New school choice legislation will stimulate student success

By Jeff Bradley CONTRIBUTOR

Several weeks ago, soon after I submitted my column for the May issue of the Hilton Head Sun, I was elated to see “school choice” legislation pass in both the House and Senate – and then signed into law by Gov. McMaster.

As first vice chairman of the South Carolina House Education and Public Works Committee, I have been working strenuously with our committee chairman, Shannon Ericksen, to shepherd this legislation into law. It was among our highest priority objectives to achieve for this session.

Variations of school choice legislation have been debated at the state capitol for almost two decades. And now finally, many parents who currently cannot afford private school or other education opportunities will have greater options about how their children are educated.

The new bill creates a pilot program that establishes an Education Scholarship Trust Fund, which will finance Education Scholarship Accounts (ESAs). Parents who qualify can use the ESA vouchers to pay for a variety of educational options for their children that best fit the needs of their children.

These options include such things as private tutoring, private school tuition, online courses, technology, and specialized educational materials. Similar ESAs have already been assisting thousands of students across several other states including North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, Utah and Arizona.

Our pilot program will start in the fall of 2024. Medicaid-eligible parents and guardians can receive up to $6,000 per year for tuition, transportation, supplies or technology at either private schools or public schools outside their district that currently charge a fee. As one of my colleagues, Larry Grooms, was aptly quoted by the Associated Press: “Quality education shouldn’t be divided up over who lives in the best ZIP code and who doesn’t.”

The pilot program will begin with 5,000 openings for students in the first year whose families earn up to $60,000 (Medicaid-eligible). Within three years the eligibility is to be capped at 15,000 students – or about 2% of South Carolina’s school-age population for families making approximately $120,000 or less.

For many years, opponents of school choice have irrationally criticized ESAs as potentially robbing public schools of money. But that criticism is not valid with our program. South Carolina’s school choice program will be similar to one in North Carolina. It will be funded with vouchers directly from the state budget, meaning that no money is being directly taken from the current K-12 education budget or existing public schools.

I firmly believe that vouchers are ultimately beneficial to public education because they promote market-like competition among schools and challenge all schools to work harder to improve.

I concur with our new state superintendent of schools, Ellen Weaver, that this new program will put us in step with states across our nation that have expanded education freedom with school choice initiatives and as a result have seen student achievement rise and public education flourish alongside. It’s a time-proven principle that competition makes everyone better.

HURRICANES from page 1A policy at least 30 days before you can file a claim, and we don’t exactly live in the mountains. Most of the county is barely above sea level.

The second-best tip is to keep your gas tank full. You don’t want to be caught off-guard coming out of work or leaving the hairdresser’s knowing you need to get gas – only to learn the governor just announced there would be a mandatory evacuation order within 24 hours. Those gas lines get long.

This leads to the third top tip: Leave before you have to leave. When the governor advises that residents have X number of hours until evacuation is mandatory, you have all of that advance time to leave along the route of your choice.

It may be crowded initially, but the traffic flows. Everyone is just trying to get to safety where they have family, friends or a hotel reservation made in advance. And take your pets into account when you make those reservations.

One of the lessons learned following Hurricane Matthew in 2016 was confusion in communicating the message from all of the local municipal and emergency management agencies, particularly when it came to returning. Mat- thew hit the area so hard – particularly Hilton Head Island – that portions of the island were impassable and dangerous. That didn’t stop friends who hadn’t left from saying their area was clear. That told their neighbors that it should be OK to return home, right? Wrong.

Some residents managed to sneak into various developments. The bulk of those who sought to get back before officials ensured the area was safe spent 24-36 hours on US 278 and other arteries waiting for highway patrol and local law enforcement agencies to give them the all-clear.

That is why it’s important to stay informed via social media. That’s not to say you should heed your friends’ social pages, but those outlets managed by the state, municipalities, and emergency management.

Check the Facebook pages for Bluffton, Hilton Head Island, the Bluffton Police Department and the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, which has a storm center page that will be updated shortly. That is also the place to find out about the re-entry pass system based on tiers.

Keep checking with the county’s