Carolina Politics Online

There were no real surprises in the big races last night.  The elections pretty much came down the way the recent polling said it would.

In the Republican gubernatorial primary State Representative Nikki Haley came up just short of the 50% needed to avoid a run off election.  With 48.9% of the vote she will go on to face Congressman Gresham  Barrett who she beat by a more than two to one margin last night.  Hopefully that’s a sign of what’s to come in the run off.  On the Democratic side, State Senator Vincent Sheheen won a decisive victory over Jim Rex and State Senator Robert Ford with 59% of the vote.  He will face either Haley or Barrett in November.

In the First Congressional District State Representative Tim Scott prevailed in a nine person primary and will move to a run off election to face Paul Thurmond.  The winner of the run off will challenge Democrat Ben Frasier who defeated Robert Burton in their primary.

In the Third Congressional District, a Republican run off will be decided between Richard Cash and State Representative Jim Duncan.  The winner of that challenge will face Democrat Jane Dyer who won the Democratic primary and ran against Barrett in 2008.

In the Fourth Congressional District, Trey Gowdy defeated Congressman Bob Inglis, however not enough to decisively win the nomination.  They too will head to a run off and face Democrat Paul Corden in the general election.

In the Sixth Congressional District there was surprisingly a three way Republican primary in this heavily gerrymandered Democratic district.  Jim Pratt and Nancy Harrelson will compete in a run off election to determine who will lose to Congressman Jim Clyburn in November.

In other races, Curtis Loftis defeated incumbent State Treasurer Converse Chellis in the Republican primary.  Leighton Lord and Alan Wilson, son of Congressman Joe Wilson, will move to a run off to determine who the next Attorney General will be.  Neither the AG race nor the Treasurer race was contested by the Democrats.  Ken Ard and Bill Connor will battle it out in the run off to see who the Republicans’ Lt Governor candidate will be.  Mick Zais and Elizabeth Moffly will compete in a run off for the Republican State Superintendent nomination.  The winner will run against Democrat Frank Holleman.

There was a big upset in the State House last night as House Speaker Pro Tem Harry Cato of the 17th House District had the smackdown laid on him by challenger Tom Corbin.  Corbin received 59% of the vote so Cato is outta there!  Two other Republicans in the State House also lost in their primaries.  State Representatives Keith Kelly of the 35th District and Jim Stewart of the 86th were defeated by their challengers.  Additionally, several other State House incumbents were forced into a run off election:  Joey Millwood of the 38th District, Marion Frye of the 39th, Boyd Brown of the 41st, and Richard Chalk of the 123rd.

Finally, probably the sweetest moment of the evening was seeing York County Councilman and scoundrel extraordinaire Paul Lindemann sink faster than the Titanic.  In a four way primary he managed to get less than 12% of the vote.  Republicans David Bowman and Kyle Boyd will move to the run off and the winner will become the next County Councilman for the 1st District as no Democrat filed for the race.

10:23pm – In York County, Paul Lindemann got destroyed.  With 21 of 22 precincts in he has less than 11% of the vote.  David Bowman finished first with 39% and it looks like Kyle Boyd will be his run off opponent with 25.5%, though Tom Audette is pretty close to him and there is still one precinct left to report.  With 98% in, it looks like Paul Thurmond will be Tim Scott’s run off opponent in SC-01.

10:20pm – Richard Cash and Jeff Duncan will head to a run off for U.S. House District 3.

9:56pm – Nikki Haley and Gresham Barrett will be heading to a run off election for the gubernatorial race.  For U.S. House District 1, Tim Scott has qualified for the run off, but his opponent is yet to be determined.

9:53pm – Ben Frasier has won the Democratic primary for U.S. House District 1.  In District 4, Trey Gowdy and Bob Inglis will be heading to a run off election.

