Strange time for governor’s private school plan

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate but equal” public education was a sham that had no place in the fabric of America. The South Carolina component of that case, Briggs v. Elliott, was first heard in a courtroom in Clarendon County. It’s sadly ironic that 50 years later our state is enmeshed in a new legal battle over equitable funding for public schools. It’s especially sad that the battle still has racial, and possibly partisan, overtones.

The districts seeking equitable funding are predominantly African-American in student population and include counties that are suffering for lack of economic development. Those districts have difficulty attracting and retaining teachers and have limited local tax resources.

JoAnne Anderson of the state’s Educational Oversight Committee aptly described the problem in her testimony in the present case. She said that people along the I-95 corridor are buying lottery tickets to fund scholarships that often go to students along the I-85 corridor. It also should be noted that the well-developed counties along the I-85 corridor traditionally vote Republican and the suffering counties along the I-95 corridor traditionally vote Democratic.

Our state’s long tradition of educational inequity cannot be ignored as our Legislature prepares to consider Gov. Mark Sanford’s plan to encourage more parents to either send their children to private schools or choose to provide home schooling. The governor’s plan would allow parents to claim tax credits for private school tuition and home schooling resources, with the supposed intent of offering new choices to parents and encouraging market creativity in our schools. While I hope that the governor’s plan is well-intentioned, it’s the wrong plan at the wrong time.

Parents exercising the proposed choice would still have to pay tuition up front and claim the itemized exemption at tax time, which would create a hardship for many parents of modest means. Parents of modest means would also have to deal with the added costs of transportation and supplies in addition to tuition, as well as the necessary extracurricular expenses required for their children to compete, adjust and be accepted by their peers.

The governor’s plan also flies in the face of accountability trends and strengthens a “private system” that has no state oversight. Private schools and home schooling in our state are not subject to the standards of state and federal accountability that are applied to public schools, and private school students in our state are not required to prove their educational achievement on a test such as PACT.

Parents considering choice have no objective measure of the quality of private schools or of how those schools compare to the public schools their children otherwise would attend. Market competition may rightfully decide how one company flourishes while another fails. Education, however, is about children’s lives and not about commodities.

The governor’s plan does not frankly deal with the fact that any tax dollars taken away from public schools have a negative impact on public education. Public schools need involved parents and skilled teachers, but they also need the financial resources necessary to see that all students and all schools compete on a level playing field.

To say otherwise is to step back into the time before Brown v. Board, when schools were inequitably funded with predictably bad results. In the past few years, public school funding has fallen behind by $400 million. No choice plan that would further reduce tax dollars for public education should be considered until adequate and equitable funding is afforded to all of our public schools.

At best, the governor’s plan is a possibly novel proposal. At worst, it is a potential additional tool to cripple public education that would offer the greatest benefit to those who already have the financial wherewithal to opt for private schools and home schooling.

If the governor’s plan does have merit, then it should be considered after we see to the financial well-being of our public schools. To do otherwise is akin to looking at a house with half of its foundation sagging, about to collapse, and say, “I think I’ll add a new wing onto the other end of the house” — not a good idea.

The Rev. Darby is senior pastor at Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.