Parents puzzle over equations in school choice bill

e-mail this story print this story More details WHAT WOULD IT DO? Provide a tax credit estimated to be worth up to $3,600 for parents who take their children out of public school and either home-school them or send them to a private school. Tax credits would be given to people who contribute to an organization that grants scholarships to private schools. WHO'S ELIGIBLE? Only families with an income of less than $75,000 a year would be eligible for the tax credit. The provision would not apply to families whose children were in private school or home-schooled on Oct. 1, 2004. The date of eligibility would be phased in over several years. WHAT'S NEXT? Debate on the Put Parents in Charge bill (H3204) is expected to begin this week in the state House of Representatives. Related Online extra • Study critical of tuition tax credit • Poll: Do you support Gov. Sanford's Put Parents in Charge Act? • Executive summary of Put Parents in Charge Act Related Web site • Put Parents in Charge bill Click on the help icons for information on these links and any programs needed to open them.

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That was before her divorce and before she became disabled.

Now the single mother from Simpsonville worries her 12-year-old son Jonathan will be uprooted from Southside Christian School and thrust into a public school system she doesn't trust academically or morally.

"I've cried over it, believe me," she said, "but I'm just having to pray about it and put it completely in God's hands."

She's hoping a school choice bill making its way through the Legislature called Put Parents in Charge will help her pay for the private education she said she can no longer afford.

Dawn Stewart, a Simpsonville mother of two public school students, said she's afraid the bill could hurt her children's schools. And her family wouldn't qualify for a tax credit, she said.

Only families with an income of less than $75,000 would be eligible.

"To me, I wouldn't find it beneficial, and I'm not sure I agree with just one segment of the population having that choice," she said. "I think it would definitely take funds away from the public schools from what it sounds like."

The two are among Upstate parents on both sides of the issue who are keeping a watchful eye on the bill. It would give a tax credit, estimated to be worth up to $3,600, to parents who take their children out of public school and either home-school them or send them to a private school.

Some hope to find a way to finance a better education for their children, and some are concerned that the measure could rob their children's public schools of much-needed cash.

On both sides, there's a heightened sense of urgency.

"We're in a crisis," said state Rep. Gloria Haskins, a co-sponsor of the bill. "We have to do something."

The bill, one of Republican Gov. Mark Sanford's top agenda items for the year, has heated up debate over the quality of the state's public school system. And it has renewed a public discussion over the idea that competition for the business of education will improve teaching and learning just as it would a commodity in the marketplace.

Private schools aren't unanimous in support of the bill. And they don't expect the floodgates to open in their direction if it becomes law. Most of the 100 schools of the South Carolina Independent School Association don't have room for more students, said Larry Watt, executive secretary of the organization.

"Let's just be very honest here," he said. "The majority of the parents who are concerned about the education their children are receiving aren't waiting for the government to do something about it. They've already made a decision. They're either home-schooling or have chosen an independent school."

The tax credit would not go far in covering the costs of some private schools, such as Christ Church Episcopal School, where tuition ranges from $10,475 to $12,550.

Schools such as Christ Church aren't necessarily closed to those who don't have the money. More than 9 percent of students receive some kind of financial aid, said headmaster Leland Cox.

"We would want to try to respond to anybody who was applying to the school, and for good students to be able to offer financial aid if possible," he said. "But it would certainly not be true to say that we are out here with lots of empty seats and just waiting to fill them."

But other private schools, such as St. Joseph's Catholic School in Greenville, have room for growth. St. Joseph's, which teaches grades 6-12, has 370 students now and could take about 200 more, said headmaster Keith Kiser.

"Many parents sacrifice a great deal to send their kids to St. Joseph's, and any relief they could get would be most helpful," he said.

The independent school association, which accounts for the teaching of some 31,000 students, hasn't taken a position on the bill.

The South Carolina Association of Christian Schools, with 80 schools with total enrollment of fewer than 15,000 students, supports the bill but doesn't expect to gain many students if it passes, executive director Reece Yandle said.

"I just don't look at it as something that's going to bring a lot of students into our association," he said. "But it does for the first time give parents a choice."

If vacancies in private schools aren't overly abundant, that doesn't mean there won't be more seats available soon if this bill passes, said Idell Koury, a teacher at Southside Christian who was one of 1,000 or more at a rally outside the Statehouse last week in support of the measure.

"The great thing about this bill is that it will promote the building of new schools," she said. "We're seeing it with the charter school movement right now. They're surfacing everywhere."

Watt, of the independent school association, called such an idea "utterly ridiculous."

"The worst problem in the world is a brand-new independent school trying to attract parents with no track record," he said.

Parents are weighing it out for themselves.

Anthony Butler, who has a daughter in first grade at Berea Elementary, is inclined to keep her there, tax credit or not.

"She's been doing good in a regular school, I think," he said. "She's got a good teacher. If she didn't have a good teacher, that'd be a different thing."

John Dineen, a single parent who has two kids at the school, said a tax break would be nice but he's satisfied with what they're getting now.