9:53pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 89% Reporting

• Haley49%
• Barrett 22%

U.S. House District 1 Primary 90% Reporting

• Scott 31%
• Thurmond 16%
  

• Frasier 55%
• Burton 45%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 82% Reporting

• Cash 25%
• Duncan 24%

U.S. House District 4 Primary 88% Reporting

• Gowdy 43%
• Inglis 26%

Superintendent Primary

• Zais 26%
• Moffly 21%

York County Council District 1

• Bowman 40%
• Boyd 25%
  

9:38pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 78% Reporting

• Haley48%
• Barrett 22%

U.S. House District 1 Primary 65% Reporting

• Scott 32%
• Thurmond 16%
  

• Frasier 56%
• Burton 44%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 69% Reporting

• Duncan 26%
• Cash 22%

U.S. House District 4 Primary 78% Reporting

• Gowdy 42%
• Inglis 27%

Superintendent Primary

• Zais 27%
• Moffly 22%

York County Council District 1

• Bowman 40%
• Boyd 25%
  

9:33pm – Alvin Greene has won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

9:21pm – Jane Dyer has won the Democratic primary for U.S. House District 3.

9:20pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 62% Reporting

• Haley48%
• Barrett 22%

U.S. House District 1 Primary 54% Reporting

• Scott 30%
• Thurmond 17%
  

• Frasier 56%
• Burton 44%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 64% Reporting

• Duncan 26%
• Cash 23%

• Dyer 67%
• Doyle 33%

U.S. House District 4 Primary 59% Reporting

• Gowdy 50%
• Inglis 24%

Superintendent Primary

• Zais 29%
• Moffly 19%

York County Council District 1

• Bowman 40%
• Boyd 25%
  

9:10pm – It looks likely that Nikki Haley and Gresham Barrett will head to a run off.  In U.S. House District 4, Trey Gowdy is at 49.6%.  He may end up defeating Inglis tonight and avoid a run off.  In U.S. House District 1, Tim Scott is going to head to a run off.  He’ll be facing either Carroll Campbell or Paul Thurmond who keep trading second place.  District 3 looks like it will be a run off between Jeff Duncan and Richard Cash.  In York County, Paul Lindemann is getting his butt kicked, in last place of the four candidates.

9:02pm – Vincent Sheheen has decisively won the Democratic primary for governor.  He is well over the 50% mark to avoid a run off.

9:00pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 44% Reporting

• Haley47%
• Barrett 25%

• Sheheen 58%
• Rex 24%

U.S. House District 1 Primary 25% Reporting

• Scott 31%
• Campbell 18%
  

• Frasier 55%
• Burton 45%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 57% Reporting

• Duncan 26%
• Cash 22%

• Dyer 67%
• Doyle 33%

U.S. House District 4 Primary 49% Reporting

• Gowdy 50%
• Inglis 24%

Superintendent Primary

• Zais 29%
• Moffly 19%

York County Council District 1

• Bowman 31%
• Boyd 30%
  

8:45pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 30% Reporting

• Haley48%
• Barrett 23%

• Sheheen 59%
• Rex 23%

U.S. House District 1 Primary 21% Reporting

• Scott 33%
• Thurmond 18%
  

• Frasier 55%
• Burton 45%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 42% Reporting

• Duncan 28%
• Grimaud 20%

• Dyer 65%
• Doyle 35%

U.S. House District 4 Primary 31% Reporting

• Gowdy 44%
• Inglis 26%

Superintendent Primary

• Zais 27%
• Burgess 20%
  

8:25pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 16% Reporting

• Haley42%
• Barrett 25%

• Sheheen 58%
• Rex 23%

U.S. House District 1 Primary

• Scott 39%
• Kobrovsky 15%

• Burton 62%
• Frasier 38%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 27% Reporting

• Duncan 27%
• Cash 22%

• Dyer 69%
• Doyle 31%

U.S. House District 4 Primary 6% Reporting

• Gowdy 64%
• Inglis 19%

Superintendent Primary

• Zais 36%
• Payne 17%
  

8:10pm -

Gubernatorial Primary 8% Reporting

• Haley40%
• Barrett 28%

• Sheheen 54%
• Rex 27%

U.S. House District 1 Primary

• Scott 39%
• Kobrovsky 15%

• Burton 62%
• Frasier 38%

U.S. House District 3 Primary 7% Reporting

• Duncan 41%
• Grimaud 17%

• Dyer 65%
• Doyle 35%

U.S. House District 4 Primary

• Gowdy 66%
• Inglis 17%

7:50pm – There isn’t much reporting yet, but right now in the gubernatorial primaries Nikki Haley is leading the Republicans with 42%.  Sheheen is leading the Democrats with 52%.

The polls are closed.  I’ll be updating as I get information.

