Despite stiff resistance from the education establishment and some politicians, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford continues to fight for school choice in his state.

Even though the South Carolina General Assembly defeated school-choice legislation last year, Sanford remains determined to implement educational policies that favor parents and children rather than teachers unions and bureaucrats.

In a recent commentary on the issue, Sanford offers examples of school-choice successes in Milwaukee and Cleveland as reasons why South Carolina should pursue introducing free-market principles into its education system. For example, after offering parents the opportunity to choose where their children attend school, Milwaukee saw its public-school enrollment, graduation rate, per-pupil funding and test results increase. The only thing that decreased was the dropout rate!

Recent South Carolina school test results place 284 schools in failing or below-average categories. That means one out of every five public-school children in the state attend failing schools. Nearly 40 percent of the states schools reported lower test scores than a year ago.

Sanford says giving parents more choices in the marketplace is critical to making his state more competitive. Hes right. The same holds true for Kentucky if our state is to become more competitive in the 21st centurys changing economy.

Unfortunately, Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher hasn't taken a stand for school choice in the commonwealth. During a radio program last year, Fletcher said he believes that school choice would improve the education of the commonwealths children.

Certainly our secretary of education and other people in the education department think that school choice is a good thing if it is done properly, he said.

But the actions of Fletchers administration at least to this point dont match the rhetoric. If our governor really wants to make Kentucky more competitive, he should model his approach after Gov. Mark Sanfords fearless leadership in the face of  determined opposition.

Sources:

Interview with Ernie Fletcher, Kentucky Focus Radio Program, Dec. 24, 2004

Providing school choice key to advancing state by Gov. Mark Sanford, The Charlotte Observer, Nov. 20, 2005

More information on South Carolinas school-choice movement is available at http://www.scrgov.org/content.asp?catID=8088.