately, they don’t decide elections. In this case, the voters of District 75 do. And they have a lot to consider.

Art restoration

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John72
This is one for you art lovers out there. My roommate from my USC days recently took part in the special pre-demolition reception for former inmates of the Honeycombs. He will remain nameless for now — all I will say is that he was an art major, and that is him at the bottom of the above image.

As you see him, he has just restored a graffiti work from his early Gonzo-minimalist period — or restored it as well as he could, working in a hurried fashion before the university authorities could notice he had slipped away from the group.

By the way, my roommate was the responsible one in our duo — he kept his side of the room spotless, with all his art supplies neatly stacked and categorized, his clothes put away in the closet. He was the one with the short, conservative hair. I think he even used to make his bed.

My side looked like a waste dump, featuring pots with week-old food cooked on with my contraband hotplate, sloppily-hung posters and dirty clothes. The finishing touch was my mountain of State newspapers, not one of which I ever tossed, constantly spilling over to his side, and earning me the sobriquet "Ratso Rizzo" (we had both seen "Midnight Cowboy" over at the Russell House). He still calls me that, even though I’ve cut my hair and shaved.

Connoisseurs of early-1970s, 4th-floor Snowden culture will recognize the above hastily-penned reproduction as only dimly evocative of the original, once-thought-to-be-immortal work that was scratched deeply into the paint that coated the concrete-block wall. It was located over the elevator immediately across from our room, and was still there when I took my bride by there on our honeymoon three years later. I was proud to play the docent and explain to her the history behind this treasure. She was suitably impressed, I think — she was speechless.

Unfortunately, the original was lost to a later renovation of the building — probably about the time they put those sissy dividers in to make separate shower stalls in the floor’s one bathroom.

But all is not lost! My roommate and I are planning a guerrilla revisit to the site in the next few days, and hope to restore the original to its rightful place, so that the building’s boisterous spirits will lie at rest when the Big Crash comes. If you would like to help in bringing about this once-in-a-lifetime testament to the (adolescent) human spirit, your cash gifts can be sent to this blog.

The Monitor Group

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The first thing I wanted to post on this morning was my thoughts on the new study assessing S.C. public schools’ progress. But as usual, I’ve been in one meeting after another up until now, and the conversation started before I could get to it, back on this post.

Here’s what I wanted to say about it: The most interesting thing is that Mack Whittle and the other business leaders involved in this used The Monitor Group quite deliberately — because it is an organization that the governor — our most prominent advocate of giving up on public schools — likes to cite himself. Business leaders said OK, let’s see what this group will say if it actually does a study of what’s really going on in South Carolina.

That’s what makes this a particularly devastating blow to the tax-credit-for-private-schools movement, which depends so heavily on the false catchphrase, "Out public schools are failing."

Obviously, they are not. The kids actually in the system — including those in the grades before one is old enough to drop out — are doing better and better. Now that that’s established, what we need to do is stop talking about abandoning the system and start actually talking about the areas where we still have problems — such as, the horrific dropout rate.

And no, PPIC does not address that. Kids who can’t cut it or don’t want to cut it in public schools are hardly likely to do better if they go to a private one — which they wouldn’t get to do with PPIC anyway, since it does nothing for the kids with the greatest problems.

The dropout rate is an enormous issue. We have to fix it. So let’s start actually talking about whether the new programs that have been instituted to address it are working, and do whatever else is needed to keep borderline kids in school and succeeding. That’s impossible to do when all the oxygen in the State House is being taken up with PPIC and other wastes of time.

More on Clark

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Here’s some stuff that didn’t make it into my column. This originally came after the paragraph that ended with "believes ‘in “compromise:’"

”    Mr. Clark does not. As a young Navy officer in the 1960s he wrote the
wrote the specs for, built and ran the computer system that ran the war
in Vietnam for Gen. William Westmoreland. Maybe we didn’’t win that one,
but Mr. Clark’’s machines saw to it that troops, ammunition, supplies and
intelligence got to where they were supposed to be.
    He felt guilty being in a safe zone, so he would go over to the 7th Air
Force hospitals and write letters for the severely wounded. It wasn’’t
part of his job, but he felt compelled to do it.
    Captain Clark, USN-retired, is a problem-solver, and he works at an
exhaustive pace, doing far more than most representatives would say the
job demands. Some lawmakers can’’t be found when it’’s time to vote, much
less do the hard work in committees. Mr. Clark goes to the meetings of
every committee that touches on an issue that he’’s studying. And he’’s
interested in everything that would improve the health, wealth and
wisdom of South Carolinians.
    Mr. Spires, by his own account, is interested in cutting property taxes. But he hasn’t taken the trouble to study any of the options, or even  what the Legislature has actually DONE already to address the one part he articulates — his concern that old folks will lose their homes paying property taxes for schools.

Here’s another bit that just was too long and involved to get it to work into the thing. It came from Mr. Clark’s experiences doing something that would be utterly alien to Mr. Spires’ financial supporters — substitute-teaching in the schools:talking about poor, black mothers

    One reason Mr. Clark is at a disadvantage is that while he’s a great representative, he has his weak spots as a politician. For instance, he cares too much about things that really matter. Instead of starting with "look how I’ve cut your taxes" (which he eventually did mention, but only because he felt the need to counter the lies from the fliers) when I walked into the room where the meeting was, he was talking about … teen moms, and the way they lead to problems in the schools.
    "…these are not bad girls," he was saying. But they haven’t got a clue how to raise their kids. They work all day, come home exhausted, have nobody to help them with anyting, and not knowing any better, they park their kids in front of the TV.
    "And what do they see? Sex, violence, vanity, pushing, shoving — and that’’s what they bring into the schools." And that’s what he has to contend with when he teaches.
    "I taught at the Naval Academy, where I’’m used to seeing people who say
yes sir, no sir." The realities of what our society sends into the school doors is a profound contrast.

I’ll have more coming up from my interview last week with Mr. Spires later in the day. I left the notes in my briefcase, which isn’t with me. But I’ll have it later. (As it turned out, it was the NEXT day. Sorry.)

