IN THE 1930s, my grandmother worked as a public school teacher for only the promise of pay. Governments in Tennessee — and around the country — were broke. They paid their teachers with warrants — essentially IOUs from the government. Brokers existed who would buy the warrants for a portion of their face value, speculating that they would later cash in. Family legend says that my great-grandfather bought his daughter’s warrants for their full value, providing the nest egg that my grandparents used to buy a country store and begin their life together.

Such an arrangement would likely cause teachers to feel unappreciated. While their paychecks are more regular, teachers today can identify.

When it became clear that vouchers and tax credits to send public dollars to private schools would be a primary issue in the Legislature, public education supporters steeled themselves for unfair attacks on the system. But who could have imagined it would have gotten as bad as it has. Teachers — the people who teach children to read, who dry their tears and help patch their skinned knees, who nurture the budding poets and engineers and doctors in their classrooms — are being vilified as “bureaucrats,” who belong to a “union” and whatever else passes for pejoratives in the State House these days.

The evil characterizations and generalizations about the public servants who work in our schools have gone too far.

If your gut instincts tell you it is wrong to say that nothing good ever gets done in South Carolina’s public schools, you are right. There are schools all around the state doing a great job. You need look no further than the Midlands.

Students are growing up in our public school systems with the best possible preparation for college and beyond. Of course I’m talking about some of the better-known districts and schools, the Irmos and White Knolls and Spring Valleys. But don’t think that is the end of the success stories in our community.

When then-Gov. David Beasley proposed the LIFE Scholarship program, I did a story on a group of students who would qualify — students at Columbia’s Keenan High School. They were honor roll students who were college-bound.

Since then, Keenan’s performance overall has improved. For the $7,015 federal, state and local dollars spent per student at Keenan in 2003-2004 (note not $9,800), the taxpayers got a school rated “Good” on state school report cards and “Excellent” for improving student performance. Keenan met federal requirements for adequate yearly progress.

Keenan’s students — 99 percent are African-Americans and 63 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — met the national average for SAT scores among black students. Keenan has an 80 percent graduation rate, the measure of how many students get a diploma four years after enrolling in the ninth grade. That is higher than the completion rate of at least 16 states, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Keenan’s award-winning principal, Steve Wilson, is not satisfied. Among the things he would like to see is a more diverse population. That would enhance all students’ experience there. It’s not an entirely unrealistic goal, either. Keenan will soon move to a new campus closer to growing Northeast Richland County. It will have a brand-new building, too, the sort of thing that helps establish a fresh start.

But make no mistake, if South Carolina enacts a voucher or tax credit program, Keenan’s strides will be dealt a blow. The kindest thing you can say is that it would be somewhat ironic for the educators who have done a yeoman’s job there to watch their gains be destroyed by people who don’t even know what has been achieved.

The teachers in South Carolina public schools deserve better. So do the students, and their parents. So does our entire state.

Our schools need our full support in order to tackle the most important job any society can do — ensure the full education of its young people to help them become productive and responsible citizens.

There is work to be done yet on that score in South Carolina. But implying that the thousands of public servants who devote themselves to the task every day aren’t working wonders all the time is both ignorant and destructive.

Reach Ms. Brook at (803) 771-8458 or nbrook@thestate.com.