MULLINS - Gov. Mark Sanford visited Palmetto Middle School in Mullins on Friday to get a firsthand view of what is happening in Marion County’s education system.

Marion School District 2 Superintendent Dr. Jerry Leviner invited Sanford to tour the school and meet with students, teachers and administrators.

Sanford said he wanted to make the visit because of what he said during his State of the State address in January concerning adverse educational issues facing the state’s economically depressed school districts.

During his address, the governor said he could not imagine any parent shedding tears of joy if their children were going to school in Marion or Allendale counties.

“I’ve been invited to come over this way in light of what I’ve said in the State of the State,” Sanford said. “I wanted to come over this way and visit the school.”

The governor spoke with one class and taught them a lesson incorporating civics and the importance of staying involved with their local, state and national governments when they become old enough to vote. He said it is imperative that they make the most of their education because they one day soon will find themselves having to compete in a global work force.

Sanford also commented on several other key issues including his Put Parents in Charge Act, which would allow parents state tax credits if they were to take their child out of a failing public school and either homeschool or enroll them into either a parochial or private educational facility.

“That’s certainly controversial, but I think its an important controversy because at the heart of the issue is a debate about how do you improve education in South Carolina?” he said. “There are a lot of teachers, a lot of principals out there doing a great job and trying very hard. But at the systemic level, we’ve got something wrong in what we do in first through 12th grade.”

The governor said he has no plans to visit Marion School District 7, which is located in the poorest and most rural part of the county.

“This (Palmetto Middle School), I think, is reflective overall of PACT (Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test) performance in the district, ” Sanford said.

Marion 7 also is one of eight districts named as plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit against the state for what they say is inadequate funding of public schools.

The plaintiff school districts argued that it’s time to end the reign of two South Carolinas, where poor, rural school districts continue to lose out and affluent suburban districts excel.

The state’s attorneys contended that the state has done enough in that every child has facilities, teachers and access to resources that are far above minimally adequate, exceeding the state’s constitutional requirements as defined in the 1999 Abbeville decision.

An earlier finance lawsuit in 1988 was unsuccessful, finding that the state’s school financing mechanism was a “rational and constitutional means by which to equalize the educational standards of the public school system.”

The education clause of the state constitution states that South Carolina shall provide “free public schools open to all children in the state.”

The districts then decided to broaden their focus to include the concept of adequacy.

The lawsuit was filed Nov. 2, 1993, in Lee County by 29 rural and poor school districts. More districts later joined to form the alliance of 36 represented by the eight plaintiff districts.

- Staff Writer Angela Crosland contributed to this report.

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