School plan must help those who lack choice

e-mail this story discuss this issue in our forums Paul Hyde • School plan must help those who lack choice (02/23/05) • Bush gets bum rap on AIDS (08/12/04) • Even the shortsighted can drive (03/18/04) • Welcome, Dems, to an uneasy state (01/28/04) • 'Cold Mountain' adds to South's long debate (01/14/04)

But he has a strange way of showing it.

Statements by Sanford and his spokesman have played right into the hands of critics who claim this governor, who sends his own children to private school, is hostile toward public schools.

Those critics say Sanford's school-choice initiative, known as Put Parents in Charge, aims to undermine the public schools attended by 670,000 South Carolina young people.

So far, Sanford has failed to convince South Carolinians that critics are wrong — partly because he and his staff have made disparaging remarks about public schools.

Talk about a tin-ear strategy: The Sanford administration can't advance a school choice plan by bashing public schools. Those are the schools most of us attended and most of our children will continue to attend.

The Sanford administration's statements have been disheartening for those of us who support school choice if it provides real alternatives for students from low-income families who want to escape failing schools.

But Sanford loses our support when his spokesman makes nails-on-a-chalkboard statements like this: The "education bureaucracy ... can keep over two-thirds of the $9,800 it currently spends attempting to educate each individual child, and we'll give parents access to the marketplace with the other third to make sure someone is actually educating the child."

That reeks of animosity toward public schools. Private schools educate, he implies, public schools don't. What a slap in the face to our hardworking public school teachers.

It makes Sanford sound like the public schools' chief critic, rather than what he should be — their chief advocate.

That's the problem: Sanford's focus is lopsided. It's all about providing tax credits to benefit private schools when it should also be about building up the public schools.

It's not enough to say that school-choice competition makes public schools improve. Competition may help, but Sanford's plan bludgeons public schools with sticks while offering no carrots. No wonder South Carolinians are suspicious.

Most South Carolinians actually like their public schools. Many of those schools do an excellent job of educating children.

That's why any plan that puts taxpayer money into private schools should be balanced with ideas to improve public schools. How about reducing class sizes? How about investing more money in early education? How about announcing an ambitious plan to raise public school teacher salaries to the national average?

Bold public school initiatives would silence the critics and generate greater support among skeptics for school choice.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Sanford's plan is that it's far too sweeping. An estimated 95 percent of South Carolina families, with a taxable income of up to $75,000, would qualify. That would include even the relatively well-to-do. Thus, the tax credit seems a $200 million giveaway to families who already have the wherewithal to put their kids in private school.

That's not what it should be. Because school choice will divert taxpayer money from public to private schools, the plan should be limited. It should provide alternatives for students who are stuck in underachieving schools and have no other choices. Well-to-do families already have choices.

Sanford and state lawmakers should scale down Put Parents in Charge, lowering the income requirements to $40,000 or less. They need to deal forthrightly with other issues such as transportation and the fact that private schools can reject students who most need help.

We need limited school choice. We also need stronger public schools.

Sanford, as the state's chief executive, should be South Carolina's No. 1 advocate for public schools, not their No. 1 critic. Write to Paul Hyde, associate editorial page editor, at phyde@greenvillenews.com.