Ken Clark column

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Clark372
Money, ideology, populism,
apathy descend upon Ken Clark

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

THE COLLARD Kitchen was steaming Tuesday night, and I could hardly hear above the sickly hum of the air conditioning. S.C. Rep. Ken Clark was talking his heart out to a “community meeting” of 11 people, not counting his wife and campaign manager.
    One of the finest, smartest and hardest-working members of the Legislature is fighting for his political life against a well-funded challenger who seems to have decided to run on a mere whim.
    Kit Spires, a Gaston pharmacist (below, at right), is not going to like that characterization, and I don’’t blame him. He seems to be a nice man, and he’’s sincere. I spoke to him for this column longer than I did to Mr. Clark, and I like him. I can see why the folks he provides with medicine like him, too.
    But I’’ve covered politics since the 1970s, and I can’’t remember a more lopsided match. Ask bothKispires72 men about any issue you choose, and it is as bright, as sharp, as clear as the edge of a diamond that Ken Clark is a better representative than Kit Spires is prepared to be.
    But Mr. Spires got 45 percent of the vote June 13 to Rep. Clark’’s 35 percent. The third-place finisher has thrown his support to Mr. Spires.
“    "Clark’’s toast,"” says one local official.
    If that’’s true, it’s a dramatic illustration of the corrosive effects of three things that are eating the heart out of American politics:

  • Money. People who see South Carolina as a guinea pig for their project to defund government across the country have sent out 13 mailings attacking him or supporting his opponent. The attacks are off-the-shelf garbage that read like a transcript of those ideological shouting matches on cable TV. “"What’s that smell, you ask? Oh, that’’s just Rep. Ken Clark burning through your hard earned tax dollars."” No specifics, because they don’t exist. I am not making this up. The mailings are actually that stupid.
  • Ideology. The money comes from rich people who have developed a religion around the idea that they should pay less in taxes, and they don’’t give a damn what the money goes to pay for. Mr. Clark gets up every morning and sees problems in this poor state of ours, and he works obsessively to find sensible, cost-effective ways to solve them. The ideologues write checks to pay others to rid them of people like Mr. Clark. (And the money goes to more than mailings. As Mr. Clark noted, Mr. Spires was able to afford signs twice as large as his — see below — and more of them.)
  • Populist apathy. (Or should it be populism and apathy?) This world is rapidly becoming one in which far too few care about anything that happens beyond the ends of their own driveways. Such attitudes have an alarming imperviousness to Mr. Clark’’s 32 years in the U.S. Navy, or his intense service since then on school board and in the House.

    Why “"populist"”? Mr. Clark is a highly intelligent man who does not hide his light. He came up in a system in which capable men made decisions and saw that things got done. Mr. Spires is unassuming, and seems to have rubbed far fewer people the wrong way. Nowadays, that plays better than competence.
    Mr. Spires burns less brightly. He says he’’ll take an interest in whatever he hears people talking about in the local diner, and what he hears them talking about most is property taxes.
    He sees no reason why his mother, who hasn’’t had children in the public schools for 30 years, should have to support them.
    Mr. Spires is an unusual ally of the kind of people who are underwriting his campaign. He praises the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the biggest Big Government spending boondoggle since Lyndon Johnson. But he’’s flexible on the outsiders’’ plan to divert public funds to tax credits for anyone who will send their kids to private schools. "“I’’m not against public schools,"” he says. He just believes "in “compromise."”
Clark272    Mr. Clark does not compromise on anything of such critical importance. That’’s why he works so hard to improve schools, rather than abandon them.
“    "My name is on every piece of education (reform legislation) that has gone to the governor,"” Mr. Clark truthfully tells every soul who will listen. That includes encouraging charter schools, and granting the right to transfer from "“failing"” schools to any public school a parent chooses. He sponsored a law likely to do more than any other idea I’’ve heard to counter our state’’s abysmal dropout rate, by engaging kids in careers early, and preparing them for those careers.
    And taxing and spending? Thanks to legislation he helped pass, “"You will see a decrease in your property tax bill of about 40 percent or 50 percent next year.”"
    Mr. Spires is utterly unimpressed that the Legislature just abolished all residential property taxes for school operations. He rejects the idea that his one motivating issue is now moot. People are still talking about how they don’’t like their property taxes, so how can the issue be dead?
    And maybe he’’s right. He’’s counting on the people who think he’’ll come up with a way of lowering their taxes (he’’s still vague on details) outnumbering the ones who understand that Ken Clark and his fellow lawmakers have just cut their property taxes so dramatically that I don’’t think it’’s entirely sunk in with most of us.
    Besides, thousands of fliers have gone out telling people what a big tax-and-spender Ken Clark is. It doesn’’t matter if it’’s not true. That’’s what folks have in front of them when they go down to the diner and gripe about their taxes.
    Meanwhile, in the place where they cook the collards for Gaston’’s signature festival in the much- cooler month of October, there were only about a dozen people Tuesday night. That counts me, and I don’’t get a vote.

Signs72

Let’s talk about ‘throwing money’

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I just had to share this response I sent to Bob McAlister, in response to this post he put up:

    Bob, how can you write, "So ya’ll just want to keep throwing money at public education without changing it, huh?" I can see the twits at SCRG doing that, but you know better. We were talking the other day about some mutual acquaintances who serve on the Palmetto Institute. (Bob knows who I mean, but I’m referring to Bill Barnet and Larry Wilson.) Why don’t you say that to them, and see what kind of reaction you get? "Throwing money?" "Without changing it?" That floors me, coming from you.
    What on Earth do you think the "choice" advocates want to do besides "throw money," except they want to do it with blinders on, demanding no accountability for where it lands?
    Meanwhile, it is NO surprise that higher standards are cited as ONE of the causes of the problem. It’s an absolute fact that between having instituted some of the highest curriculum standards in the nation and raised the number of academic credits required for graduation, we’ve made it an awful lot more appealing for more kids just to give up.
    It’s just one of the many factors, but it certainly and obviously is one, which should be recognized by any reasonable person who is not bound and determined to tear down the public schools.

Bob usually doesn’t write with his brain on autopilot, but this time he did.

Actual Reality

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There’s something redundant about the phrase, "actual reality." I know that. But we have to make distinctions, when dealing our friends at SCRG, between the actual sort and their sort.

If I agreed with what these folks are advocating, I’d be embarrassed they’re on my side. I’ve gotten the impression that Karen Floyd is. But she’s sort of stuck; she’s their candidate.

Anyway, here is a partial breakdown of the problems that made the latest SCRG unpublishable by anyone except SCRG.

I should probably preface this by noting that on the pages of The State, we let (actually, we encourage it and facilitate it) folks who disagree with us say pretty much anything they want and call us any names they want — as long as they’re suitable for a family newspaper. You can call us left-wing; you can call us right-wing (they’re about equally popular, it seems); you can call us late for supper. You can say our mothers dress us funny.

What we won’t let you do is confuse readers by saying something that is objectively, obviously untrue. And that includes saying we said things we didn’t say. I mean, what’s the point of our taking the trouble to write something if we’re going to use our own space to let people say we said something else? Kind of a pointless exercise. Argue with what we say all you like, but no inventing false statements. (I suspect people do this because they think they have an answer for the phony statement, but they know they are incapable of contending with what we actually said. Whatever.)

