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Saturday, January 14, 2012

Mick Zais - Public School Advocate? We Think Not.

Here were are, well into Mick Zais's term as State Superintendent of Education.  How has he done so far?   My belief is that he has done a poor job of advocating for our state's public school.  He has declined federal money that could have been used to improve instruction in our schools.  He said that he did so because of the strings attached to the money, but I doubt that.  Even if true, that is no justification for giving needed funding back to the feds, or for declining to apply for it.  It's not as if we saved that money for taxpayers.  It simply went to a different state to use to improve its schools.  In other words, SC taxpayers were screwed into improving someone else's schools, when we could have used the funds here in South Carolina.  When the State Board of Education called him on it, and asked for a monthly report of available federal grants, he refused to comply.  They threatened to sue him but eventually backed down. I gotta side with him on the report issue.  HE is the State Superintendent of Education and the responsibility to apply for federal grants is HIS as the Constitutional officer designated to be the advocate for for South Carolina schools.  He has failed in that role. 

Most recently,  He submitted his budget request to the General Assembly for the next fiscal year.  In it, he basically caved to the Republican leadership and did not even ask for an increase in the Base Student Cost, nor for an increase in the Minimum Salary Schedule.  http://www.thestate.com/2012/01/11/2109635/sc-schools-chief-to-present-budget.html  Even if fully funded, the BSC will still be about 1000 dollars per student and teachers will have gone four years without a raise.  I understand that the BSC suffered under the recession, but the time has come to begin its restoration.  If any raise in pay or per pupil expenditures is to come, it will be left to individual districts to pay for it on their own.  This is altogether unacceptable.  The state has a constitutional duty to provide a free, quality public education.  Teachers and other school personnel are heroically trying to do that, but it seems that the state's leadership is far less interested in doing so. Worse, they often become obstacles to improvement.  So, I have reluctantly concluded that Mick Zais is more party hack than school advocate.  He seems to care more about the Republican party than about the state's public schools, and by extension, the children in them.  Shame on us if we give him another term to abandon South Carolina Public Schools.