Public Policy Polling has released a poll on the general election matching both Nikki Haley and Henry McMaster up against Vincent Sheheen and Jim Rex.  The results are in the Republicans’ favor.

A new poll out from Public Policy Polling now shows Nikki Haley holding a 21 point lead over Henry McMaster in the Republican gubernatorial primary.  Haley holds 39% of the vote, just one point away from the magic number of 40 which she would need to secure the nomination and avoid a run off.  PPP says even with allegations surfacing from Will Folks about allegedly having an affair with Haley a few years back, she has enough support to almost certainly make it to a run off election.  McMaster trails Haley with 18%, followed by Gresham Barrett at 16% and Andre Bauer at 13%.

On the Democrat side, State Senator Vincent Sheheen is the current front runner.  Sheheen leads Jim Rex 36% to 30%, with 11% going to State Senator Robert Ford and 23% undecided.

We don’t talk enough about the one elected office that has a huge impact on our state’s education system and that is the office of State Superintendent.  There are currently eight candidates vying for their partys’ nominations to compete in November to succeed our current failure, Jim Rex.  There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed in our schools around the state:  administrative waste, mediocre graduation rates, inequitable funding, and a severely antiquated education system.  Hopefully, the next superintendent will be someone willing to tackle these issues and not just preserve the status quo as Mr. Rex has done.

Gary Burgess (R) – I like Burgess’s platform.  He’s big on school choice and eliminating programs that have not shown any merit.  Public education is run much like the government and that’s probably because it is an arm of the government.  Government is full of wasteful initiatives that have not lived up to their worth, but rarely do you ever seen them eliminated because there are too many bureaucrats thriving off the system.  It’s no different in a typical school district either.  The main reason we spend so much money on education in this country but do not get the bang for our buck is because the vast majority of the money goes to bureaucracy.  If Burgess can successfully fight that, he’d be an education hero.

Frank Holleman (D) – Frank Holleman I’m not quite as high on.  He opposes the idea that you, as a parent, ought to have a choice in which school your child attends.  If you live in a poor neighborhood with a school riddled with drugs and crime Holleman doesn’t want to give you the opportunity to take your child out of that failing school.  He says that vouchers and tax credits take money away from the public schools.  Well, if I were an investor, would I continue to put money into a company that continuously loses money?  Of course not, but we do it with public schools every single day and that’s because it’s run by bureaucrats who have a vested interest in preserving the status quo.

Elizabeth Moffly (R) – Elizabeth Moffly is not a newcomer.  She ran for the office in 2006 and she has a common sense approach to improving education in South Carolina.  One, she wants schools to offer more than just the traditional college preparatory route by also adding vocational education options.  This makes perfect sense.  Ever since the Great Depression schools have been pushing every student into a college academic career following high school, but there are a lot of students who aren’t cut out for college and could make a good living in skilled professions that don’t require it.  As a result a the work force is flooded with college graduates making a Bachelor’s Degree almost worthless today and a lot of students drop out of high school due to a lack of interest in the subject matter.  Give kids these options to do vocational training in school so that they finish school and become productive adults, not slouches working at McDonald’s the rest of their lives and sucking off the public dole.

Brent Nelsen (R) – Brent Nelsen is another candidate big on school choice, particularly charter schools.  Nelsen is a firm believer in parents having the opportunity to send their child to a school outside their district if it offers a better educative opportunity.  He also wants more higher level honors courses to be available to excelling students.  Nelsen believes that more transparency and openness in the way that teachers teach and concerning parental and community involvement are the keys to improving the quality of education in our state.  He is correct.  A lack of parental involvement is the number one reason why our schools are doing so poorly.

Kelly Payne (R) – Like Elizabeth Moffly, Kelly Payne is not satisfied with the one size fits all approach to education.  She feels that schools need to provide educational opportunities for those students not aspiring to higher education.  Furthermore, she has a goal of boosting the literacy rate in the state.  Payne’s biggest focus seems to be on financial accountability and transparency in the school districts.  She believes that there is plenty of money being devoted to our schools, but that too much money is spent on bureaucrats and administrative overhead and not nearly enough is going to the teachers and students in the classroom.

Glenn Price (R) – Glenn Price has been a classroom teacher for over 30 years and has an “outside the box” approach to improving education.  According to Price, student achievement should be measured by the amount of knowledge gained rather than the amount of time spent on a task, even if that takes longer than 12 years.  Unlike several of his Republican colleagues, Price is not a fan of vouchers or tax credits so he won’t win my vote, but I do give him some brownie points for proposing something innovative.