Anyway, here’s the point-by-point:

  • Goebbels? Joseph Goebbels? Isn’t this device in some sort of Over-The-Top Name-Calling Rhetoric Hall of Fame?
  • Actually, Cindi likes school choice. You know, send your kids to any public school you want, whether you’re zoned for it or not; whether you even live in the district or not. And send them to any private school you want, but then you pay for it yourself instead of asking other taxpayers to do it for you. On this point she’s a lot easier than I. I’m suspicious of any movement that has to hide behind the word "choice." Whether it’s abortion or subsidizing private schools, people with bad ideas avoid saying what they’re actually for.
  • "She used both of them in this diatribe with a shameless disregard for the facts or the truth." Hey, maybe she’s a Nazi, but the law doesn’t let you libel Nazis, either. We will now wait in vain for any assertions by SCRG that anything she said was untrue, much less "shamelessly" so.
  • "Ms. Scoppe recklessly labels South Carolinians for Responsible Government and other groups’ activities as ‘white collar crime.’ " Uh, hello. No she didn’t. Reading comprehension problem time. Her actual text: "The poker barons were more dangerous, in the sense that street
    crime is more dangerous than white-collar crime." It’s called an analogy. Look into it.
  • "She is a partisan, liberal Democrat." When they try to make a case for this one, I want to be in the room. It should be entertaining. One quick example: Cindi is the one who has to keep coming to Mark Sanford’s defense when I get fed up with him (it’s becoming a full-time job, and, truth be told, she’s starting to agree with me sometimes). For the record, no one on my editorial board is a partisan, or I wouldn’t have chosen him or her to work with us. That’s just insulting. The amusing part is when they call her "liberal" and "Democrat." Of course, there is no evidence offered here — circumstantial or otherwise. How could there be? None exists.

… tell you what — to save your time and mine, let’s just stop skipping over all the plain silly stuff (although all the stuff about her "screaming" — coming from people talking about Goebbels — is a lot of fun) and go to their out-and-out false assertions of "fact"…

  • "While complying with all applicable laws." Say what? They can argue that the law is unconstitutional if they wish. But the fact is
    that the law does require them to report their spending, and they have refused
    to comply with it.
  • "She is doing it to advance liberal political candidates and causes." Such as? I can think of some folks we’ve endorsed over in the Democratic primary who might be described as "liberal" — but only here in South Carolina and few other places. But in the Republican primary, which is what we’re talking about here? Who? Where? In what sense?
  • "Destroy your opponents’ credibility through lies and distortions." Once again, give us one example in which Cindi (as opposed to some other people we could name if we wanted to get picky) has done this. And remember the rule: You can’t make it up! She has to have actually done it, and you actually have to have a plausible argument that it’s untrue.

I realize we’re playing by tough rules, requiring actual facts and all, but publishing the op-ed page South Carolina’s largest newspaper is not the same as throwing junk on the Web site of some lame, ranting advocacy group. We’re kind of particular about this fact stuff, and if you don’t know what one is, you’re going to have trouble keeping up.

Reality, version B

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We’ve got this regular thing going on with SCouRGe: We write a piece explaining the facts about something that touches on them in any way, they write a wildly overheated response that argues with things we didn’t say. We tell them their response doesn’t address the actual piece we ran. Then, the routine goes one of two ways: They can take the hint and give us a letter that does respond to what we had published (they did that last time), or they can say they don’t want it changed — in which case we ditch it and move on to something relevant.

In either case, they will send out the original, absurd version to whip up their base. That’s sort of the point of the game. Getting us to help them make their case is a fringe benefit, if achievable. If not, they gripe to their base about us not publishing their fantasies. Win-win. (And I see it’s already up on their site. Oh, I love this touch: "CENSORED BY THE STATE … AGAIN!" Let’s see… I told them I’d put it on my blog, and here it is. And they got it up on their site before I did. So, how exactly are they being "censored"? Somebody get a dictionary.)

It really wasn’t achievable with the latest piece they sent us, purportedly a response to this piece by Cindi (she seems to be in the news on this blog today, probably because she’s the main writer on most of the state primary races).

First, their piece, unedited. I will discuss it in the next post:

The State’s Propaganda Machine in High Gear
By Randy Page
    Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, followed two primary rules when brainwashing the German public.  The first was to tell a big lie loud enough and long enough so that people would eventually start to believe it.  The second rule was to always accuse your enemy of your own worst crime.
     I was reminded of this when reading Cindi Scoppe’s most recent pathetic rant against school choice and limited government supporters.  Ms. Scoppe clearly has learned Goebbels’ methods well.  She used both of them in this diatribe with a shameless disregard for the facts or the truth.
     Ms. Scoppe recklessly labels South Carolinians for Responsible Government and other groups’ activities as “white collar crime.”  She knows very well that allegations against us were nothing more than political maneuvers and that we have not been charged with any crime.  She also knows that the one issue currently active has broad Constitutional free speech implications and that we are looking for clarity through the federal judicial system.
  But that doesn’t matter to Ms. Scoppe.  She throws mud and then hides behind her “press credentials.”  She uses her free speech rights to attempt to deny us and any other group she opposes that very right.  That’s the height of hypocrisy.
     For all her screaming and high-pitched assaults, Ms. Scoppe wants to hide the fact that she is a partisan, liberal Democrat working for an out-of-state corporation that has engaged in repeated efforts to influence the outcome of elections while reporting to no one.  “We are the press and cannot be regulated,” she will scream.  And we would agree.
     But if she and her comrades are free to act in such a manner, why does she have such a problem with an in-state non-profit organization discussing issues that may or may not affect the outcome of political debate while complying with all applicable laws?
     Simple.  She attacks us because we advocate for less government, more individual freedom, lower taxes, greater personal property rights, parental choice in education, and an end to the controlled political environment that has kept hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians out of the process.  She opposes all these things – as do most of the major candidates they back.
     It is a fair question to ask why she and the State newspaper editorial page would attack us and other conservative groups so intensely.  The answer is they want to silence us.  They want to tarnish our good name so that when we engage in debate or issue discussion our words are deemed suspect.  She is engaging in pure character assassination.   And, she is doing it to advance liberal political candidates and causes.
     This, of course, was another of Mr. Goebbels’ methods – whenever possible, destroy your opponents’ credibility through lies and distortions.  Yes, Ms. Scoppe has learned her lessons well.  And that’s too bad for the reputation of the State as well as the people subjected to her sleazy, unethical tactics.
     Luckily for groups such as ours, her opinion and that of the State newspaper is absolutely insignificant.  The most recent election results are a testament to that fact.

Randy Page is President of SCRG, a statewide non-profit grassroots organization that advocates limited government and education reform through school choice on behalf of its 200,000 supporters across the state.

Don’t miss Actual Reality, coming to a blog near you, right after this post.

Reflections on letters

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Some reflections on letters in Saturday’s paper.

First, there was the one headlined, Grand Old Party is losing its way. My thoughts on it:
A person whose identity as a Republican reaches back to 1932 is bound to feel a bit lost, for a number of reasons. It is now the majority — or perhaps I should say, the plurality, party. (There are enough of us independents to keep either from being a majority, but I suppose you could say the Republicans are the majority among partisans, certainly here in South Carolina.) That means it has had to expand its membership beyond what it once encompassed. The letter mentions Glenn McConnell (unfavorably) and Mark Sanford (favorably). The two men are very different from each other, but united in two facts: They are both very libertarian, and it’s hard to imagine either of them fitting in with, say, Dwight Eisenhower or Richard Nixon. Actually, it’s a bit hard to imagine Ike and Nixon being in the same administration. Anyway, my point is that people looking for consistency and reassurance in a party large enough to win elections are almost certain to be disappointed.

