Tearing "the Blob" a New One

Yikes! Remind me not to get on this gentleman's bad side.

You Can’t Handle the Truth

by Michael Graham

Nothing will get a politician in more trouble than the clear statement of an obvious fact.

Just ask Gov. Mark Sanford, who is in trouble again for suggesting (elderly readers, expectant mothers and those with heart conditions may wish to skip this shocking portion of the column) that some of South Carolina’s public schools aren’t very good. He specifically compared Milwaukee’s successful voucher-powered school system with some of our worst: “Can you imagine tears [of joy] being shed because you got into the public school in Allendale or Marion?”

You would think he had hired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill to lead the “Pledge of Allegiance.”

The usual suspects were outraged, of course. The State newspaper bemoaned Sanford’s “rhetoric” as “clueless and reckless.” S.C. Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum tells anyone who will listen that Sanford and his allies are overly negative about the state of our schools.

Well, I’d like to give these government-school shills a pop quiz: Can you identify who said the following? “My primary concern is the education and welfare of more than 2,100 children who attend public schools in Allendale County. By every major statistical indicator, we know that they are not getting the kind of education they need and deserve. I’m not willing to gamble on their future and merely hope that the local situation improves.”

The answer, of course, is Inez Tenenbaum. These were her comments in 1999 when she seized control of the disastrous Allendale County school system from the locally elected school board because of the horrific performance of the students, teachers and administrators.

How bad were the Allendale schools when Tenenbaum took over? According to her report at the time, only 70.5 percent of students were performing at minimum grade level and SAT scores were 150 points lower than the state average, but taxpayers were spending $600 per pupil above the state average to get these mediocre results.

And how are these schools — so recently and unfairly maligned by Gov. Sanford — performing after five years under the tutelage of Madame Tenenbaum? According to her own Department of Education, taxpayers now spend about $2,000 more per Allendale pupil than the state per-student average, yet approximately half of Allendale students failed both the math and reading sections of the 2003 Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, and Allendale SAT scores are among the lowest in the state.

I’m sorry — exactly why are we upset with Sanford again?

Read it all.