Recently, the S.C. Parents-Teachers Association issued a startling nine-page document purporting to be "Questions and Answers" about the education-reform bill, Put Parents In Charge. The work is remarkably flawed for several reasons:

It virtually ignores the problem of low achievement and possible solutions;

It is littered with misinformation about the proposal's purpose and details;

It clearly illustrates the politicization of the PTA - once an honorable, nonpartisan organization.

Gov. Mark Sanford's education reform plan did not come out of thin air. It was a carefully crafted response to today's statewide education crisis. We simply cannot continue to be last in the nation in SATs and ACTs, last in high school graduation and have only one in four eighth-graders proficient in reading and writing. Sanford's Contract for Change was designed to make South Carolina a better place to live, work and do business, both to improve our quality of life today and to secure the future for our children.

Sadly, only one-half page out of the nine-page PTA document addresses what we ought to do to improve our children's education; its "solutions" boiled down to pursuing the same strategies while increasing spending. For a state that has already increased spending but failed to lift results, the PTA's approach is not appealing.

The other side of the spending coin is, of course, taxes. The PTA is against Put Parents in Charge because it provides tax relief in the form of a voluntary tax credit. PTA contends that only tax increases for education are good while tax cuts for parents are bad.

But we've had tax increases for years - without school improvement. Would tax relief that enabled lower- and middle-income parents to choose their kids' schools really be such a bad thing?

The PTA's radical, pro-tax/anti-reform policy is symptomatic of its strange worldview.

The PTA is wedded to a state-run school system that puts bureaucrats in charge instead of parents. It relies on the institution we call "public schooling" to fulfill our ideals of public education. In other words, public schooling has become the sole means of fulfilling the end goal of public education. But it has become obvious from the dismal achievement levels and high dropout rates that simply counting on the current system is putting all our eggs in one dilapidated basket. Unfortunately, the PTA opposes reforms designed to give parents real choice and children real opportunity. They have come to care more about preserving the system than teaching kids.

In its rear-guard effort to save a system that has failed generations of children, the PTA has discredited itself. The PTA is supposed to make schools and districts run better in the name of the community and its children. When I was in school, PTA helped with fund-raisers and extracurricular activities. But today's PTA produces propaganda intended to serve as a weapon in a pitched partisan battle. A group that was once committed to community service is now the tool of political parties and special interest groups.

The PTA's latest attack piece is also littered with misstatements about Put Parents in Charge that would be alarming if they weren't so regrettably common. They claim that PPIC is a voucher when it's a tax credit; that it lacks accountability when parental oversight is maximized; that it would exacerbate inequality when it provides equal opportunity for all. The PTA's misinformation is too voluminous to counter in detail, so a short summary from one of the bill's main backers will have to suffice instead.

Put Parents in Charge co-sponsor Lewis Vaughn, R- Greenville, says it best: "Parents ought to have not only the right, but the capability, to send their child to any school they choose. Under the current system, many cannot do that. This proposal levels the playing field for families so that every parent can find the best educational environment possible for their child."