Here-and-now issues should determine vote:
This letter is related to the first, in that it illustrates the way that many Democrats are determined to keep their party the minority among partisans by rejecting certain lines of thought. Take for instance the writer’s dismissal the idea that ideals, or faith, might outweigh material considerations. Or at least, that they should not do so among practical, right-thinking individuals. But that’s not the really telling bit. What really points to the main fallacy among many (but not all) Democrats is the suggestion that right-thinking (i.e., socially concerned or liberal people) cannot choose the "moral path" of their fathers. Why on earth would concern about the direction of the country or current events be inconsistent with faith or a "belief system." Why can’t a person who is concerned  about the future still embrace the faith of his fathers? This writer seems to assume that traditional morality is utterly inconsistent with moving forward. Why so closed-minded? As long as supposed liberals think this way, they are doomed to failure.

Townsend did what he thought was right:
This writer says "Ronny Townsend worked tirelessly for the people he represented, for conservative values and for bettering public education." Exactly. A person who embraces conservative values would certainly be committed to serving and improving public education. It is a fundamental institution of our society, and one that is essential to building the kind of future that those who went before us envisioned. Anyone who would dismantle it, rather than protecting, strengthening and improving it, is a radical, leaning toward anarchy — anything but conservative.

Liberators not always what they seem:
Why would this writer believe that the idea that "there has always been a thin line between ‘invader/occupier’ and ‘liberator’ … was not considered three years ago?" It was and is to be expected that there is a delicate balance to be struck between such concepts. I certainly considered it, worried about it — still do. This is a short missive. Is the writer suggesting that those of us who favored the invasion must not have seen the inherent risks? Is he suggesting further that if anyone had seen the risks, the endeavor would not/should not have been undertaken? If so, I couldn’t disagree more. Those are merely reasons to proceed wisely — which certainly hasn’t always been done in this enterprise. I believe concern over that fact underlies this letter. But if leads the writer to conclude that it should not have been undertaken to begin with, or should be abandoned now, I have to disagree.

Feting Bernanke may be premature:
Why? So we don’t know whether he is a Greenspan or not? Why wouldn’t homefolks celebrate the fact that one of their own is the Fed Chairman. Seems sort of like a big deal in and of itself to me.

Accepting differences leads to better world:
One would be puzzled why someone would be compelled to write that "I am of the belief that God doesn’t hate." I mean, who isn’t? One would be further puzzled to read, "One day, I hope to find a community of faith that believes in love,
tolerance and acceptance. Maybe that is too much to hope for…" All true communities of faith believe in those things. They welcome sinners, and invite them to be penitent. The problem is that some do not wish to be penitent, and choose to characterize any suggestion that they should be as "hate." This is an obvious fallacy for anyone seeking a community of faith. It’s astounding how many people fail — or refuse — to see that.

Finally, Tests give teachers too little to go on:
OK, if you’re going to insist on standards being taught, why would you let teachers know what questions will be on the test that will measure whether they are teaching the standards. If you let them know the test, they would be able to — as many claim they already do — "teach to the test." It’s not about you improving test scores. It’s about teaching the standards. If test scores do improve, we’ll know how successfully you’re doing that. The letter presents one real reason for concern, when it suggests that students have seen "subject matter on tests that was not included in the standards." If so, something should be done about it. Of course, if the standard were not taught properly, the student would find the measuring test unfamiliar. So it’s difficult to tell from this missive where the fault lies.

Primary-day column, WITH LINKS!

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Read all about it. Then go vote!

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

AT MONDAY morning’s editorial meeting, we wearily debated how we might have done a better job on these primary elections. Should we have interviewed candidates in fewer races, opening time and space for more detail on the top contests? Did we make the best endorsements we could have? Did we give readers all the information that they need?
    The answer to that last question is, “Of course not.” Resources are limited, and at best, even when our board has been as thorough as it can be in making a recommendation, ours is but one voice in a much broader conversation. Careful voters should attend thoughtfully to all of it.
    My purpose in writing today is to refer you to additional resources, so you have more information available to you on this day of decision than we can fit onto one page.
    Start by going to my blog on the Web. The address is at the bottom of this column. If you don’t feel like typing all that in, just Google “Brad Warthen’s Blog.” Click on the first result.
    Here’s what you’ll find:

  • An electronic version of this column with one-click links to all the other information in this list.
  • The full texts of all of our endorsements. We don’t expect you to be swayed by the brief capsules at left; we provide this recap on election days because readers have requested it. Please read the full editorials.
  • Additional notes from most of the 51 candidate interviews that helped in our decisions. Please leave comments to let me know whether you find these notes helpful; it’s a new thing for me.
  • The Web sites of major candidates. These sites vary greatly in the detail they offer on issues (and in their frankness), but some can be helpful.
  • Addresses for state and local election commissions.
  • More links to last-minute news reports. The State’s news division is entirely separate from the editorial department, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you find the news — including the Voter’s Guide from Sunday’s paper.
  • Recent columns, including an unpublished piece from teacher and former community columnist Sally Huguley, explaining why teachers should vote in the Republican primary.
  • Various explanations I’ve given in the past for why we do endorsements, and what our track record has been with them.
  • Much, much more — from the silly to the (I hope) profound.

    Please check it out, and leave comments. I want to know what you think — so would others — about the election, about our endorsements, about the blog itself. There were 138 comments left there on one day last week. I’d like to see that record broken. Broaden the conversation beyond the usual suspects (no offense to my regulars; I just want more, and you know you do, too).
    And then, go vote your conscience. Please. A number of observers have said voter interest is low this time around. It shouldn’t be. This election could help determine whether South Carolina does what it needs to do to improve public schools — and therefore improve the future for all of us — or gives up on the idea of universal education.
    I’m not just talking about the governor or superintendent of education contests. As we’ve written in detail (which you can read again on the Web), there are well-funded groups from out of state trying to stack our Legislature so that it does what they want it to do from now on. Don’t stand back and watch that happen. Exercise your birthright. Vote.
    Finally, after the votes are counted, be sure to tune in to ETV from 10 to 11 p.m. I’ll offer live commentary off and on (it won’t be just me for that whole hour, so you’re safe). You young people, ask your parents to let you stay up late. If you’re big enough to be reading the editorial page, you deserve it. You older folks, try to get a nap in the evening and rest up — after you’ve voted.

Here’s the address: http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

The Floyd Fam votes

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Floydfamilyvote
Karen Floyd is all smiles as she arrives with her family to vote at her polling place in Spartanburg.

And well she might be, since the smart money is on her to win this thing. Not that she should win, but she probably will. I’ve still got hopes for Bob Staton at least making it into a runoff, but we’ll see.