Tom Thompson (D) – Tom Thompson wants to address an issue that doesn’t talked about much, but should and that’s the issue of safety at schools.  Kids who are bullied at school or who attend an inner city school where violence is more common simply aren’t going to perform well.  Thompson sees that as a major barrier and he’s correct.  As adults, we would never tolerate violence or harassment in our office every day when we go to work, yet for some reason we see no problem with our kids having to put up with it at school.  Along those lines, Thompson wants some of the more dilapidated schools in poor areas to be repaired to replaced entirely.  Like some of the other candidates, Thompson is also huge on more parental and community involvement.

Mick Zais (R) – Mick Zais is another advocate of having several routes to graduation.  A one size fits all approach in high school is simply not affective.  Like some of the other candidates he also wants to see every education dollar accounted for by the school districts.  One unique issue brought up by Zais is the restoration of discipline in the classroom.  Student discipline is lacking in the classroom these days and in my opinion, that is a combination of bad parenting and the power of disciplining students having been taken out of the teachers’ hands.

These are your eight candidates, six Republicans and two Democrats.  The primary is on June 8th.  Two of them will move onto the November ballot based on your choice so choose wisely.

This is the status quo that Jim Rex and most of your state legislators want to preserve.

In 2009, SAT scores dropped for the third year in a row, as did the number of students passing the Exit Exam and the Advanced Placement tests. South Carolina was ranked 50th in high school “promoting power” by the Southern Regional Education Board. That study indicates that half of South Carolina’s public high schools are now categorized as “dropout factories,” where graduation rates remain below 50 percent. A third report estimated that the on-time graduation rate is just 40 percent at the public high schools serving South Carolina’s lowest income communities.

The Beaufort Tribune

According to South Carolinians for Responsible Government, the source of the above piece, the public schools in South Carolina spent an average of $12,258 per student.  That’s almost twice as much money as many European countries who are blowing us away in education.  Still think education in this state is underfunded?

A poll released by Inside Advantage shows the current match up for this year’s gubernatorial elections in South Carolina.  The numbers weren’t too surprising, but there was one ranking that stood out.  Gresham Barrett is tanking.  As I predicted a year ago, his Wall Street bailout vote was political suicide.

If the Republican gubernatorial primary were held today, the results would be as follows: Henry McMaster and Andre Bauer would tie with 22%, Nikki Haley would follow with 13%, Barrett is fourth with 9%, and Larry Grooms brings up the anchor with 6%.  28% are undecided at this point in time.

On the Democrat side of the aisle, Jim Rex leads with 21% followed by Dwight Drake with 15%.  Vincent Sheheen comes in third with 8% and Robert Ford and Mullins McLeod trail each with 6%.  The undecideds are much higher among Democrats, 44%.

No general election match up was done yet to see how who would fair against who.

The latest polling from Public Policy Polling of the South Carolina gubernatorial race shows the Republican candidates with comfortable over the Democrats.  AG Henry McMaster at this point seems to be the best prospect for the GOP as he leads Democrats Jim Rex 40 – 31, Vincent Sheheen 41 – 26, and Robert Ford 42-27.  Congressman Gresham Barrett has similar leads but with slightly smaller gaps.  McMaster has the highest approval rating of the three Republican candidates polled while Barrett has the lowest.  The only real competitive match up at this point would be between Lt Gov Andre Bauer and Jim Rex in which Rex actually holds a one point lead over Bauer.

Republican candidate Nikki Haley was not included the poll.  She is the only Republican I consider supporting at this point.  Robert Ford is the only Democrat I would vote for.

If you have never visited the Voice for School Choice Web site, I highly recommend you pop over there from time to time.  They really do an excellent job of combing through all the financial records of all of the school districts in our state and laying out how much of our money they are wasting away despite always whining about having no money.

Last year South Carolina school districts spent a combined total of $8.4 billion.  That is more than the budget of the entire state government.  It equates to approximately $12,000 per student, which is enormously high.  It is an increase of 8.5% from the previous year despite only 44 cents of every dollar spent reaching the class room and according to test scores absolutely no educational benefit whatsoever.

Check it out.

I wonder what Jim Rex has to say about that.  He wants to be our next governor.

