Scoppe: Why SC taxpayers should fund private 4K, but not private K-12 | Comment

It may seem strange that my colleagues and I agree with Governor Henry McMaster’s plans to spend state and federal money on 4-year private kindergarten programs, after we have firmly opposed previous efforts by the governor and lawmakers to invest money in taxes. in private K-12 schools.

It is no mystery to pragmatists: people who do not believe that the private sector has all the answers or that the government is always wrong, but recognize the problems and benefits of both. And two major differences between the 4K and K-12 proposals make the first idea a clever way to leverage the private sector to help our state fulfill its most important political goal and make the second one a useless effort that would lead to even more decent education out of reach of many of South Carolina’s poorest children.

The first difference is purely pragmatic and market-based.

The Legislature only took the provision of a 4-year-old kindergarten for poor children at the turn of the century seriously – and only in some school districts. Even today, 4K is not available to most poor children, although that will change if the legislature adopts McMaster’s proposal to expand coverage for poor children in the state’s wealthiest school districts.

In the absence of a school-based option, an entire industry has grown to care for 4-year-olds. Therefore, if the state had purchased 4K on its own, it would have taken business away from existing centers, which depend on revenue from caring for 4-year-olds to subsidize more expensive childcare. This would have skyrocketed the prices of childcare for younger children, bankrupted some centers and pushed many working parents into dangerous choices.

In addition, creating a 4K program based on public schools across the state would require taxpayers to build new classrooms in almost all elementary schools, to replace what would now be unused space in private, nonprofit daycare centers. profitable.

Talk about a lose-lose option.

K-12 is the exact opposite: for more than a century, the legislature has had a constitutional duty to provide free public education, and taxpayers have spent billions of dollars on infrastructure that would be unused if the legislature paid parents to flee schools . In the meantime, the private schools to which they could flee are not able to take on even a small fraction of that work.

So while diverting tax money to private schools would create problems for public and private schools, hiring 4K – as long as we can find day care centers that can do the work we need – actually solves the problem.

The second difference between 4K and K-12 – which voucher supporters created through their own strategic decisions – has to do with the “we can do the job we need them to do” part.

Obviously, the state would not pay childcare to just continue caring for 4 year olds. 4K’s goal is to give children the foundation they need to succeed in school.

Therefore, state law tells 4K providers what kind of programming they should follow: at least 6.5 hours a day, 180 days a year.

And what they have to teach: “a research-based, preschool curriculum that focuses on critical child development skills, especially literacy, mathematics, and social and emotional development.”

And how many people, with what credentials, should they employ: a 1:10 adult-child ratio, with a maximum of 24 students in each classroom. A lead teacher in each classroom must have a two-year diploma in early childhood education and be enrolled and “demonstrating progress towards completing a four-year teacher training program”. Assistants must have a high school diploma, two years of experience working with children under the age of 5 and must obtain a state credential for early childhood development in 12 months. Teachers and assistants must complete at least 15 hours per year of professional development, which includes teaching children from poverty and helping them develop “emerging literacy skills, including, but not limited to, oral communication, knowledge of letters and letters , phonemic and phonological awareness, and vocabulary development and comprehension. ”

And how to decide which children are eligible to enroll: “First priority given to children with the lowest scores in an approved pre-kindergarten readiness assessment.”

This is very prescriptive, but we should all be concerned if it is not.

After all, the state is paying for a service, so obviously, it needs to define exactly what it wants in return.

What is surprising, in itself and particularly in contrast, is the almost total absence of any kind of requirement for the private K-12 classes that McMaster and some lawmakers want taxpayers to buy.

Legislative efforts to pay students to attend private schools, as well as Governor McMaster’s failed effort to use $ 32 million in federal public education funds to subsidize private school tuition for 5,000 students, only required that participating schools be members of a Private school associations offer courses that allow students to meet South Carolina’s high school diploma requirements and require students to take some type of “national performance or state standardized tests” each year.

This is consistent with the idea that parents can decide whether they like the curriculum and the quality and admission standards of a private school enough to enroll their children, without state interference. And it’s perfectly logical – as long as the parents are the only ones paying the bill. But when taxpayers pay the bill, it is the duty of our lawmakers to dictate what we expect in return.

Without even considering how an elementary and high school voucher program would harm public schools that our most needy students will always count on, the fact that voucher supporters have never been willing to even consider such a requirement is reason enough to reject their requirements. proposals again this year.