By the way, the boy at the far right is not a Floyd, but a family friend, according to the AP.

Don’t let ’em bug you, Sally

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Hey, Sally, don’t let those abusive comments about your appeal to reason bother you. It’s pretty much par for the course these days, particularly if you ask people to rise above factionalism.

You’ve been out of the political sphere for awhile — as you say, teachers are so wrapped up in the day-to-day practical matter of education that they tend not to follow this stuff too closely.

Anyway, in the last few years, partisanship has more or less driven the country mad. Pragmatic, good-faith observations such as yours are actually beyond the understanding of most people who take an active interest in political matters.

If they call themselves Republicans, or conservatives, they will accuse you of trying to — how was it Lee put it? — "sabotage the Republican primary." Imagine that. People so far gone in the partisan game that picking up a Republican ballot in order to vote for the BEST CANDIDATE, the one you honestly would prefer to see win, is seen as "sabotage."

If they call themselves Democrats, or liberals (excuse me, they don’t use that outside Nancy Pelosi’s district; let’s say "progressives"), they’ll have a fit because you dare to suggest that anyone who MIGHT otherwise vote Democratic should vote Republican — even though that is obviously the thing to do if you truly want to advance public education, which Democrats SAY they care about.

Forget about superintendent of education for a moment; forget about governor, for that matter. Forget even about public education. Anyone who cares about good, straightforward, honest government — for that matter, anyone who believes that South Carolinians ought to determine the course of their state, rather than moneyed ideological outsiders who don’t even know anything about our state — should grab a Republican ballot if they live in the House district of one of the Republicans that these unpricipled groups are targeting.

If you didn’t get it the first time, go back and read Cindi Scoppe’s column on the subject. And if you still don’t get it, read it again. Follow the links. THINK. These honest people — including the one member of the House to vote against this budget every step of the way — are being attacked in generic mailings as "big spenders." Why is that? Because the outsider’s true agenda — attacking every Republican who took a stand against tax credits for private schools — doesn’t play well.

THINK. Whatever partisan label you choose, or if you don’t choose a label (and if you don’t, God bless you for it) THINK about what these people are trying to do. Think about how stupid they think you are, and how much money they’re betting that they’re right about you.

And then go back and read what Sally wrote.

By the way, one added thought: Note that I refer to people who "call themselves" Republicans or Democrats, or "choose a label." I say that because in South Carolina, no one is a registered member of any party. It’s amazing how many people don’t know that. If you don’t believe me, check your voter registration card.

Every time you go to vote in a primary, you get to choose. Next primary, you can vote in the opposite party. Next time, you can vote in the first one again. It doesn’t matter. In this state, you are actually free to vote as you choose.

Almost. There are two restrictions, and I really wish they didn’t exist, either. First, you have to vote in one or the other primary in a given election. Second, you can only vote in the runoff of the primary you voted in. (Actually, that’s another reason the Republican primary vote should be relatively huge this time: You choose a Democratic ballot on June 13, and then you look at the critical choices remaining to be made in the Republican runoff on June 27, and you’re out of luck. You’re disenfranchised. Think about it: Are there any Democratic contests with enough viable candidates to have a runoff? Not in any races I’ve been following. But there are certainly going to be some GOP runoffs, and the contrasts between the remaining candidates in those are likely to be stark.)

Now see, I’ve just set off the partisans again. They are OUTRAGED that I imply you should be allowed to vote in BOTH parties’ primaries on a given day. You bet. I’m sick and tired of what I as an independent am left with in the way of choices come November. I’m sick of having to decide whether it’s more important to have a say in this primary or the other one. For once, I’d like to get to vote for having TWO good candidates in the general election. I’d like to have a choice in the fall between good and better, rather than bad and worse.

Moreover, any reasonable person is likely to care about a Democrat winning in the primary for one office, and a Republican in another contest on the same day. Basically, this system condemns said reasonable person to being disenfranchised, either for (say) governor or superintendent.

The thing that makes it easy for a reasonable person such as Sally to choose Republican over Democratic this time is that the candidates for governor aren’t that terribly different on the issue that is of overriding importance to her. So she can leave that alone. The momentous decision on education will be made on the Republican ballot.

Attention, All Teachers!

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Last week, I noted that Democrats, Independents and anyone else who cares about public education will vote in the Republican Primary Tuesday if they care anything at all about South Carolina schools. This upset one or two Democratic partisans. Big Deal. Anybody who cares about education in this state would be wasting a vote by picking a Democratic ballot. That goes double for teachers. I’m far from the only one who thinks so. I got this submission from former colleague Sally Huguley — who is also a former speechwriter for Gov. Dick Riley (for you partisans keeping score, he’s a Democrat with a capital "D"), and now one of the top teachers
in Richland Two.

We got it kind of late to be a pre-election op-ed, but I thought I’d give her a sort of guest-post slot. May some of you people who should hear this will pay attention to her. (After all, who am I? I only analyze politics for a freakin’ living.) :

By SALLY HUGULEY

A Voice from The Classroom
Attention, teachers, are you paying attention?
    Teachers spend 180 school days asking for attention, but now it’s time to ask whether the teachers are paying attention, because the outcome of next Tuesday’s primary election will have a lasting impact on the direction of our state’s public schools.
Huguley_2    A recent story by Bill Robinson quoted an education official as saying most teachers aren’t paying attention to the Republican candidates because they usually vote in the Democratic primary.
    Well, fellow educators and all families who support strong public schools, please pay attention, because next week it will be important not just to vote, but to vote in the Republican primary.
    Why? Here are three solid reasons.
    First, political pragmatism.
    Let’s face it, South Carolina is back to being a one-party state. The Republican Party controls the Governor’s Mansion, the State Senate and the House of Representatives. Therefore, it will be critical to have the strongest pro-public education candidates on the Republican ticket in November.
    All the Democrats running for governor and state school superintendent are ardent supporters of strong public education. This is not the case among the Republicans running for these two offices. Out-of-state private school voucher supporters are funneling thousands of dollars into the candidacies of Republicans who back the voucher cause. Look no further than the campaigning couple of Mark Sanford and Karen Floyd.
    The good news is that there are excellent Republican candidates who have rejected the voucher ideologues and strongly support and appreciate the hard work of public school teachers, students and parents.
    This brings me to the second reason: Protect the protectors.
    Last session a courageous group of Republican House members joined with other public schools supporters in the Legislature to defeat the movement to divert public money into private schools. They did this under great political pressure from the Governor’s Office and threats from the voucher crowd.
    The threats proved true, and now some of our most outspoken supporters — Reps. Bill Cotty and Ken Clark in the Midlands, for example — are facing Republican challengers funded by out-of-state voucher interests.
    It is most important that teachers and parents back these candidates in their re-election bids, but the only way to do this is to vote in the Republican primary.
    For Cotty, Clark or others like them to be defeated in the Republican primary because the education crowd did not support them would be not just a victory for public school opponents, but also send a strong signal to other elected officials not to stick up for public education because public education won’t stick up for them.
    Third reason, political leverage.
    With 50,000 certified teachers, another 50,000 certified teachers who currently are not teaching, and thousands upon thousands of retired educators, we should be a political force to be reckoned with. But we’re not, because we either don’t pay attention, or don’t vote in the best interest of our schools and our students.
    Public education opponents are counting on your lack attention next Tuesday. It’s time to show them we’re not only paying attention, but we’re taking names. Vote in the Republican primary. It’s your chance to send a message.

