Parents are already in charge if they choose to be

January 29, 2005

It would be hard not to like Gov. Mark Sanford, from his frequent grin to his obvious charisma to his willingness to accept criticism without taking it personally.

But perhaps he should take it more to heart, with regard to giving consideration that while his goals may be admirable, his path to those goals might have a few unneeded — and unwise — twists and turns.

The Wednesday night State of the State address from Columbia gave forth few surprises. His goals in his first speech to the state were repeated, in essence, in his third.

We recognize, and agree, that it is a global economy, that we should indeed be prepared to educate our citizens to compete in it. We appreciate that he sees we cannot isolate ourselves and ignore the effect the economy in other states and other nations eventually has on our own.

And we understand, and agree without reservation, that education must continually improve for our state to prosper and that money is not the only solution to those improvements.

Neither is Put Parents in Charge. We cannot comprehend how the governor reasons that public education will be helped by rewarding those who don’t participate in the process, by giving tax credits to parents who choose private schools or home schooling for their children. Those tax credits would amount to $200 million. Nowhere in his speech did Mr. Sanford speak to the cost to public schools of those credits.

Parents are already in charge — if they choose to be.

Parents are in charge of their children’s education by taking part in it, by attending PTA meetings, by knowing their children’s teachers, by encouraging their children at home, by understanding that while teachers have a job to do, parents do as well. They can’t simply send their children off and expect that their input is neither necessary nor expected.

Parents are in charge when they work with teachers and administrators, when they volunteer in the classroom, when they help with homework or support their children’s extracurricular activities.

The tax credit proposal won’t simply take money from public schools; it will dilute parental and community support of specific schools, schools where it is most needed. And we fear that the tax credit plan will encourage yet another generation of "white flight," where children lose the opportunity to learn and grow socially as well as academically.

Our governor speaks often about the global marketplace, about the economy, about growing our state through attracting and encouraging small business owners. The basis of an economy, of components of a community’s quality of life, of the future is in strong public education.

Put Parents in Charge will not strengthen public education; it will take money from the public sector and place it, without the accountability our public schools adhere to, in the private sector. And while in his speech Mr. Sanford said "public schools will improve with competition," nowhere did he give specifics of how public schools would improve when faced with decreased funding that will result from the "competition" he has proposed.

In his speech, Mr. Sanford made reference to the Board of Economic Advisors’ estimates that "education funding in our state will top $9,800 per student in the 2005 budget ... up from $4,000 20 years ago and $7,800 just five years ago." But those numbers are overall education expenses, not the per-pupil funding that is mandated by the School Finance Act yet remains unmet. In addition, the amount of the tax credit proposed per student who attends private school or is home schooled exceeds the state’s present per-pupil expenditure

He spoke as well about our state’s high dropout rate, that half of our students who begin the 9th grade don’t graduate the 12th. But will that rate improve if our public school system is not strengthened rather than diluted through encouraging parents economically to pull out of the public system? Parents may choose to educate their children in a different setting; but public money should not be used to support those private or home-school choices.

We agree education must improve; but we also see that there have been improvements which are being ignored in the name of political expediency.

There are other areas of the governor’s proposed budget we will discuss in future editorials. But we believe Put Parents in Charge, while a catchy slogan that likely appeals to some emotionally, will harm public education. That’s our bottom line today.

We believe our lawmakers must recognize that if our state doesn’t properly fund and support public education, if we instead reward those who do not participate in its nurturing, we are setting this generation — and future generations — up for failure rather than achievement, economic uncertainty rather than prosperity.

A society is judged by a few simple criteria: How it treats the most needy of its citizens. How it cares for those who cannot care for themselves. How it prepares its children for the future.

How will we be judged if we allow public education to be supplanted by a catch-phrase approach?

Copyright 2005, Anderson Independent Mail. All Rights Reserved.