Improve our schools by overhauling the system

e-mail this story discuss this issue in our forums Guest column • Reggie Ecarma: King's vision did not see special preferences for anyone (01/17/05) • Rhett Jackson< and Lonnie Randolph Jr.: Legislature must make school funding adequate, equitable (01/16/05) • Andrew Sorensen and Ray Greenberg: Expansion of College of Pharmacy shows great vision (01/16/05) • Bobby Harrell: Housing serves Greenville Tech students, community (01/14/05) • Robert A. Wilson: Housing serves Greenville Tech students, community (01/13/05) More details Dan Tripp, a small businessman and lifelong Republican, has represented the Mauldin-area District 28 in the South Carolina House of Representatives for more than 10 years. Readers may write to him at thetrippagency@yahoo.com or call him at 627-1095.

Mr. Krohne is the top bureaucrat representing all school superintendents in South Carolina. As such, he represents the people who spend $6.5 billion of your tax money each year to deliver what is widely considered the worst overall education system in the nation. His job is to defend the indefensible.

Consider just a few facts:

South Carolina has the worst dropout rate in the nation. Of every 100 children who enter the ninth grade, only 49 will graduate. This places us 51st in the nation (behind even Washington, D.C.).

We have the lowest SAT scores in the nation, dropping from 49th to 50th. Our ACT scores are 49th.

According to the National Assessment Education Progress (NAEP), three out of four eighth-graders cannot read or do basic math at a "proficient" level, while four out of five cannot write proficiently.

The state PACT tests confirm these dismal numbers in reading and math while also showing that a staggering 80 percent of our kids are not proficient at science and more than 75 percent are not proficient at social studies. And, as former Superintendent of Education Barbara Nielsen points out, the PACT standards may actually overestimate how well our kids are doing!

Mr. Krohne ignores all these facts and instead attacks "Put Parents in Charge" with falsehoods. So let's set the record straight.

"Put Parents in Charge" allows parents to use voluntary tax credits to defray expenses for an alternative education environment. These alternatives can be independent schools, home schooling or, where space is available, other public schools. There is no "public money" involved.

Without a shred of evidence, Mr. Krohne asserts that this will mean less money for schools and all other functions of government. Not true. Local budgets remain untouched since the credit only applies to funds already being spent on education. And, since the local school districts keep all local property tax money and all federal money and no longer have the cost of educating the child, public schools come out ahead.

We are told of a few cases in other states where independent school administrators were not honest with the money. What Mr. Krohne doesn't tell you is that all of these schools were promptly put out of business — most were turned in by parents looking out for their children.

But what happened to public schools in Sumter 17 and Richland 1 when administrators embezzled millions of dollars? What happened to the Aiken County after they found sex offenders in the schools? What happened to school districts that spend more on bureaucrats and fancy buildings than they do in the classroom? Nothing happened to them — except that they get more tax money to keep "educating children."

Once you eliminate all the deceptions, distortions and rhetoric, you are left with the hard truth. While some public schools in South Carolina work fairly well, there are many more that don't work at all. There is something fundamentally broken in a system that spends as much as we do and remains dead last in terms of achievement.

Mr. Krohne and his cronies always want to point the finger at others. They blame the General Assembly. They blame the governor. They blame the parents. They'll point at anyone and everyone but the negligent, wasteful, incompetent bureaucrats who will never themselves take responsibility for failing our state's children.

But assigning blame won't help. To improve our children's future, we must fundamentally overhaul the system. The only question is who will administer the reforms: the bureaucrats who put us in this situation, or parents?

The governor, a broad coalition of citizens and many in the General Assembly believe it should be the parents who decide, not the bureaucrats. Only time will tell if parents and taxpayers will prevail or if the special interests will successfully stifle reform again.

All available evidence proves that empowering parents helps, rather than hurts, public schools. Forced to compete and compelled to respond to the parents, the public schools will show rapid improvement. Required to respond to market forces, public schools innovate to raise achievement and direct spending to the classroom, not the central office.

It would be easy to wring our hands, tinker around the edges and throw money at our education problems. It is more difficult to undertake realistic, meaningful reform. But if we care about the future of our children and our state, we will not take the easy road. Deluding ourselves, as Mr. Krohne would have us do, only condemns another generation of children to an inferior education. It is time to open our eyes and be truthful. It's time to put the parents in charge.