Kerry Wood is The Man!

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In the comments on a recent post, Kerry Wood’s sister took me to task for being dismissive of her brother and the other two candidates who are unlikely to make the runoff.

Another commenter later took me to task for not having responded to her. Well, there were 138000wood_21_1 comments on this blog on Thursday, so it’s a bit much to expect me to have read them all yet, much less responded. I’m trying. (I’m not really complaining; I’m just excited that people are getting so much use out of the site, and wanted to mention the 138 comments.)

In any case, rather than addressing her remarks (I’d only end up arguing with her, and that wouldn’t be nice, since she’s sticking up for her bro), I’m posting this to say: Kerry Wood is the Man! He gets it!

He apparently understands that it’s critical, in these closing days of the primary, to sharpen for voters the contrast between the two leading candidates, Karen Floyd and Bob Staton. That’s because the contrasts, and the stakes for South Carolina, couldn’t be higher.

He has not only removed himself from the race, but done it in the best possible way: by telling voters how important it is to vote for Mr. Staton.

At the debate, Mr. Wood said (in response to a question from me) that if he couldn’t win, his second choice would be Mr. Staton. He has now gone the next step and made Mr. Staton his first choice.

What this proves is that Kerry Wood is no politician. He’s a statesman. And he’s a citizen who truly cares about the education of South Carolina’s children — who cares enough to sacrifice his own ambitions in that cause.

For today at least, my favorite among the (formerly) five GOP candidates for S.C. Superintendent of Education is Kerry Wood.

Re Jim Rex, whom we will meet later

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I got this e-mail this morning from Zeke Stokes of Columbia:

Brad:
     While I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment that South Carolina’s schools are improving and that we must continue the progress, I have to take issue with your implication that only one candidate in this race is equipped to do that. I mentioned to you at Galivant’s Ferry that I am running Jim Rex’s race for State Superintendent of Education, and regardless of who the Republican nominee is, South Carolinians will have a qualified, electable alternative in Jim come November, yet you didn’t mention that in your column on Sunday. 
    I ran Inez Tenenbaum’s races for this seat, and she has proven that this is a race in  which South Carolinians will take a strong look at the candidates’ credentials before considering the Party to which they belong, as evidenced by the fact that she carried the ticket in 1998, ahead of strong showings by Fritz Hollings and Jim Hodges, as well as in 2002, when most Democrats lost their races for statewide office. If, before the primary, there is an opportunity to make this point in your coverage of the race, I hope you will do that as well. 
    In addition, I have to take issue with your assertion that Democrats should cross over to help Mr. Staton in his primary. Party primaries are designed to allow each party to select its candidates and to put forth the candidate that it thinks will best represent its views in the general election. Democrats have done that in this race, by choosing to nominate Jim Rex without a primary. In fact, when Jim entered the race, the primary field cleared, in part because his strong education background, coupled with the support of people like Dick Riley and Inez Tenenbaum, made him the obvious choice for Democrats. On June, 13 Republicans have the same opportunity, and Democrats ought to allow that process to unfold without crossing over to "sabotage" the outcome. 
    I hope you will take a fresh look at this race after the primary, regardless of who Republicans choose. As always, Jim and I are available to speak with you should you have a need to do so. The best way to reach me is on my cell at (deleted for blog purposes).

Many thanks,
Zeke

I replied to Zeke as follows:

    My column had nothing to do with your guy; he’s not, last time I looked, seeking the contested nomination. I would have mentioned the three also-rans before I would have mentioned a guy who’s not even in a primary. And I had no space to waste on them.
    Maybe you want to run against Mrs. Floyd (maybe to fire up your base or something), but given the chance that she could well win the whole thing, I’d much rather not see South Carolina take such a risk.
    We’re far better off with a choice between Staton v. Rex.
    Do you disagree?
    You seem to be concerned about parties and their prerogatives; I despise parties, and the sooner voters divest themselves from all partisan identification whatsoever, the better off our state and country will be. I care about what’s good for South Carolina, not what’s good for a party.
    By the way, I plan to post this exchange on my blog (I hate to spend time typing if readers can’t see it). I’ll leave out your cell number. I’ll be glad to put up any responses you have, as well.
    I look forward to talking with you AFTER this mess is over. One hill at a time.
— Brad Warthen

That’s it, for now.

Some answers for Lee

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Everybody thank Lee. He’s offered a great list of the excuses that anti-public school types come up with in an effort to get everyone to be as irresponsible and nihilistic as they are.

It’s a list that he says "journalists" (a category that he means to include me, I suppose) "won’t ask themselves, much less the candidates." This, of course, is a fantasy on his part. We are constantly asking, "What works; what doesn’t?" and "What would you change?" What we don’t do is ask it in the obsessive manner of a person whose only interest in discussing the subject is that he doesn’t want to pay for it. You’ll see what I mean. It’s in the way he words his questions.

The other odd thing about the list is that we answer these questions and ones like them every day on the editorial page — do this, don’t do that; this is working, that isn’t.

Anyway, here are his questions, followed by the more obvious answers:

"Which programs don’t work and should be abolshed right now?"
    Specifically? On the K-12 level, No Child Left Behind is an unwarranted intrusion of the federal government into a state function. Like all such Soviet-style, central-control devices, it is poorly thought-out, and takes little account of what really goes on in the classrooms across the land. It is also absurdly expensive. As far as I’m concerned, you can go ahead and close the federal Department of Education; there’s no adequate reason for it to exist.
    On the higher-ed level, you have a really target-rich environment in South Carolina. Start by ditching some of the more recent idiocies, such as Clemson starting a program at the other end of the state devoted to the Hunley. Then eliminate a lot of the smaller, more duplicative campuses — USC Salkehatchie, for instance.
    Generally? On the K-12 level, eliminate about 40 school districts. Put the state department of education under the governor. Let me know when you’ve gotten those huge jobs done; I’ll have more when you come back to me.
    On the higher ed, put the whole system (which right now isn’t a system, but a loose scattering of separate fiefdoms) under a Board of Regents, which will assign complementary roles for each (surviving) institution, fostering excellence and eliminating duplication. (Does some of this sound familiar? Sound like stuff the governor is calling for? Yes. And he got a lot of these ideas from The State; we’ve been pushing them for about 16 years. The biggest reason we’re frustrated with the governor these days is that he pushes his ideological nonsense such as PPIC rather than putting his political capital more fully onto restructuring.

