EDUCATION REFORM ISSUE NOW SQUARELY IN THE LAP OF STATE LEGISLATURE
|| By FITSNEWS || Just in time for school choice week, the S.C. Supreme Court has rejected the government’s attempt to revisit a controversial November 2014 ruling involving South Carolina’s worst-in-the-nation government-run school system.
The ruling – which has serious constitutional ramifications – represented an unambiguous rebuke not only of the Palmetto State’s “public” education system, but also of efforts to reform it via additional funding.
“Spending fails to provide students with the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education,” the court wrote in its ruling. “Rather, the evidence demonstrates that there is a clear disconnect between spending and results.”
Um … duh. We’ve been saying that for years.
Anyway … the state tried to petition for a rehearing of the case, but the justices shot down the request.
“After careful consideration of the petitions for rehearing, we are unable to discover that any material fact or principle of law has been either overlooked or disregarded, and hence, there is no basis for granting a rehearing,” a statement from the court read. “Accordingly, petitions for rehearing are denied.”
Good … we agree there are constitutional questions related to the court’s ruling, but there can be no questioning its conclusion: That an ever-escalating taxpayer investment has failed to improve the state’s government-run school system.
New S.C. Speaker of the House Jay Lucas seems to get that …
“Today’s Supreme Count announcement further confirms the dire need for comprehensive education reform,” Lucas said. “In light of the Court’s decision to deny a rehearing, I am hopeful that the House Education Task Force will immediately begin its work to develop a robust strategy that ensures every child is given access to the best possible education in every part of our state.”
Lucas doesn’t have to look too far for “robust” ideas.
Two South Carolina Senators – Tom Davis and Kevin Bryant – recently made their case for an expansion of the state’s fledgling parental choice program. (To read their editorial, CLICK HERE).
Let’s hope lawmakers in both chambers move quickly to expand choice …
45 comments
I doubt that will happen. It is about politics, not about learning with that bunch.
Will the courts also REQUIRE minimally adequate parents, who actually CARE for their children, or be put in JAIL?????
Government cannot spend enough to replace a student’s father and mother…no matter what FITS and the ignorant Liberals preach to you about government, and it being a panacea…
50 years of The Great Society, and we’re going BACKWARDS in Democrat voting communities…go figure…
We’re going backwards in the damn state, damned Tango…
No…you and the people yall vote for are screw ups..Too stupid to do the right thing….Democrats are bass ackward.
You’re getting a bit trite with my name, sir.
FUNNY, REPUBLICANS RUN THIS STATE AND THE OTHER STATES IN THE EDUCATIONAL SHITTER…
Nikki, Democrat, House, Democrat, Senate, Democrat, I’m confused. Seems like we live in a backward Republican state.
If you are lookin to govt to make you whole…that might be you problem. Get off your lazy @$$ and contribute. ..quit begging…
I can see by this reply that you must be one of those the system failed to educate.
I can see from your posts that you sit on your @$$ and think the government is supposed to take money from WORKING taxpayers…and give it to the ignorant, drunk and lazy…like you…
I don’t look for the government to meet my needs…therefore I’m not always BASHING people who have the will and integrity to try to provide for themselves, instead of demanding hand-outs from Obama and Co. (like you do)….
Says the man on Medicaid…
Hatefully Delusional Much?
You are correct that there needs to be better parenting. Parents going to the school and raising hell at the teacher and doing little or nothing themselves. However, there is a different problem with funding. Rich/Lex 5 has money out the kazoo due to the property tax they generate but the poorer districts can’t do this.
If thr RichLex 5 p! $$#d on their kids future…like Democrat voters…the kids would be just as bass ackward…
Stop trying to use tax payer dollars to privatize schools already. That’s been done with the prison system in parts of this country with shitty results. Privatization of public services is not a good idea.
But, but, but, it sounds so “market” like. It has to work don’t you know?
Taxpayer $ is ours..not the Democrat Partys…..keep your vulgar and failed religion out of our schools…remember Seperation…
“Stop trying to use tax payer dollars to privatize schools already.”
Good to see that you’re for tax breaks instead of vouchers.
whatEVER you do, don’t TEST children to see if they’ve learned anything!
and if you DO test… for God’s sake, don’t test for life skills, civics and general knowledge!
Any testing recommended by experts in the field that has been thoroughly researched using a broad consensus approach must be from tha debil
education means conviction.
religious that is.
I was thinking Harrelson.
Well played sir.
The wording for my ruling would be more like this… “a sizable number of this state’s students and their parents are thoroughly stupid and will never seek to take advantage of opportunities to obtain a minimally adequate education”. Given this wording, one would conclude that increases or decreases to school budgets would have little to no impact on educational results.
Seems like I’ve read this before
Well, heck! If we can’t fix bad parenting why don’t we just give up on public education? … Idiots.
As our Funding Editor has said over and over and over. Fix the problems facing public education, then maybe we will discuss Howie’s voucher scam.
Fix the shameful “minimally adequate” standard, fix the funding issues, fix the latent racism and related social ills.
Then, maybe, we will discuss the voucher scam proposed by Howie the Voucher Clown and pimped by sic(k) willie and a handful of bought and paid for elected officials.
Vouchers are a scam because they would do nothing to help those who need help the most.
S.C. has “school choice.” Has had it for years. Send your kids to any school you choose. Just don’t rob tax money to pay for private schools.
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flare and Balanced
“Just don’t rob tax money”
Don’t steal from the looters.
Davis just doesn’t want to have to pay for his and his girlfriend’s kids’ school. Child support is a bitch.
WHOA!!! What?! Spill it!
“Spending fails to provide students with the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education,”
That doesn’t matter to the educrats. They are gonna get your money one way or the other.