Jim Rex has announced he will not run for another term as South Carolina’s State Superintendent of our “screwls.”  This infers it is much more probable that he will make a formal announcement of his intentions to run for governor in 2010 in the coming days.  At least without Rex at the helm of our public “education” system we might be able to slow the bleeding a bit.  The protectors of the status quo, of course, praise him for a job “well” done.

Oconee County District Superintendent Mike Lucas and Pickens County School Superintendent Henry Hunt Friday praised State Superintendent Jim Rex for the job he has done since assuming those duties in January 2007.

Daily Journal

I am perplexed as to how anyone can think Rex has made any improvements in education considering the disgrace of our public schools across the state.  Is a 55.6% graduation rate praise worthy?  I guess Lucas and Hunt have the bar set pretty low.  God forbid he would be given the opportunity to exercise that very same “success” in the governor’s office.

Within the next two weeks, South Carolina public schools will receive $184 million in federal stimulus money that Superintendent of Education Jim Rex said will save jobs.

Rex said the impact of that cash will be felt most noticeably by what students and parents won’t see: dramatically larger class sizes.

The Post and Courier

In the short term, sure it will save jobs.  The long term is an entirely different story.  This is borrowed money and eventually the piper must be paid, with interest.  The whole “stimulus” package is one big gamble with the finances of the American people.  It relies on a risk that in two years the economy will have recovered to a reasonable enough state that the debt can start to be repaid along with offsetting the negative affects the debt will have on the value of the American dollar.  If however the economy has not recovered or is even worse off than today, what then?

The “stimulus” money disappears after two years.  Mark my words, we will be dealing with this situation again two years from now.

One woman who spoke said “we deserve to give our children more than what we’re giving them.”  She is absolutely right.  The problem is that the teachers, the bureaucratic school administrators, and the teachers’ unions are financially giving more to politicians like Jim Rex and other supporters of the failing status quo than parents are and that is more important to them than giving more to our children.

This coming from Rex?  I don’t know.  There’s a got to be a catch here somewhere.

Bills now filed in the South Carolina Legislature could provide parents more choices regarding how their children are educated, officials said.

According to the South Carolina Education Department, twin bills filed Tuesday in the South Carolina House of Representatives and Senate would require school districts to create school choice committees and create new instructional choices at the elementary-, middle- and high-school levels within two years.

Already across the state school, districts are moving toward providing choices in the courses of study they offer, according to education department officials.

Some of the choice programs now offered in the state include single-gender initiatives, middle college/early college, Montessori Education, evening high school, language immersion, academic academies, arts integration and international baccalaureate programs.

The Independent Mail

Well, I must say, I’m impressed.  This is an excellent start but I still want to see parents having the option of taking their children out of failing and dangerous school districts and enrolling them in an entirely different district.  In other words, just get rid of the districts altogether and let the kids go where ever they want.  Nevertheless, this is a step in the right direction.  There has to be some kind of variety in education in this state because right now our state school systems suck pretty bad.

I wonder if this new initiative has anything to do with him considering a gubernatorial run next year.

One possibile long-term reform would be to change the tax structure by establishing a statewide uniform foundation millage in 2011, which Rex said would provide more funding to school districts with lower overall property values without hurting more-affluent districts. He said it would not be a statewide property tax.

The Item

Uh… a property tax is exactly what it is, you dumb ass.  I guess by using a fifty cent word like millage Rex thinks he can fool the ignorant and the stupid into buying into this, which maybe they will.

Why not just allocate a set amount of money per each student in the state, let the parents choose the school they want their kid to go to (GASP!  You mean competition??) and send that money to whichever school they choose?  That way the same amount of money is being spent for each student whether they are in Fort Mill or Orangeburg.

Jim Rex has no interest in solving any problems with South Carolina education.  He is just a bureaucrat who wants to maintain the status quo.  Remember folks, this man wants to be your next governor.  If you enjoyed having that weight taken off your shoulders when you received your property tax bill in December and saw it was less than half of the year before then Rex should be a very scary man to you.

State schools Superintendent Jim Rex sent an e-mail to employees explaining the mandatory furloughs, which represent a $569,000 savings.

All agency employees must take the unpaid days off before the fiscal year ends June 30. The furlough does not apply to teachers or other school district workers.

The move should save between 13 and 15 jobs, Rex said.