"Why did management make yet another mistake of starting such failed programs?"
    Well, let’s see. The president started NCLB, along with Ted Kennedy, because he wanted to triangulate the Democrats.
    The rest of that stuff started long ago under the deliberately fragmented form of government we have here in South Carolina, where instead of focusing on excellence, we waste resources giving everybody something mediocre, or worse.

"Can’t we save enough money by ending the failed programs to pay for the next batch of new programs?"
    In higher ed, you could go a long way, but it probably wouldn’t be enough. And it’s not so much about programs as the fact that if you didn’t have so much duplication in institutions, you could invest enough to make the remaining institutions better. But you’d still be spending less than the states with excellent institutions of higher learning (North Carolina, for instance), and as long as you do that, you’ll stay behind.
    With K-12, you wouldn’t come close. You’d save some money, but not all that much. And the suburban schools would be fine (they always have been) but you’d still have the problem that we’ve never invested nearly enough in our poor, rural communities.
If you don’t like these answers, grow up. Paying for such things are the price for living in a decent society.
    On the federal level, you’d save a bunch, but I wouldn’t spend it on other educational programs. I’d put it toward paying down the national debt, or paying for the war. Those are proper federal functions that are going badly neglected.

"How much more money should taxpayers spend on government schools?"
    Enough to provide the same opportunity for a good education in the rural districts as in the suburbs. As for your deliberate use of the word "government," which you mean as a pejorative — only government ever can or ever will provide universal education in those areas. The idea that "the market" will provide magical educational opportunities in places that are so poor, and so sparsely populated, that the market won’t even build a Wal-Mart is laughable. So what if you let the money follow the kid? There aren’t enough kids to attract the market. The market has already spoken with regard to these communities — it has dismissed them.

"What exact results will come from that spending?"
    Slow progress. The conditions in poor, rural districts are horrific, and every step is taken against the tide. Bottom line is, folks who don’t want to spend on these districts just want to give up on them. We can’t do that. Even if you don’t care about them, they’re dragging the rest of the state down.

"How do you KNOW that the spending will produce those results?"
    Know? How the hell can I or you or anyone else know? I know that we have no sane alternative but to try, just as I believe we have no alternative but to continue to try in Iraq. The task is horrifically daunting, and a lot up to now hasn’t worked, but a lot has, and we can’t give up; we have to try harder. I’m talking about Iraq. But the same applies to our educational challenges in rural areas.

"What will be the rewards for success of those programs? What will be the punishment for failure?"
    The reward: A state that is no longer last where we want to be first. The punishment: A state that continues to be first where we want to be last.

"How will the taxpayers audit these programs to measure their cost effectiveness?"
    The same way they do now — through a bewildering array of statistics and paperwork. Perhaps you missed it, but the whole point of the Education Accountability Act, which has been guiding education reform in this state since 1998, is precisely what you are asking for. This is how citizens (which is what I assume you mean by your choice of the word "taxpayers") do such things in a representative democracy: They create bureaucracies to track the functions of government. And then they gripe about bureaucracies. This tail-chasing habit seems to be a large part of our heritage in the American system.

Here’s hoping I’ve been helpful.

Steak-vs.-Sizzle column

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Choosing the steak over the sizzle

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

KAREN FLOYD is the sizzle; Bob Staton is the steak.
    Carve it any way you like, that’s what you end up with in the GOP race for superintendent of education.
    Mr. Staton proposes (yawn) to push ahead on the sweeping, fundamental reforms that he and other business leaders initiated. The ones the education establishment’s defenders fought so hard.Staton The ones that are working.
    They proposed to set some of the highest standards in the state (which South Carolina has done), to test every child to make sure the schools teach those standards (which South Carolina is doing), and to bring the schools where kids aren’t meeting those standards up to snuff (which South Carolina has hardly begun to do).
    Continue pulling the schools up to high standards? Sounds like a lot of hard work, doesn’t it?
    Mrs. Floyd says things people like to hear. She’s a lawyer, but seems born for sales. As was said in the Charleston Post and Courier, she “has polished her presentation to a bright shine.”
    She is very open-minded. One of her best, most sizzling lines goes like this: “Given the state of education in South Carolina, it would be irresponsible to prohibit any reasonable idea, any possible solution from consideration merely out of a fear of change.”
    Sure. But what’s “reasonable”? There’s the rub. Mrs. Floyd is really reluctant to draw that clear line. When she finally does, she draws it in the wrong place.
Floyd_debate_1    Look at last week’s ETV/The State debate. I asked Mrs. Floyd whether her endorsement by Gov. Mark Sanford — whose one big idea with regard to public schools is to pay people to pull their kids out of them — meant that she was “completely in sync” with his education agenda.
    “I am absolutely a free thinker,” she said, noting that “there’s a wide spectrum” of views among her supporters … .
    But would she have voted, given the chance, for the governor’s proposal to give tax credits to private school parents, a plan called “Put Parents in Charge”?
    “You know, I purposefully have never discussed the PPIC legislation.” She would pull together all the stakeholders, and “put together a ‘choice’ program that would fit the needs of the state of South Carolina….”
    “But you didn’t really answer the question,” host Andy Gobeil objected.
    She said PPIC was “a moving target constantly,” with 42 amendments. She hadn’t wanted to “anchor” herself to what “may not be the final position.”
    I tried again: “But in the end, there was an amended — much amended — piece of legislation, and lawmakers did have to vote on it. And they had to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ So on that one that was finally voted on — this year, let’s say; let’s be specific: Yes or no?”
    She stopped sizzling: “The piece of legislation that was voted on this year, the last piece of legislation, was one that I would have supported, yes.” She had not wanted to answer that.
    “I did not support PPIC,” Mr. Staton answered. He went on to say we have to focus on improvingStaton_debate_1 our public schools, and that the problem with South Carolina is that every time we undertake a reform we abandon it before we’ve fully implemented it, and… I cut him off. I had my answer.
    Why the big deal on this one thing? You might just as well ask Mrs. Floyd that, since she was the one dodging it, but I’ll provide the answer: This is the one substantive point on which Mrs. Floyd and Mr. Staton differ. They both know that. To the extent that this race turns on issues of any kind, that point is the pivot, the fulcrum.
    And the stakes for South Carolina are incalculable.
    This is why the governor — who fundamentally does not believe in public schools — endorsed Mrs. Floyd last year, long before he could have known who else would be competing for his party’s banner. It’s why out-of-state anti-public school interests have pumped loads of money into the campaigns of not only Mrs. Floyd, but of anyone who will run against any Republican lawmaker who has had the guts to stand up and vote “no” to their proposal.
    For them, it’s the end-all and be-all. It is for our schools, too. And it is for you, whatever your political affiliation.
    If you’re a Republican, a vote for Bob Staton is a vote for South Carolina’s right to determine its own future. To vote for Mrs. Floyd is to side with out-of-state extremists who have vowed to take out any Republican who dares disagree with them.
    If you’re a Democrat, and you actually care about improving public schools (as Democrats always say they do), you’d better vote in the Republican primary for Bob Staton, rather than wasting your vote deciding whether Tommy Moore or Frank Willis will lose to the governor in the fall. This is the one that counts.
Floyd    And if you are an independent, this is your chance to step in and say that the public schools belong to you, too — not just the ideologues of various stripes.
    Mrs. Floyd is an intelligent, delightful, charming woman who is open to all sorts of good ideas. But she’s also open to one horrendous idea that undermines all the rest. It takes all the gloss off her “bright shine.”
    Mr. Staton doesn’t glow. He sweats, doing the heavy lifting of making all of our schools better.
    It’s not a very shiny proposition, but it’s a meaty one.

