{"id":10473,"date":"2014-12-12T14:26:57","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T19:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/?p=10473"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:26:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T19:26:57","slug":"an-immediate-legislative-response-to-the-courts-education-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/an-immediate-legislative-response-to-the-courts-education-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"An immediate legislative response to the court\u2019s education decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tom Davis and Kevin Bryant\"davis.tom\"<\/a>
\nLast month, the South Carolina State Supreme Court ruled the General Assembly had failed in its constitutional duty to provide students in eight impoverished schools districts with an opportunity to receive a \u201cminimally adequate education,\u201d and ordered it to identify and solve the problems. \u00a0We believe the Court overstepped its authority in this ruling and acted (as the dissent to the Court\u2019s ruling puts it) \u201cas a super-legislature,\u201d but that\u2019s an argument for another day. \u00a0Right now, it\u2019s more important to analyze what the Court said and to consider what an appropriate legislative response might be.
\nWe think the legislative inquiry must begin with an understanding that the Court did not <\/i><\/b>rule the amount of money spent on the state\u2019s system of free public schools was insufficient. The Court made this point time and again: \u201cIt is striking that the parties have focused narrowly on a struggle between education expenditures and education outcomes\u201d; \u201cIt is time for the Defendants to take a broader look at the principal causes for the unfortunate performance of students \u2026 beyond mere funding\u201d; and \u201c[T]he evidence demonstrates an intersection of statutes and ever increasing funding streams\u2026\u201d
\nNot surprisingly, however, the Court\u2019s clear directive \u2013 i.e., stop throwing money at the problem and start focusing on why, as it held, \u201cthere is a clear disconnect between spending and results\u201d \u2013 has been ignored by the \u201ceducation professionals.\u201d \u00a0The School Boards Association, the South Carolina Association of School Administrators and the South Carolina Association of School Business Officials, with help from a private law firm to whom they annually pay millions of dollars in fees, has come up with something called the South Carolina Jobs Education and Tax Act, which they market using the clever acronym \u201cSC JET.\u201d \u00a0The primary feature of SC JET, recently filed as a bill in the state House of Representatives, is a massive new statewide property tax that a recent AP story says \u201cis expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.\u201d
\nThe Court rightly noted the General Assembly has \u201cdisproportionately funded poorer counties such as the Plaintiff Districts in the past with little noticeable impact on student achievement rates,\u201d and we think SC JET and similar proposals to massively increase taxes in order to throw even more money into a broken system is legislative malpractice. \u00a0If children in poorer school districts are not being provided an opportunity for an adequate education \u2013 and we agree with the Court they are not \u2013 then we should expand on a program that has actually worked for our most vulnerable children.
\nFor years our state\u2019s system of public education has failed special-needs students, e.g., those with Downs\u2019 Syndrome, multiple sclerosis, autism, etc. \u00a0No one seriously disputes that failure. \u00a0In June of 2013, after many stalled attempts, the Educational Credits for Special Needs Children (ECENC) budget proviso was passed by the General Assembly, and as a result hundreds of students with physical and cognitive challenges have been able to enroll in specialized private schools.
\nHere\u2019s how ECENC has worked: Individuals and corporations have made $13 million in charitable donations ($8 million since this July, a sum limited by a statewide cap) to scholarship funding organizations (SFOs), and SFOs have awarded tuition scholarships to students with special needs, with strict documentation of each child\u2019s learning needs being required. \u00a0Parents then select a school that best fits the needs of their child, and the choices are rich: over 80 private schools now participate in the ECENC, and more than 200 statewide are eligible. \u00a0Yes, allowing taxpayers to make $13 million in charitable donations \u201ccosts\u201d the state, but the revenue forgone is substantially less than what traditional public schools were spending to provide inferior services to these children; in short, there\u2019s much better value provided at substantially less cost.
\nThe Court ordered the General Assembly to \u201ccomprehensively analyze the troubling issues preventing educational opportunity in the [impoverished] Districts,\u201d and one way to provide immediate relief would be to expand the scope of the ECENC proviso to meet the needs of low-income families in those areas. \u00a0That proviso has already proven children\u2019s lives can be meaningfully changed through parental decision-making, coupled with charitable giving, and there\u2019s no reason why children now trapped in failing schools should be denied this immediate relief while the General Assembly goes about the larger task of enacting other necessary reforms.
\nKevin Bryant is a State Senator from Anderson County and Tom Davis is a State Senator from Beaufort County. \u00a0<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tom Davis and Kevin Bryant Last month, the South Carolina State Supreme Court ruled the General Assembly had failed in its constitutional duty to provide students in eight impoverished schools districts with an opportunity to receive a \u201cminimally adequate education,\u201d and ordered it to identify and solve the problems. \u00a0We believe the Court overstepped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-2IV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10473"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10476,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10473\/revisions\/10476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}