GOV. MARK SANFORD’S 2005 legislative agenda shows him having improved not a whit on what remains the glaring weakness in his portfolio — public education. Mr. Sanford has made tax credits for private education and “flexibility” in school funding the hallmarks of his education agenda.

On the tax credits, Mr. Sanford is fond of citing evidence he says shows that vouchers and tax credits have improved academic results in other states. Interpretations to the contrary abound. While Mr. Sanford dallies with this notion, attempting to convert legislators who see the folly of the idea, legitimate reform is under way in our state, without the governor’s involvement.

Look no further than the school report cards, released last week. The accountability system is working and getting results. Williamsburg County, a high-poverty area, is sustaining an “average” rating through intense local commitment to change. In Chester County, another high-poverty area, an innovative principal at Chester High School helped raise its grade to “average” through school-based improvement programs. These are real reforms working to benefit the very South Carolinians who most need the promise offered by the public schools.

On funding, Mr. Sanford would have one believe school leaders are hamstrung by unreasonable constraints on the way they can spend state education dollars. He and his advisers have latched onto the buzzword “silos” to describe these funding categories. That’s clever and sounds like the latest reform-speak, but the problem isn’t the way state education dollars are categorized. The problem is there aren’t enough of them.

School boards and county councils with the legal authority and adequate tax base to do so have raised their local property taxes to make up for state funding cuts. In areas without local resources, the schools have simply been forced to cut, whether that means fewer teaching positions or reduced classroom supplies. Flexibility in state school funding these days offers poor districts exactly one freedom — the power to decide which painful cuts they will make on their own.

On what should be the Legislature’s top educational funding priority — restoring the Education Finance Act’s per-pupil formula — Mr. Sanford is worse than silent. His rhetoric is destructive. He calculates state education funding as having increased, and argues that increase is buying lowered results. There is no credible explanation for this outrageous misinterpretation of the facts. Basic classroom funding, the lifeblood of our public schools, has been cut by unprecedented amounts. And schools are getting better in spite of this.

In his total legislative package, Mr. Sanford lays out a vision that would do any state well. He calls for greater individual and corporate prosperity and less looking to government for all of the answers. That is a sound vision. However, it is one that can never be achieved without full support for public education.

There are principled people all over our state — political liberals and conservatives alike — who have united behind and are working toward a better vision for public education every day. The best education agenda Mr. Sanford could adopt would be to place his own muscle behind this effort. If he can’t help, the very least he could do is stop offering destructive proposals that will derail the progress under way.