This is why they invented blogs

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I’ve received the exact same e-mail twice — or dozens of times, actually. But this is the first time I’ve ever received two identical tasteful notecards.
May31_002
At least, that’s what they appeared to be at first. One is actually an addendum to the other. Come to think of it, this still marks a first for me.

Anyway, the first note takes me to task for having what I am paid to have — opinions. Seriously, I did bend over backwards to be fair to the candidates at the debate (believe me, I took more grief than this from one of my colleagues for failing to be tough enough on someone with whom we disagree on the issue in question). Maybe, after 12 years in editorial, I’m just out of practice.

Anyway, the note says:

While the interviews with Candidates for Supt. of Education were informative, your objectivity as a moderator was lacking…

… and so forth and so on. The second note gets on me because:

… you gave Staton, 8 year EOC Member, a Pass, you addressed in your questions to him and others 0 about the fact more than half state, Local, Fed taxes allocated to K-12 never get to the classroom!

Well, I hope I can be forgiven for not addressing that "fact." My only excuse is that it isn’t a fact. It’s caught on wonderfully among the anti-school crowd, though, ever since the S.C. Policy Council put it out under the pretense of being a fact. As I recall (and I’m having trouble finding the background on that; please let me know if you can locate it), this number was arrived at by leaving out the cost of buses, cafeterias, the building the classroom was in, the light bill, etc. As if all those things were fripperies or something.

Anyway, this writer (who shall remain nameless, in deference to the notes being marked "personal") could have saved a lot of trouble by just checking out the blog and giving me what-for without limits, and without having to waste another nice notecard.

But I sort of like people who insist upon tradition. It’s reassuring.

Oh, and I need some feedback here: Is it tacky for me to show pictures of the notes, and cite partial content, when they were marked "personal?" I assumed that meant "not a letter to the editor." Does a blog count as indiscretion, or is that redundant?

… and here are MY initial thoughts

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Supt_debate
While you’re making up your mind, here are my first, no-looking-at-notes impressions of the candidates from the debate tonight:

  • Karen Floyd was pretty much as "Mr. Hatfield" described her: She presented herself well — generally remembering to address the camera (which is either being real mindful of you folksFloyd_debate at home, or rude to those with whom she is conversing, but the ETV professionals say it’s the thing to do) — but very slick. As I’ve said before, she’s smart. She knows what she wants to say, and what she doesn’t want to say. What she wants to say is that she’s open to public schools, private schools, good proposals from anybody, Mom, the flag and apple pie. What she doesn’t want to say is anything that will locate her specifically and precisely on the issue of whether tax money should go to rebates to parents who send their kids to private schools. You’ll notice she did finally say "yes," which she says sent her aide into a tizzy. Anyway, overall I think anyone scoring this thing would say she did quite well.
  • Bob Staton did a good job, too. He also remembered to keep talking to the camera. But he did more than that. I think anyone watching without any other knowledge of the candidatesStaton_debate would have come away seeing him as the solid and trustworthy. The issue for him is whether that’s going to be enough. Mr. Staton was the one person in the studio with extensive experience with education reform. For the past eight years, he’s been helping lead the process begun by the Education Accountability Act of 1998. Trouble is, the governor has the bulliest pulpit in this state, and he has accomplished one thing in the education arena — he’s managed to fool a lot of people into thinking that anyone who won’t abandon accountability altogether by throwing public money at private schools is somehow a mossbacked defender of the status quo. Those who have been doing the heavy lifting of implementing accountability in spite of the education establishment’s resistance have apparently been too stunned to offer an effective rebuttal to that. I’m not sure Mr. Staton gained much ground in that regard tonight.
  • Mike Ryan was of course the only actual educator in the room. His bestRyan_debate moment was when he cut in to refute the oft-repeated canard that with the PACT, teachers are just "teaching to the test." I was glad to hear him say (for the second time; he had also shared the observation with our editorial board) what is obvious to anyone who understands what the EAA is about: The teachers are teaching to the high curriculum standards that the EAA demanded. The test — which the teachers don’t get to see ahead of time — is merely a device to find out whether the kids are learning to those standards.
  • Elizabeth Moffley is earnest and I believe sincerelyMoffley_debate concerned, but I don’t think she made any further progress in letting me — or anyone else — know exactly why she’s in the race. I blame myself for a weak answer on her part in one case, though. When I had spoken with her before, she had rather forcefully made the point that private schooling for kids with special needs can well cost upwards of $20,000, making the subsidy provided by PPIC pretty laughable, even for those lucky enough to live in a metropolitan area that would attract such schools. I launched into the question thinking to remind her of that, and then got lost trying to ask it without telling her what her answer had been (thereby negating the need for her to speak at all). Considering how screwed up the question was, she recovered quite well.Wood_debate
  • Kerry Wood continues to have much the same problem. I fail to see why he wanted to be so cautious on some of the answers. If I had as little chance as he does to get into the runoff, I’d feel free to opine agressively on every point, not worrying about what anybody else thought about my opinions.

Frankly, if candidates Ryan, Moffley and Wood had bowed out, we could have had a really pointed, detailed discussion of the critical accountability-vs.-tax credits issue between the chief spokespeople for those positions — not to mention, the two most likely candidates to get into the runoff.

No, I’m not saying people who don’t have a chance don’t have a "right" to run (so hold the huffy comments about that). I’m just saying that debates such as this would be a lot more informative if they didn’t. You can’t get very far with five candidates in an hour. You can nail down a few critical issues with two, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of both PACT and choice. (And yes, there are things to be said for and against both, things that I fear most voters haven’t had time to examine in sufficient detail to be choosing the person who will oversee a larger part of state government than the governor does.)

Thoughts on the superintendent debate?

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Feedback time.

Did you see the superintendent of education debate tonight? If you didn’t, that’s no excuse. Here’s the link to the streaming video.

If so, please sound off here. What did you think?

I’ll come back and share my thoughts, but I thought I’d give you a place to get started. I’m a little behind at the moment, as when I went to the debate, I had left our kitchen sink — faucet, pipes, etc. — in pieces on the kitchen floor. I had to finish that job before getting to this.

By the way, I got ‘er done. No leaks (so far).