Lt. Gov Pam Evette speaks at the South Carolina National School Choice Week celebration on the Statehouse steps Thursday, Jan. 30. 2025. (Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette)
Across America, states have broad school choice programs while children in South Carolina languish.
Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and other states across the nation have broad school choice programs. Likewise, our neighbors in North Carolina and Georgia have enacted broad school choice measures.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee just announced a program to help 20,000 children in Tennessee to have the option to attend, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced that over 500,000 children in Florida were participating in private school choice programs.
While 1.2 million students in 81 programs across the nation experience private school choice, South Carolina struggles to provide school choice options for its K-12 students.
The reason is that the fight for school choice is much more about politics than it is about the law.
The education establishment has long advocated against providing parents with options, while so many other states have continued to expand on their options.
The battle is even more perplexing when the ostensible reason for South Carolina’s lack of school choice is that “state dollars can’t follow children to private schools.” This position is clearly not consistent with the state’s practice.
For over five decades, South Carolina has provided tuition grants to college students to attend independent colleges and universities in South Carolina. In the last couple of decades, HOPE, LIFE and Palmetto Fellows scholarships have continued to help college students attend public and independent colleges across South Carolina.
For over two decades, South Carolina has provided scholarships for pre-kindergarten students to attend private pre-K programs throughout the state.
For over a decade, South Carolinians have been able to claim a tax credit for donations that fund scholarships for special needs students to attend a private K-12 school. For nearly a decade, parents who pay private tuition for their special needs child have been able to take a tax credit.
This begs the question: If South Carolina taxpayers can provide grants and scholarships for college students, pre-K students and special needs students to attend private educational institutions across the state, why can’t the state provide grants and scholarships to K-12 students to attend the school of their choice — even if it is private?
If the South Carolina Supreme Court interprets providing parents with the option of using an educational savings account as unconstitutional, then to be consistent they must hold that tuition grants to the 21 independent colleges and universities across the state are unconstitutional as well.
Tuition grants started in the early 1970’s because providing tuition grants to in-state college students to attend an in-state private college maximized the usage of all educational institutions and saved the state money in unpaid subsidies for students who would otherwise enroll at a public college or university in South Carolina.
All of us can agree that an educated public benefits us all — and should be encouraged.
All of us can agree that children learn differently and what works for one child may not work for another child.
All of us can agree that children should not have their education determined by their ZIP code.
All of us can agree that some public schools don’t do a good job of educating students; however, they are allowed to continue to operate.
All of us can agree that private schools who don’t do an adequate job of educating students will be shut down because parents walk away.
Study after study shows students who participate in school choice programs across the nation perform better academically. Studies also show that public school students in school choice states perform better academically. Coincidentally, private school choice programs have been found to save taxpayer money.
Parents know best when it comes to educating their children. As South Carolinians, why are we tinkering on the edges of educational choice when we could join states like Florida and Arizona and provide broad programs for children?
It’s time for South Carolina to go to the head of the class and demand the answer to the question, “Why not us?”