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S.C. cannot afford change in school policy

OUR VIEW: Public schools inevitably would suffer under choice plan

Gov. Mark Sanford says the time for school choice has come. The governor and his supporters say allowing public dollars to be spent for private education via tax credits will empower those who cannot afford private school with that option.

The governor's "Put Parents in Charge Act" gets its first public hearing Tuesday in the House. It would allow families making less than $75,000 annually to receive an education tax credit on property or income taxes to use toward private education, home schooling or the cost of transferring a child to another school district.

Armed with a Clemson University study that contends public school revenue actually could grow based on the movement of per-pupil state funding, supporters are trying to convince skeptics public schools would not be hurt.

Count us among the skeptics. We appreciate the concept of allowing students from poorer families an educational opportunity equal to wealthier students, but providing equal education is what public schools are about.

If even more dollars, parental involvement and public support are taken from the very public schools that are supposed to get better with the competition prompted by a voucher system, just exactly how are they going to improve? Should one student leave a class of 10, state funding would go with the student. Yet it would cost no less to educate the other nine.

No matter how frustrated citizens may be with the public education system, systematically shifting toward a system of private education funded by public dollars is not a decision our state and nation are ready to make. Public education remains a priority in a country that has pledged educational opportunity for all.

Using public dollars in a way that divides further the support for public schools is not what our state should be promoting, particularly when an exodus from public schools would only begin the process of transferring the very problems associated with public education to the private schools to which students would flee.

That's one of the reasons you don't see private school supporters out front pushing to boost their enrollment through use of public dollars. They would get more students, more oversight and more problems along with public dollars.

The bottom line statewide: More public money will be needed if tax dollars are to be used to fund private education while the system of public schools is maintained and/or improved. No matter your assessment of education, this is not the time to create a system demanding those additional dollars.

The Clemson study

A proposal that would allow parents of students who transfer from South Carolina public schools to receive tax credits would mean more money going to public schools, according to a study by a Clemson researcher.

The study finds that as students leave, the school loses only a portion of the money it recieved for those students, leaving more money for fewer children.

The study examines the cost of implementing Gov. Mark Sanford's "Put Parents in Charge Act," a proposal that allows parents to receive an education tax credit on property and income taxes.

The tax credit could be used toward private education, home schooling or the cost of transferring a child to another school district. The plan would be phased in over five years.

The $55,000 study by Clemson University economics professor Cotton Lindsay was commissioned by the Legislative Education Action Drive Foundation, a national advocate for school choice, and the South Carolina Policy Council, a conservative Columbia-based think tank.

The study concludes that schools would receive more dollars to spend per student if the governor's plan is implemented. It projects more than 42,000 students will claim tax credits over a five-year period if they are available. By 2010, schools would receive $315 more in per-pupil spending with the governor's plan than without it, according to the study.