Charter School Legislation
Today’s debate concerns a bill, H. 3010, designed to create a statewide charter school district. The bill would create South Carolina Charter School District and thereby allow prospective charter schools another avenue to creation. This bill is necessary because although parents can currently form a charter school through their local school district, that rarely happens. Indeed, since the original charter school legislation passed in 1996, we have only 28 charter schools in existence.
Two reasons for this dearth predominate. First, only local boards can grant charters. Yes, the state board can hear appeals, but it can only remand decisions it disagrees with to the local board for the local board to rule again. Moreover, the state board hardly ever disagrees with a local board’s denial of a charter. The most frequent excuse used by boards to deny charters is racial composition. This seems disingenuous in the context that the places school choice is needed most are the urban and rural areas wherein the racial mix is already skewed. Despite the fact that the US government has given SC over $10m to study charters, we still have fewer than thirty. Effectively, the current Charter School law is impotent.
In a larger context, however, this debate (and their is one between conservatives and liberals) is not about strenghtening the charter school legislation in SC. It is about maintaining the status quo versus doing something that will improve the educational opportunities for all children in SC. Make no mistake as you follow this debate. Those who oppose the bill simply support the status quo. Those who support this bill want to move SC forward–and they want to move SC forward along lines already proven successful in other states. This debate really pits the minions of the State Department of Education against folks who realize that there has to be, and there is, a better way.
January 25th, 2006 at 4:36 am
AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN! DEMOCRATS CAVE IN TO RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS WHO WANT TO DESTROY OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS! I’M TIRED…JOINING GREEN PARTY
January 25th, 2006 at 4:36 am
AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN! DEMOCRATS CAVE IN TO RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS WHO WANT TO DESTROY OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS! I’M TIRED…JOINING GREEN PARTY
January 25th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
To the “former democrat”, how can choice destroy our public schools? We rank 48-50 in almost all categories, with the exception of the drop out rate. We rank 1st in the country. You can’t blame that statistic on “test scores”.
If we continue down the same path we are on, the establishment will destroy the few public schools that are good.
You cannot blame “right wing extremists” for destroying our public schools when less than 50% of the dollars get to the classroom. You can’t blame the “right wing extremists” for coming up with ideas on how to fix the problems with our public schools systems. What has the “left wing liberal nut cases” done to fix the problem? What are their ideas? They have none.
Join the Green party, maybe they have some ideas.
By the way, what would you do to fix the problem?
January 25th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
To the “former democrat”, how can choice destroy our public schools? We rank 48-50 in almost all categories, with the exception of the drop out rate. We rank 1st in the country. You can’t blame that statistic on “test scores”.
If we continue down the same path we are on, the establishment will destroy the few public schools that are good.
You cannot blame “right wing extremists” for destroying our public schools when less than 50% of the dollars get to the classroom. You can’t blame the “right wing extremists” for coming up with ideas on how to fix the problems with our public schools systems. What has the “left wing liberal nut cases” done to fix the problem? What are their ideas? They have none.
Join the Green party, maybe they have some ideas.
By the way, what would you do to fix the problem?
February 6th, 2006 at 12:14 am
You really want excellent education? Then, let the money follow the child, wherever the parents decide…Real Freedom, sort of what our country was founded upon.
February 6th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
You really want excellent education? Then, let the money follow the child, wherever the parents decide…Real Freedom, sort of what our country was founded upon.