OUR TURN: WOULD “PUT PARENTS IN CHARGE” BE GOOD FOR OUR STATE?

IT COULD ONLY HELP WHERE THIS STATE IS SADLY FAILING
FROM: THE GREENVILLE (SC) NEWS [link]
PUBLISHED FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2005

Hmmm. Putting parents in charge of their children’s education? I don’t know. It seems like state government has done a bang-up job so far. We instituted a lottery to fund K-12 programs and college scholarships, but now with lottery sales down, there’s not as much money.

Wait a minute. South Carolina spends a total of $6 billion in the name of education. No, that’s not right either. After all, 51.4 percent of it never makes it to the classrooms and goes instead to "non-instructional expenses."

What explains why half of our high school freshmen won’t graduate? Maybe new schools with state-of-the-art dry erase boards will help. Oops. That’s not it either. Hollis Academy’s new facility hasn’t helped it meet the watered down "No Child Left Behind" Act requirements. Let’s face it. The state doesn’t know what’s best for our families.

Decisions about our children’s education should be made in our homes - not by Columbia bureaucrats controlling the country’s 50th ranked state educational system.

Our children deserve the best education we can give them, and parents should be allowed the flexibility to help provide it. Why should we have to make a law to "Put Parents in Charge?" They should already be.

TAFT MATNEY, 32, LIVES IN GREENVILLE AND IS THE PRESIDENT OF A LOCAL PUBLIC RELATIONS AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS FIRM.