State should stay the course of academic excellence

e-mail this story discuss this issue in our forums Guest column • Ernest F. Hollings: Failure of 'free press' to report truth endangers lives, money (12/16/04) • By Marc H. Wilson : Enjoy the symbols of the season (12/14/04) • Tom Swatzel: Professor fails test on education reform issue (12/13/04) • Ed Leap: Here's advice for shopping for that special woman (12/12/04) • David Shi: Cultures must learn from their mistakes (12/12/04) More details Dr. Paul Krohne is executive director of the South Carolina School Boards Association, a nonprofit organization serving as a source of information and a statewide voice for the school boards governing the 85 public school districts.

These groups are going to great lengths to deceive South Carolinians into believing a tax credit for parents to pay for tuition to a private or parochial school or home school is the answer to improving public schools.

Their voucher plan, known as the Put Parents in Charge Act, drains vital resources from your public schools. Tragically, through their rhetoric, the steady gains achieved by your public schools in recent years are being distorted and attacked. News headlines touting school and district report card results only confirm public school teachers, parents and students are well on the way of reaching our state's goal of being in the top half of states nationally by the year 2010. Consider a few national achievements:

The conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research ranks South Carolina 26th in academic performance and 24th in spending money efficiently, among the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

South Carolina has the nation's third-best improvement rate in mathematics and the fourth-best improvement in reading on federal National Assessment Education Progress (NAEP) tests.

S.C. high school seniors have improved their average SAT score by 32 points in the past five years, the largest gain in the country and three times the national increase.

In 1998, elected, business and education leaders collaborated to pass the landmark Education Accountability Act (EAA) as a measured plan for securing an economically viable future for our state. By focusing on increasing achievement for every student, business leaders often referred to the legislation as the "road map for our journey to academic excellence." In addition to rigorous subject standards and assessments, the EAA has a "carrot and stick" component to award high-performing and improving schools and target assistance to low-performing schools.

Now, tuition tax credit/voucher proponents want the same leaders who wholeheartedly supported the EAA to make a U-turn in our journey by abandoning public schools and the children they serve. They want public money to pay for tuition to private and parochial schools and home schools — institutions that are not held to same accountability standards or public financial disclosure. This lack of accountability can lead to disaster.

Consider a study of Milwaukee's school voucher program by the Public Policy Forum. The lack of student achievement data in voucher schools kept parents and the public from making informed decisions about the performance of voucher schools. "The system was supposed to operate in a private marketplace, but with so little information, parents know less about schools than the products they buy at the grocery store," stated researcher Emily Van Dunk in a Jan. 21, 2004, Associated Press news story.

Despite their proponents' claims, tuition tax credit/voucher programs do not result in more money for public schools, do not improve public school performance through a "competitive market," and do not result in any remarkable student achievement gains. A review of all tuition tax credit/voucher studies by some of the nation's leading education researchers formed by the Washington, D.C- based Economic Policy Institute concludes that these programs show no evidence:

To support school vouchers for poor children as a promising strategy for attaining meaningful differences in student achievement.

To support that the competition factor makes any impact on improving public schools.

To support public schools saved money by losing students and can have a negative financial impact on public schools.

Tuition tax credit/voucher programs operate as open-ended draws against a state's general revenues. This results in annual unstable budgets for schools and state agencies providing vital services and creates a high risk for misuse of public funds by private entities. Just read the numerous scandals that have rocked Florida's tuition tax/voucher program on the Palm Beach Post Web site (www.palmbeachpost.com). A couple of cases uncovered by the newspaper are:

A Tampa Islamic school named in a federal terrorism indictment received $350,000 from Florida taxpayers through the corporate tax credit program (July 1, 2004).

A tuition tax credit scholarship organization in Florida is under investigation for the disappearance of $400,000. The head of the organization was previously arrested and charged with fraud, racketeering, conspiracy and drug trafficking (Aug. 24, 2003).

Our state's future as a thriving economy, democracy and culture rests solidly within the doors of your public schools, which are universally available to all children. The answer lies not in an imaginary "silver bullet" but in our courage to stay the course on our journey to academic excellence.