School Choice Bill Gains Sponsors. Passes out of Committee.

Half of all South Carolina state House members are sponsors of school choice legislation designed to help parents select among different schools for their K-12 aged children.

The bill is written to assist low-income students and students with special needs who may be trapped in failing schools or otherwise not have their needs met.  This measure will provide parents choices and opportunities in educating their children.

The House Ways and Means Committee approved the legislation by a vote of 16-to-8 Tuesday. The proposal is now set to appear before the full House for a floor vote.

The bill’s primary sponsors are Representative Brian White (R-Anderson), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Eric Bedingfield (R-Greenville), a long time advocate of parental choice in K-12 education. In all, 62 lawmakers, exactly half of House members, are now sponsors of the bill.

“It’s an important piece of legislation that gets us on the right track to being able to provide opportunities for those who might not be able to have an option, where one size does not fit all in education,” explained Representative White, who testified before a subcommittee considering the plan last week. White also said the plan would not harm public school budgets if frustrated parents pull their children out. “It’s always been the saying, ‘You’re hurting public education by doing choice.’ Well, public education is funded with sales tax, and this is all with income tax. So it’s really not coming out of the public education funding pots.”

State Treasurer Curtis Loftis has also praised school choice as a major cost-saver for taxpayers. “Tax credits for school choice ultimately save money because the size of the credit is radically smaller than the level of per-student spending in the public schools,” Loftis declared in a sharply-worded editorial last month. “When critics belittle support of school choice they reveal both an ignorance of how school choice actually works as well as a condescending indifference about those [low-income families] whom it would most benefit.”