TRY AS HE MIGHT, Gov. Mark Sanford can’t disown South Carolina’s public schools problem by offering tax credits for students to go to private schools.

The governor and those who support his tax cut plan, being sold as a way to “Put Parents in Charge” of children’s education, say it will make public schools better. But they never say how it would improve our schools.

Instead, they berate the public education system, citing the most negative statistics, but rarely acknowledging the many positives.

We do need to make improvements. We must address the lack of parental involvement, high dropout rates, discipline problems and poor academic performance by struggling students.

Offering tax credits that encourage parents to abandon public schools won’t do any of those things. We can’t simply pawn this off on “the market” and abdicate the responsibility the state has for making sure students get the kind of education that prepares them for a better future.

The problems we have are born of a system and a time when leaders refused to treat and educate all people fairly. Our leaders purposely held students — and our state — back. It’s only been in the last three decades that we’ve paid any real attention to our schools. That’s nothing, considering that we crippled generations.

Gov. Sanford should lead the effort to improve every public school directly, instead of trying to pay people to abandon them.

Some people act as if our school system is a house on fire, and students must get out before they are consumed. If that’s true, we — and our governor — should try to save all the students, rather than just make a way for a few to escape. That means strengthening K-12 across the board. That’s what the Education Accountability Act is all about: making learning possible on a broad scale.

Instead of concocting ways to satisfy a minority — most of whom already exercise “choice” — we must concentrate on improving all public schools. If we need to address the dropout rate, let’s do it. If parental involvement is a concern — and it is — let’s focus on ways to improve it.

Let’s apply the needed attention, pressure and resources until we get better results. Let’s not point out flaws and, instead of solving them, seek salvation in private schools.

There are some very good private schools in our state. But there also are some very bad ones. If private schools are the answer to the problems that plague our public schools, we’re in trouble.

Private schools aren’t inherently better than public schools, where the better teachers work. Those private schools that do well can’t house enough public school students to make a difference.

The troubling part of this proposal is that private schools wouldn’t have to be academically or fiscally accountable. I know private schools have associations and accrediting bodies, but that’s not enough. There should be public accountability for public money.

Another concern would be the quality of new schools popping up to meet demand. (By the way, no one’s stopping those schools from opening sans public dollars.)

Is this tax cut really about giving poor, struggling students a choice to go where they can get a better education? The fact that students already in private schools would benefit suggests it’s not. Initially, Put Parents in Charge would give a tax credit to parents who pull their children out of public schools and send them to private ones. But the real goal kicks in in five years. That’s when people whose kids are already in private schools get the tax credit.

This is a shameful attempt by our governor — who wants less government — to siphon money from public schools and services while pandering to a small constituency.

And it comes at a time when public schools, which serve nearly 700,000 students, are improving.

Those who want Put Parents in Charge to pass won’t acknowledge that. They complain about the state’s 50th SAT ranking, its 50 percent dropout rate and the fact that 74 percent of eighth-graders can’t read at a proficient level.

Don’t expect them to talk about state seniors improving their SAT scores by 32 points in five years, the largest gain in the nation. Don’t expect them to extol the merits of full-day kindergarten or improved school readiness. Don’t expect them to acknowledge advancements that have come as a result of the 1998 Education Accountability Act. Since the passage of the EAA, students in grades 3 through 8 have raised their performance in all subjects tested, across all grade levels and demographic groups.

Members of the S.C. House know we’re heading in the right direction. They passed a 2005-06 budget increasing funding for K-12. Senators must do the same if our schools are to get even better.

Walking away from public schools is backward and dangerous. This ill-conceived, unproven statewide experiment called “Put Parents in Charge” could throw parents and students into a frenzy. While some predict new schools would open that would help improve education, we can be sure some would be fly-by-night operations with profit as their only motive. Quality would fluctuate, and we don’t know how stable those schools would be.

Operators could walk out or shut down on a whim. If they don’t make the profit they expect, parents might show up one morning at a padlocked school.

Instead of having put parents in charge, we would have Put Pupils in Chaos.

Reach Mr. Bolton at (803) 771-8631 or wbolton@thestate.com.