The Greenville News

Why not just elminate the jobs and see the savings every year?  The South Carolina education system doesn’t exist to provide employment for people; it’s there to “educate” our children.  The education complex is too over loaded with administrators and bureaucrats.

COLUMBIA — Lawmakers should allow four-day school weeks, limited standardized testing and flexibility for school systems to shift state funding as a way to deal with more than $200 million in anticipated budget cuts for education, state Education Superintendent Jim Rex said Tuesday.

Rex’s suggestions came as education officials prepared for the Legislature’s decision next week on how to cut the state’s budget by 7 percent, largely as a result of reduced revenue projections by state economic advisers.

The Greenville News

Yet through all of this, still no talk of eliminating positions of educative bureaucrat administrators and pie in the sky programs that have not shown to be effective in enhancing education nor their worth in tax dollars spent.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Education Superintendent Jim Rex wants the Legislature to give local school districts flexibility to deal with budget cuts on their own, including adopting four-day school schedules.

Rex is planning to describe what’s needed in a news conference Tuesday afternoon after days of meeting with district officials. Schools will shoulder the biggest chunk of budget cuts the Legislature is expected to debate in a budget-trimming expected as early as next week.

WACH

This is an interesting proposal, particularly the four day school week, although I’m not sure how many parents are going to be as impressed with it when they are working five.  What is to be done with junior on the fifth day?  Frankly, I think American children spend far too much time in school.  We obviously have nothing to show for it considering how awful public education is in the U.S.  In Finland, for example, children don’t start school until age 7.  They get very little homework and yet they consistently score at the top of all nations in literacy, math, and science.  The OECD has ranked Finland number one in the world in quality of education.

As I’ve said before, contrary to what you’ll hear the NEA scream and other educational bureaucrats, anybody who takes the time to actually become informed on education in this country is well aware that our schools are OVER funded.  Yes, that’s right.  I said over funded.  The U.S spends more on education than any other nation in the world and we rank no where near the top of the list of industrial nations in terms of educational quality.  According to the Voice for School Choice, only 44 cents of every dollar spent on schools in South Carolina actually reach the classroom.  The rest is on adminstrative expenses.

If given the power, it will be interesting to see how the individual districts respond.

H/T to The Voice for School Choice

After a year of poor SAT scores and bottom-line PACT proficiency, news of an across-the-board drop in the number of schools making “Adequate Yearly Progress” is just bad icing on an already inedible cake.

Parents have already had to hear that even the best performing school districts in South Carolina are still hundreds of points below public schools in North Carolina. Now, figures from the State Department of Education show that only 1 out of every 5 schools in South Carolina met goals for “Adequate Yearly Progress.”

Of all the public schools in South Carolina, only a pitiful 18% managed to meet federally-defined Adequate Yearly Progress Goals for 2008. That breaks down to 715 of the state’s 875 elementary and middle schools failing to meet their goals! Of the 200 high schools in the state, 165 failed to meet their AYP goals.

So here is what I want to know.  How many parents will still vote to reelect their school boards in these failing districts, which is most of the state?  What will the incumbent retention rate be?  How many voters will support Jim Rex in his reelection bid or in what ever further political ambitions he has?  How many voters will actually start paying attention to what these people running for these offices are saying what the problem is and what they will do to fix it and how many voters will actually take the time to do the research to know whether or not these people are correct their diagnoses or totally clueless?

I’ve said it before and I am going to keep saying it again.  The only reason the South Carolina school system is as appealing as mold in dirty gym shoes is because of the voters!  You elect these people to run these school systems and you’re getting exactly what you have elected.  Stop being so damn lazy and stand up and fight for your childrens’ futures!

That’s what we’re doing.  The money certainly isn’t being invested in turning out a quality product.  The Voice for School Choice released some stats today showing that South Carolina has one of the highest drop out rates in the country and some of the lowest test scores, all while increasing spending to over $11,400 per student.  You could send each kid to a private school in a limousine each day for that amount of money.  It’s no secret to me that we don’t get the bang for our buck when it comes to public education in the U.S.  I’ve been following that for years.  The Europeans spend slightly more than half of what we do and they are far better educated, but here in South Carolina we’re at the bottom of the barrel even for the barrel.

Heck of a job you’re doing there, Jim Rex!  Still going to run for governor?