THE BIGGEST argument against Mark Sanford’s proposal to have the governor appoint the state superintendent of education is Mark Sanford.

This is a problem.

The governor’s support of this reform presents the best chance in more than a decade to make it a reality. At the same time, this may be the most anti-public education governor in living memory. My living memory, anyway — and I’m a grandfather.

The governor would dispute this, of course. “I believe passionately in public education,” he said in his State of the State speech. I would call that a lie except that I think he actually believes it. And that just shows how amazingly little this governor knows about our schools and what they need.

So opponents of change have a tremendous political argument when they say, “You want to put this guy in charge of our schools?”

To that, I would say, no — I want to put the next governor, and the one after that, in charge of our schools. And I fully believe they will be far better advocates for education, because if the governor has that power in the future, the voters will for the first time have a reason to vote on the basis of his or her education platform.

This state badly needs to get its act together by involving the top elected official in the state in the one most important thing that state government does. Currently, he has virtually no responsibility, and therefore no accountability, for education — which makes up half the state budget.

This is a long-term problem with a long-known solution. This newspaper was advocating appointment of the superintendent for at least a decade before then-candidate Sanford came out for it.

Mr. Sanford’s support of that and other sweeping reforms of our unworkable governmental structure was a major factor in our decision to endorse him.

We did so in spite of two awful ideas he also campaigned on — an isolated income tax cut (as opposed to the comprehensive tax reform we favor) and a plan to divert public funds to pay for some kids to attend private schools.

It was (and still is) our reasonable hope that sensible lawmakers would reject those bad ideas. We knew they might also balk at restructuring. But with a popular governor making it a priority, it seemed there was a chance of overcoming their reluctance.

If Mark Sanford manages to push through significant restructuring and does nothing else, these four years will have been well spent. That’s because he would give governors who follow him the tools to start moving our state forward at a faster pace.

So imagine my horror to see the governor soft-pedal restructuring, taking the political capital he gains from not pushing the Legislature too hard on that and using it to advance his very worst ideas. Look at his speech Wednesday night: Less than a page of it was devoted to restructuring the government, while three pages went to cutting the income tax and eight (out of 24) went to the single worst education idea I’ve ever heard a governor promote — tax credits for those who send their kids to private schools.

Not that he didn’t advocate anything good for the schools — such as consolidating districts — but he promptly smothered that in its cradle by telling lawmakers he fully understood it had “about zero” chance of happening. He dismisses such things in order to clear the political decks for his real priority — the tax credits.

All I or anyone else can do at this point is hope that legislators will reject the foolishness the governor is shouting, and listen to the wisdom that he whispers. This state badly needs to eliminate waste by cutting the number of districts to a sensible level. And we need the next governor to have responsibility for education. We can’t afford to continue to have two separately elected state officials pulling our schools in opposite directions.

Nor can we afford another governor who has no motive to do right by our schools because that’s not part of the job description.

Write to Mr. Warthen at bwarthen@thestate.com.