What’s wrong with education in South Carolina? This article in The State sheds a little light on the subject:
A woman who teaches her children at home could be nominated to lead the state Education Board.
Kristin Maguire of Clemson said she has several commitments from other board members.
While the article makes it clear that it’s not likely that Maguire will actually be elected chair, you might be wondering:
- Why would you want to make someone who’s given up on South Carolina schools to head a board that’s supposed to oversee those schools?
- Who put such a person on this board in the first place?
I don’t have an answer for #1. It seems like sheer lunacy to me.
As for #2, Maguire is a gift to the educators of South Carolina from…
Maguire is Gov. Mark Sanford’s representative on the board and her term expires in December 2008.
… our governor – who’s not exactly what you’d call a friend of education.
So who’s Maguire? She’s involved with SC PIE, which I’ve mentioned on this blog before. In short, they’re a group that pushes for abstinence-only sex ed, creationism in the classroom, and vouchers. Such people should never be allowed anywhere near the management offices of a public education system.
In college, I had to take an economics course. As part of that course, we looked at taxes, using local communities as examples. One of the local small towns was know for having the lowest property taxes around.
The school board of this small New England town had three people. Upstanding local citizens and all that rot. None of their kids attended the local public shool. They all went to a rather prestigious local academy. The roof of the school (circa 1910 building) was severely damaged by an early winter storm which dropped almost two feet of wet snow on the area (it even brought down the power lines across the Connecticutt River). The school board refused to even consider an increase in local property taxes to pay for a new roof. Luckily, a local contractor offered to do it free (I think he wrote it off on his federal taxes) if someone else bought the materials. The school had bake sales, raffles, 50-50s, the whole works. My understanding was that the only families which did NOT get involved with the project were the three which had members on the board (and the board members didn’t even own local businesses, they worked twenty miles away in a larger town).
It took a year, but the roof got fixed. How to solve things like this, I have no idea.
On another note, you would think that, according to neo-conservative economic theory, the small town in question would have had a booming economy based on low taxes. Actually, the few businesses there left because of deteriorating infrastructure.
Looks like she was elected to lead the board…well, that’s a suck.
http://www.wyff4.com/news/14839719/detail.html
Kellie: Yeah. The stupid! It burns!
Billy: I think that’s how ultra-conservative policies are supposed to work. If the school’s roof falls in, someone will charitably donate a new roof. Just like charities fill all the potholes on the roads and maintain the water and sewer systems. 🙂