Sunday’s editorial attempts to make a
start at wading into the school funding reform debate. I’m sure there will be
more to come in this vein as the effort goes on:
“Regardless of the deference typically accorded to the General Assembly,
and regardless of good intentions shown over the years, there is no way one can
look at the present system and conclude that a rational actor could have thought
the whole thing up as a rational, comprehensive system.”
– amicus brief filed in August by the S.C. Association of School
Administrators and S.C. School Boards Association in the long-running Abbeville
County School District school funding lawsuit
It’s hard to find anybody in South Carolina who fully
understands how our public schools are funded. And among those that have put in
the time to unravel a hodgepodge of laws and decades of changes, it’s hard to
find anybody who thinks that it’s working as it should. A coalition of
education proponents and organizations is hoping to change that, with a
simplified, equitable reform plan, but they have a tough task ahead of them. It’s
not clear that they’ll get the support needed to pass it, or even that it’s the
best plan for our state. Nevertheless, it is clear that something needs to be
done, and if nothing else, the effort will certainly help prompt the
conversation that we should be having.
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