Bob Fraser's Letter to the Editor that appeared in the P & C today, titled "Expect attendance," is well meant but misleading. Fraser describes his experiences as an "attendance supervisor" in Georgetown in 1970 as discouraging because of the attitudes of the parents involved. He was particularly affected by a truant's father's words: "'I don't have no education and he don't need one either.'"Well, it is sad that the father quoted did not desire more for his son, but Fraser's point that back then "there [were] no teeth in the law and there are none today" is simply untrue. The "teeth" have been there ever since the school attendance law was passed.
As I said back in August on this website, "It's just that for the last 40 years, since South Carolina's compulsory school law was passed in 1967, districts have not enforced the truancy laws. No one has ever paid the $50 fine for not sending his or her child to school."
In 1970 "attendance supervisor" in Georgetown must have been a relatively new position. For the prior dozen years no one had been compelled to go to school. That idiotic policy, as I pointed out previously, was all about avoiding integration. Chickens come home to roost.
For all the hype about attendance that CCSD and Nancy McGinley have produced during the first few weeks of school, what has happened to the "teeth"?
Why do I think no one has paid that $50 fine YET?
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10 comments:
Are yo saying you disagree with something that appeared in the paper? Surely not.
If only people were as perfect as you.
Who would defend the Post and Courier? Anonyous at 8:17 have you ever traveled and read a normal daily paper? The Post and Courier makes USA Today look like a fine publication.
SC has gone back and forth between compulsory school attendance and no requirements for most of the last 140 years when a state system of public schools was just beginning. It is ironic that this is one of the few true gifts that came out of the Occupation and Reconstruction Government.
A reluctance to support integration was just part of the story as to why compulsory attendance and universal education laws were repealed. The other was that the state's major economic interests desired to maintain a large pool of cheap unskilled labor. Textile mills owners and large agricultural interests that depended on even child labor opposed compulsory education from the start. They more than any others controled the legislature which may also explain why the 1892 SC Constitution only requires the state to provide an "adequate" education to its citizens. (What's "adequate" for the 21st century?)
It was just as often an ignorant, abusive parent as it was a rich textile magnate, a Pee Dee tobacco king or a sea island tomato barron who said "they don't need no schooling". Their position of power (subordination by one and control of wealth by the others) was seen as dependent on keeping SC schools non-compulsory. The shamed parent derided it as a threat to his control and the others criticized universal education as a threat to their wealth. We reap what we sow.
The 1967 law was restored by the legislature more as a reaction to the shame it brought upon the state for having repealed it in the 1940's. It also was seen as a means to avoid the overcrowding of schools many local officials had no interest in expanding. Forty years after it was restored the lack of enforcement can only demonstrate there still is no committment to universal education in SC, especially in Charleston.
According to Walter Edgar's History of SC we may have done a far better job of changing people's minds on the value of public education in 1880 than we are doing in 2007, at least relatively speaking.
It's not about defending anyone. It's about fools like you who think you have the answers, could do a better job. In reality, you haven't got a clue.
The joker who "writes" this blog apparently doesn't even work for the CCSD.
How's that for a joke.
As usual memminger1945 makes cogent points about South Carolina's attitude towards compulsory schooling. Thanks for the insight.
Let's talk about Sallie Ballard.
Playing the facts of the truancy laws as if is a PR spin opportunity doesn't help CCSD's credability. I'd like to know if this was just about numbers on the 10-day count or is it about an ongoing effort to raise school attendance. Missing from the report was a standing practice by City of Charleston police to pick up school age kids and to return them to their assigned school. This has been done for years. Why no mention of this established policy involving CCSD schools located in the city?
OK, let's say you've cleared the streets of truant kids, now what? A good goal if only for the good of our streets but what are the schools doing to hold the attention of these captives? Schools shouldn't be seen as warehouses and holding pens for data generators.
Our schools, teachers and students must feel that public education in Charleston can do more than just strive to reach a mediocre level of stability and quality. At the present pace even this might not be achievable in our lifetime. Though “Average” is said to be the goal, a majority of our schools have been allowed to remain hopelessly out of reach of even that mark. Is it unrealistic to say we deserve better? Comparably wealthy communities with similar demographics have left Charleston in the dust. Charleston parents and taxpayers have a right to be angry. From the public information we have shared, the Charleston community now knows we deserve a better school system than what CCSD has delivered.
Until management sees CCSD's inconsistency as a problem in need of a lasting solution, our schools will continue to be treated as if they are in perpetual emergency care with management in triage mode. The challenge should be for this administration to show us that it is substantially different. So far they haven’t. The truancy issue shows CCSD is resorting to using smoke and mirrors.
I'll talk about Sallie Ballard. She's incompetent as an administrator and should have been gone last year. Only in "Gregg Meyers land" can we have a principal who knowingly allows parents to falisfy addresses and keep her job.
And I'd love to talk about CCSD implementing policies they have no plan of enforcing.
$50 fine for parents of truant students...$250.00 fine for Buist address cheaters...yet they're still at the school.
Show me the money! What a joke.
Babbie,
My suggestion for you is to delete every response from Butzon. He is a big blow hard and deleted everyone's comments that disagreed with his on his Schoolmovement site. I really thought it was Gregg for a while but when they really got nasty, it was easy to realize it was Butzon. If he isn't the center of attention, he kicks dirt. Ignore him.... he won't go away but he can't stand being ignored. Berkeley County Schools didn't want him and neither does Charleston County. He is supported by Riley so they have to put up with him. Just delete!!!
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