Our country stands for Justice and Equal Opportunity. We pride ourselves in having a strong public education system to help us attain those ideals of American society. So why does it seem that Republicans do whatever they can to not support public education? The state Republicans led by Chris Murphy (House District 98), are again trying to get tax breaks for the rich who send their children to private schools. The latest bill is for tax credits if you send you child to private schools – this amounts to another income tax reduction for the rich, and a reduction in revenue for our state budget. They try to pass it off as a way for middle and lower income families to send their children to private schools, but it would still leave those families in need of thousands of dollars to send their children to private schools – and that is not going to happen. Thus in reality only the rich now sending their children will get another income tax reduction courtesy of the Republicans.
Murphy said “Many see their children as "trapped" in public schools that aren't serving those children's specific instructional needs.” (Summerville Journal Scene, April 10, 2012). If Republican legislators are so concerned about districts that don’t perform, they might spend some time to study how to correct problems on the state level. Little time or research is spent considering what can be done to improve our state’s reputation; the costs would be considerable and the whole state would have to be committed to sacrificing, at least for a few years. Instead, Republicans make offers like this one might be good for a very minimal number of children, but the schools as a whole do not get better, and in fact many students get fewer resources.
There are many other issues: there are no controls or standards for private schools like are required of our public schools. Tax money (and a tax credit, voucher, or tax deduction is public money) would be spent on an unknown outcome. Any person with fraud in his heart could start an “academy”, rake in the vouchers, and ignore children. Strange and bizarre religious schools could flourish with no controls. Mr. Murphy mentions low-income families, but nowhere did I see that the deductions or credits are limited to income. Corporations could move their tax money into the voucher scholarship bank, lowering the state’s operating resources.
What is really happening is that the Republicans are just trying to appease the far right money machine and pass the HOWARD RICH litmus test. There have been several articles in The State newspaper that show the influence of Howard Rich and associates in financing campaigns. The contributions are tied to this checklist. (http://www.thestate.com/2012/04/08/2225730/ny-dollars-flow-into-sc-school.html).
We need to fund our schools appropriately, reduce the number of children per classroom, and support our fine public school teachers. Strong support for our Public Schools are the center piece of every Democratic Candidate running in Dorchester County. I suggest if you really want better public schools, we need more Democrats representing us in Columbia!
Electing Democrats for the sake of being Democrats is a losers strategy. Just look at the number of officeholders.
Teachers have been particularly hard hit. Thousands of teachers have been fired; for those that were left, there was a pay freeze in 2010 and 2011. Three years in a row they were furloughed for as long as five days. Last year, as the economy picked up, state revenues increased an unexpected $210 million. None of this went to restore teachers’ salaries. When the legislature came back into session in January, there was an extra $1 billion in new revenue, and Gov. Haley wanted none of this to go to teachers, either. Instead, she proposed to actually cut education another $76 million. In fact, the base-student cost that Gov. Haley proposed in her 2012 budget was equal to 1998 levels – rolling back funding for 13 years. Recently, BECAUSE OF DEMOCRATS, the House Ways and Means Committee agreed to offer a 2% pay increase, and some Democrats have promised to fight to add additional funding when the budget bill gets to the House floor. Electing Democrats make a huge difference -- Education is job 1!!! Democrats believe in and supports strong public education in South Carolina!!!! Electing Democrats is a WINNING strategy if you believe in strong public education!!!
education is JOB # 1...not making BO) a one term president... sad the gutless DEMs job is politics as usual... any chance SC DEMs will lead the way to make education and the social safety net for the least...JOB #1. electing most qualified concerned with the general welfare vice party is JOB #1.