News

Rex backs school choice

March 18, 2008

Speaking at Spartanburg High School Monday evening, State Education Superintendent Jim Rex said South Carolina school districts which voluntarily consolidate should get financial incentives in return, and the state should provide start-up funding to help charter schools get on their feet.

Rex spoke to about 50 educators during one of many town hall meetings he plans to make throughout the spring. He detailed a five-point plan that he has touted since his election 14 months ago: accelerating innovation, providing more choice within public schools, elevating and accelerating the teaching profession, reforming accountability, and creating a fair and equitable funding system.

School choice has been widely pushed by Rex, and he has created an Office of Public School Choice and an Office of Innovation.

"I think Americans want choices in their lives," he said. "The idea that a child should be forced to attend a specific public school because of the piece of dirt their apartment or house is on - I think that's not a good idea. We should have an innovative, choice-driven, fairly funded system."

A bill should be filed within the next month that would require all school districts to implement some form of public school choice, which could be a Montessori or single-gender program, or allowing choice between schools within the same district. The proposed legislation already has strong bipartisan support in the House, Rex said, and he expects the same in the Senate. Some educators, though, argue that choice concepts should not have to be mandated by law, but Rex says otherwise.

"It does to have it occur at the rate we want it to occur and to make sure it happens in districts that are providing very little to no choice now," he said.

He touched on his legislative priorities for this year, which include providing 4-year-old kindergarten to all at-risk kids, changing the report card label on current schools deemed "unsatisfactory" to "priority," and allocating $6 million to assess the building and infrastructure needs of all districts, among other things.

Several questions from audience members were related to school district consolidation. Rex would not say whether he thinks seven districts in Spartanburg - which has more districts than any other county in this state - is too many.

"Eighty-five is too many. I don't know the magic number. I would like to see that South Carolina consolidates districts either entirely or partially," he said. This would help streamline resources in certain areas, he added.

Rex believes incentives should be provided for districts to voluntarily consolidate, and measures should be put in place that wouldn't negatively affect merging districts. For instance, if a district with high test scores consolidates with a district with a lower performance record, Rex suggests a three-year hold on reporting state scores for the newly blended district.

"There are all kinds of ways to get efficiency and still retain identity," Rex said.

Steve Parker, who has organized a group that opposes school district consolidation in Spartanburg, asked Rex whether he would consider creating an advisory group to study the effectiveness of Spartanburg's seven districts, compared with larger, countywide districts such as Charleston or Greenville. Parker argues that low per-pupil spending and high test scores in this county should be enough evidence to oppose consolidation. Rex said he didn't know whether a full-fledged task force is needed, but he would take it on advisory.

Many other questions from the audience pertained to charter schools.

Rex supports the idea of charter schools, but said most of the ones he has seen fail have been because of financial challenges. He believes the state should increase the charter period from five years to 10 years, which would allow charter schools to borrow money from banks. Transportation isn't currently provided to Palmetto State charter schools. Transportation costs are so stretched as it is now that the state can't afford to provide transportation for any public school choice options, Rex said.

He lauded hard-working teachers and said their compensation is too low. He suggested more money for those teaching in high-poverty schools, and he recommended performance-based pay. That's good news to Charles Hanna, a fourth-grade teacher at Campobello-Gramling School in Spartanburg School District 1.

"I like the idea of performance-based pay because a lot of teachers really bust their tails and get results," Hanna said. "It would be a bonus, and that's a good system."

GoUpstate.com
By Ashlei N. Stevens