"I think they've got a good curriculum and stuff here," he said. "I'm pleased with the school system."

Not Debra Evans.

She would "definitely" take advantage of a tax credit to move her third- and 10th-grade girls. "I just feel they'd get a better education," she said.

Opponents say lack of accountability of academic standards in private schools is a key flaw in the plan.

Parents and experts disagree on the reliability of quality in private schools, and on whether competitive market forces can push public schools to improve.

"For every study that they cite that shows voucher programs produce an improvement in student achievement, there's another study, and sometimes two, that show that it doesn't," said Jim Foster, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

Although some private schools are accredited, and students in many of them take standardized tests, it's not always easy to judge their quality compared to public schools, which are graded extensively in state-issued report cards, some say.

"We have had parents in the past who have moved into the private sector and found that they have enjoyed better instruction in the public schools and have brought their children back," said Patricia Booker-Christy, principal of Berea Elementary, a public school in Greenville.

The bill also doesn't offer a practical escape route for many low-income families who can't manage transportation to a private school or afford the up-front cost of tuition to qualify for a tax credit, she said.

"I feel that many of our parents are struggling economically and an outlay of money that would be required for private schools would be more than they could handle," she said. "I don't think we would see many of our students moving in that direction."

Show me the money There's much disagreement on what the measure would do to state finances, with dueling economists reaching opposite conclusions while looking at the same picture.

Proponents of the bill, who base their argument on a study done by Clemson University economist Cotton Lindsay, say the public schools would gain money if they lose students. Here's the way their thesis runs:

A parent takes his child out of a public school and puts him into a private school, or home-schools him. The parent subtracts from his state tax bill an amount up to 80 percent of what the state would have spent on his education in a public school.

The remaining 20 percent of what the state would have spent to educate that child, and all of the local and federal taxes that would have gone toward his public education, would remain with the public school system. Thus, the public school system ends up with more money per pupil for the students who remain in the system.

Opponents say it doesn't work that way.

The most ambitious estimates assume that 8,700 students would take advantage of the tax credit. Spread that over the state's 1,100 schools and that comes to a loss of about eight students per school. That's not nearly enough to eliminate one teacher's job, and meanwhile the light bills and all the other "fixed costs" of running the school remain the same.

"How is that going to save any money?" asked Foster at the Department of Education. "Their calculations don't work in the real world."

State Rep. Lewis Vaughn, who has been a longtime advocate of tax credits for school choice, doesn't follow that logic.

"If they really believe that, obviously they need some primary schooling because they don't know math."

Chuck Saylors, chairman of the Greenville County School Board, said considering the budget cuts that public education has taken during the economic downturn of the past few years, this plan would hurt schools that are already struggling financially.

"Here we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and they want to take the money away again," he said.

Saylors is also president of the state PTA, which has taken a position against the bill.

Opponents of the bill say the public schools wouldn't be the only state function that would lose money.

The state Board of Economic Advisors estimates that the tax credit could divert $200 million a year from the state budget — money that people would have been paying in taxes that now would be going to private schools or for home-schooling.

That means state agencies across the board — from public safety to Medicaid — would lose as well, said state Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum.

"We cannot afford to reduce the funds for education or other parts of state government under this bill," the Democrat said.

Will Folks, a spokesman for the governor, said, "It's not surprising that the current education bureaucracy would focus on money departing their domain but say nothing about per pupil spending going up. That's what you would expect from folks that are in many cases loyal to the process as opposed to educating each individual child in South Carolina."

He referred questions on the financial aspects of the bill to a group called South Carolinians for Responsible Government, which has taken a lead role in promoting it.

Denver Merrill, a spokesman for that organization, said the proper way to look at it is that the part of the tax money parents would have paid to the public education system would now be going to a private school. That doesn't necessarily mean other parts of state government would be losing, he said.

"We're saying all they look at are the costs. They don't factor in any savings to the state," he said.

His assumptions are based on the study by Clemson's Lindsay, who says school budgets are set at the district level not on the school level, which means school boards could reallocate teachers and other resources to realize cost savings.

He said his theory has been supported by "a number of economists" polled by the South Carolina Policy Council, another private group advocating the bill.

Harry Miley is not one of them.

His economic consulting firm did an analysis of Lindsay's study and found fault with the concept public schools would save money for each student who left.

"You still have to have the teacher. You still have to have the library. You still have to have the heat and air," he said. "Where are the savings?"

Government-backed religion? Supporters of the bill say there's no way this could be seen as government funding of religious instruction because no state money goes into the hands of religious schools. It's the parents' money — which they theoretically are able to come up with because of getting a tax break.

The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina hasn't taken issue with the bill because the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld government vouchers for religious school tuition, said Denyse Williams, executive director of the state ACLU.

But the South Carolina Constitution does guarantee an education to the state's citizens, and the bill could take away the "independent character" of private schools, which opens the door to "a potential Establishment Clause problem," she said.