Pro-Voucher Officials Aren’t Letting the Democratic Process Stop Them

BY STEVE NUZUM

Vouchers-- as the term is used to describe any of the various schemes to divert public funds to private schools-- are unpopular across political parties. 

In Kentucky, where 62% of voters supported President Donald Trump, a comfortable majority of rural and urban voters rejected a ballot measure to change the state constitution to allow school vouchers. 

Similarly, in Nebraska, rural and urban voters rejected a proposed school voucher program. 59% of voters in Nebraska supported President Trump.

States that have successfully passed vouchers have often been met with all-too-predictable outcomes, like Arizona’s $1.4 billion budget shortfall after passing a “universal” voucher program, that are likely eroding much of the support for school vouchers that once existed.

In South Carolina, the first public hearing on S. 62, the state’s voucher bill, saw an unlikely coalition of voices-- ranging from outspoken book banners, to homeschool parents, to public and private school teachers-- speaking out against the House version of the bill, which would use tax dollars to create a voucher scheme that would become universal within a few years. 

This diversity of negative views shouldn’t be surprising: voucher bills like S. 62 simply don’t poll well when the public understands their tax dollars will be used to benefit private schools that are unaccountable to them, and that don’t have any obligation under the law to actually serve all students. . 

The SC legislature does not seem willing to let public feedback, or even the majority opinion in the Eidson v South Carolina Department of Education , sway it from its billionaire-backed mission to pass another school voucher bill, even if another Supreme Court challenge is all but guaranteed. (Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass poured more than three quarters of a million dollars into negative attack ads on behalf of Ellen Weaver, a career voucher supporter, in her run for Superintendent; when Eidson struck down the previous voucher language, Yass personally paid for the tuitions of the students who had already qualified under the program. As an aside, wouldn’t it be nice if folks like Yass would stop focusing so much on tax avoidance and more on simply providing scholarships for students, if they believe private schools are the answer to every problem.) 

During that first meeting, as Matthew Hall described in a recent editorial for The State, two pro-voucher legislators became so aggressive and “rude” in their talking points while “questioning” a member of the public that Chair Shannon Erickson-- the bill’s biggest champion in the House-- felt compelled to step in an remind them to behave themselves. At one point, with clear venom in his voice, Rep. Jeff Bradley of Beaufort told a speaker “I’m going to try to be nice,” before launching into a series of rhetorical questions about why the state should be spending so much money on “failing” public schools? (The answer, of course, is in the State Constitution, which explicitly requires the legislature to “provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free public schools open to all children in the State and shall, establish, organize, and support such other public institutions of learning, as may be desirable”.) 

The following week, that bill was already on the House floor, where healthy majorities voted down a series of amendments which would have required private schools receiving the funds to honor students’ special education accommodation plans, prioritizing enrollment of students from rural schools, and even require that service providers receiving funds be located in South Carolina. As multiple opponents of the bill pointed out, the tabling of these amendments (which essentially killed them without allowing a vote) suggested that the marketing of the bill as a way to help underserved students and provide “school choice” was misleading.

As Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter asked at one point, “Are we saying, ‘We’re all about choice, but we don’t mean you?’”

Erickson quickly moved to table each amendment, and even rose to speak against the last one on the floor. Her motions to table amendments became so routine that at one point she had to correct an official announcement that she was moving to table an amendment (to increase the amount the voucher program could pay for transportation) that she actually supported. 

At one point, Rep. James Teeple (Charleston) objected to the amendment on special education accommodations by saying his child currently has an IEP at her public school, and that he should have the ability to decide whether his daughter does or does not go to a private school. Of course, this freedom to choose for a special needs student is  exactly what the amendment would have protected.

The current bill, shepherded through committee and on the House floor by Erickson, even includes language taken directly from the minority opinion in Eidson. “Whereas,” the bill reads, “the General Assembly has carefully and respectfully crafted this act to comply with the South Carolina Supreme Court's interpretation of Article XI, Section 4 of the South Carolina Constitution in Eidson v. S.C. Dep't of Education, 906 S.E.2d 345 (S.C. 2024), and specifically finds that Chief Justice Kittredge's description of the Education Scholarship Trust Fund program represents how the program created by this act is structured…”  

Again, that’s an opinion from the losing side, so to speak, of the state Supreme Court decision, an indication of just how much pro-voucher legislators are willing to cherry pick, to shout down opponents, and ultimately to ignore reality, if that’s what it takes to get their bill passed. 

As debate wound down, two Republicans-- Rep Neal Collins of Greenville/ Pickens and Rep David Martin of York, gave passionate floor speeches about why they felt compelled to vote against the bill.  

To a nearly empty House, Collins laid out the clear constitutional issues with the bill, which, as he pointed out, has nearly identical language to the portions of the previous bill struck down by the state Supreme Court. He urged his colleagues to put the issue before voters: the only way to do this right, he said, was to offer a constitutional amendment that allowed for the public funding of private schools.  And there was, he said, no rational argument that the new bill was not an attempt at unconstitutionally using public funds for private schools. After all, he said, State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver had explicitly requested $30 million in funds related to the so-called “Education Scholarships” on behalf of the State Department of Education. 

Collins also laid out the real practical issues with the bill. He cited examples of private schools which currently discriminate on the basis of disability status in admissions, and which would still be eligible for receiving state funds without changing these policies. He outlined the history of the state’s expansion of charter schools, which Collins said hadn’t led to any schools being built in the so-called “Corridor of Shame”. A $6,000 subsidy, Collins said, wasn’t going to be building any schools or hiring many teachers; instead, it would merely be a reduction in tuition for existing private school families-- at taxpayer expense.

But Collins’ concerns went unheard by many of his colleagues.  After a series of floor speeches from other legislators, they returned and voted, 79 to 38, in favor of the bill, which will now move forward to a conference committee where legislators will try to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions.

Even voucher supporters should be concerned at the way legislators are rushing to pass something without clear public support, in a way that has often been nakedly antagonistic with the public they are elected to serve, and with a clear track record of problems in other states.  They should be concerned at the appearance that legislators simply don’t care what the people want, and it seems clear that this has been the reason for the extremely fast progress of the bill through the legislature: if there were good arguments for passing it, our elected officials might slow down, hear public feedback in good faith, and work on the best possible version of the bill. 

Instead, they have all but rubber-stamped legislation that has been pushed for at least a decade by anti-regulation and radical think tanks.  And it will be the taxpayers and students of South Carolina who foot the bill if it passes.