Aug 06 2008
Poorest Schools are State’s Best Funded
South Carolinians for Responsible Government have called out State Superintendent Jim Rex on his claim that schools in low income areas are underfunded. They have provided plenty of data showing that this simply is not the case. This actually isn’t news to me. I have been aware of this for many years, but most people would be surprised to find out that in many instances schools districts in the lowest income areas have the highest per pupil cost.
Advocates of higher school spending, mainly Democrats, RINOs, and teachers unions are forever claiming that the public schools are under performing in this country because they are under funded, but I have debunked that many times myself. The United States of America spends the most money per child on public education than any other country in the world and we have the dumbest kids of all industrialized nations. When I used to live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania the Pittsburgh Public School District had some of the highest spending per child in the state and yet had near a 1/3 drop out rate. I also had a conversation with a State Representative there some years back who told me the state did a study that showed there was absolutely no correlation with the amount of funding a school received and its overall performance. Some wealthy districts did poorly and some poor district did very well.
So what is the reasoning for so many poor neighborhoods having the highest school spending? That’s actually an easy answer and while I generally prefer to keep my opinions nonpartisan, I am breaking my own rule on this one. Your poorest neighborhoods are usually in your inner cities and urban areas. These are neighborhoods where Democrats are overwhelmingly elected and control the government. The Democrats are also the ones backed by the teachers unions and they pretty much do their bidding. The school boards and the unions want more money, they give it to them. It’s no secret that the Democratic Party loves taxes. They keep raising the taxes more and more to give more money to the schools and it of course makes no difference, but that doesn’t matter. They just want the money.
Now being the State Superintendent one would think that Jim Rex is aware of the figures that SCRG have posted on their Web site. So the ultimate question is, why is Mr. Rex lying to the people of South Carolina?