Take it to the US Supreme Court!
If the state dealt in facts and reality, education would too.
Teaching children just leads to liberal education.
So smartie, why are Republican states the fastest growing in GDP and migration?
First of all, the red states make lower wages than the blue states. Not as hard to increase 5 dollars an hour as it is to increase 250,000 a year. The southern state residents were also insulated to some extent with food stamps and medicaid against the Republican-led downturn.
One of the reasons the red states absorb so much more of the federal tax dollars is low state taxes. Red States benefitted more from energy during the downturn – namely oil. Unfortunately, that windbreak just blew away.
The red states are also taking advantage of more and better paid federal employees in the various government health care programs, many of whom also come from blue states.
The poor southern states are willing to offer low wages, cheap land, and incentives to businesses, who are interested in cashing in on their generosity without respect to the crumbling infrastructure and lack of education.
The scheme seems to be to rape the natural resources of the South for pennies on the dollar without paying into the tax base to compensate for it, while depending on the migration of workers who benefited from blue state investment in their education.
So the red states have unashamedly begun to help enrich outside businesses and multinational corporations with resources which should be used to help their constituents. Instead of investing in local grassroots businesses and better education, they artificially create jobs to attract non-residents with better education, while neglecting their own. I would imagine this trend is driven by the rich in the red states who care nothing for their constituents, but have become adept at getting kickbacks for selling out their state.
Though the jobs are there, the lower wages will eventually lead to the blue state workers next generation suffering from the same problems the South suffered from before the sell-out… with even more people without the skills to compete.
As we have seen, the blue state migration sometimes doesn’t keep up with the expansion of low-wage jobs, so some local residents are hired, which is a disaster for the businesses who do so… often leaving in shambles after having greased the palms of politicians and local businessmen for generous incentives.
If the government TAKES money from one responsible community, and gives it to a beggar district that practices ignorant behavior and misguided voting patterns…is that not taxation, w/o representation???..
If you are going to BEG money from your fellow South Carolinaian, because you have failed to adequately fund your children’s needs, should I not be able to Control your schools…???
If you want me to be your benefactor…I must also have the right to teach you RIGHT, if you are irresponsible, stupid and un-disciplined….
Will you agree to that simple premise?
If the government TAKES money from one responsible community, and gives
it to a beggar district that practices ignorant behavior and misguided
voting patterns…is that not taxation, w/o representation???..
If the federal government TAKES money from one responsible state, and gives it to a beggar state that practices ignorant behavior and misguided voting patterns…is that not taxation, w/o representation???..
(Let’s all forget that the November elections, where we chose people to represent us at the state and federal level, was only a little more than two months ago.)
“Spending fails to provide students with the opportunity to obtain a minimally adequate education,” the court wrote in its ruling.
I have the feeling the court was saying that S.C.’s token amounts of funding were not adequate. Spending on rural schools in S.C. is very low. S.C. mooches off federal funding like Title 1 for most of its funding.
Maybe more funds isn’t a panacea, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that S.C. has discovered that more funding is a failure. S.C. has not even tried to adequately fund its rural schools.
If it’s a Title 1 school, are you saying the state government gets the funding, not the school?
Until we admit that our real problem is a demographic one, not an educational one, we will never be able to address this problem. Our rural schools produce some fine scholars who go on to be great successes in life. Other kids, going to the same schools, do not do this. Why? They are not provided with encouragement, preparation and inspiration from home starting at an early age. Therein lies the problem and if we don’t fix that we will never fix the “education” problem even if we privatized all the schools. Privatization would make it easier to sweep the problem under the rug but it would not solve it.
Since Republicans, as an ideology, believe that the people who file and lose frivolous lawsuits should pay all the court costs and the legal fees for the other side, will the SC supreme court order that to happen or will Haley and the GOP legislature stand up and do what they demand of others?
To all those complaining about the parents, keep in mind that about 20% of the population has IQs between about 85 and 71 (70 is the cut-off to be classified as mentally retarded).
If you accept that some people have genius IQs, some have average and some are mentally retarded (MR), you have to accept that some are below average and above MR. You know some of these people. Some are in our families.
Any vocational evaluator can tell you that as IQs move lower from about 85, people have more and more problems with multi-step job tasks.
Is parenting not a multi-step job task that actually changes and evolves month by month for 18 years? And, changes once again with the next individual child that is born to that parent; all kids are different.
If we don’t find a way to help and support the below average parents do a decent parenting job for 18 years with their children – average, below average, genius and MR – those children may not be able to break free of the cycle in which their parents are trapped.
Crony capitalist private schools can’t do it; they aren’t interested. Public schools can’t do it alone. It takes way more services to the families over years – not just the jump in and jump out that they sometimes get from DSS – than we have been able/willing to provide.
Demonizing below average IQ parents and not doing everything we can to help and continually support them be better parents gets us nowhere.
The first reform that could be done to the public system is to consolidate the different county districts into a single district. There’s multiple overlap and redundency in administrative functions that would reduce overhead costs and allow funds available for special programs to address problem schools rather than pay bloated bureaucrats. Also, by having a countywide district, the single district is scored based on all the schools – so if there are underperforming schools, or at risk schools, the district will be forced to address it. As it right now, you can have Distric 1 in Pukeville County having great schools, and District 4 has crappy schools, and District 1 isn’t going to do anything about it. But if District 1 and 4 were combined, the administration would have to make it a priority – because Pukeville County is rated in total. The mulitiple district set up was a way to avoid segregation – or even equal (and not so separate). Poor black areas are one district, rich white areas are another district. Get rid of that and start viewing it all as a single district.
Oops! There goes Queen Nimrata’s income tax cut for the wealthy.