check this out

I was glad SC Hotline put out the Rich interview. All I knew about Howard Rich was what I read about him, and it was good to hear him explain his mission in his own words. I encourage everyone to actually watch the interview. To me, it seems like he actually cares about the children in South Carolina. Why else would he be spending all that money here? I haven't been able to come up with any way he could financially gain here with as much money as he's put into various races. The only logical reason he keeps on spending his money is the reason he gives in the interview, he wants to improve the quality of education for South Carolina students.

I know we have good school districts around here for the most part, but there are parts of the state where kids are stuck in failing districts. These districts spend the most money per pupil in the state, and they're still not getting better. We've thrown money at the problem for too many years with no resuls.

Lee: Why don't you post the interview for us?

Hopefully all these work, it's split up into 7 parts but SChotline got the numbering mixed up.

Vote for Marshall Meadors in November. Public education in SC is too important to leave to Kevin Bryant and his out-of-state dirty money. Dump Don Bowen too. He netted thousands in campaign contributions from Howard Rich and his ilk. Meadors and Tom Dobbins are products of Anderson County schools and they would represent us, not some NY real estate baron hell bent creating a dual system where the cognitive elite pay for their privileged, segregated educations on the backs of common people.

The current dual system we have works fine. Wealthy people can afford to educate their kids in private schools on their own dime. Others, like Kevin, can home school on their own dime. The rest of us, the overwhelming majority, need a quality public school system to educate our children and we should not have to pay for a segregated school system for the elite. I thought we settled that issue with Brown vs. Bd of Education nearly 50 years ago.

Well Ed using that logic people who don't have children shouldn't pay taxes that go towards schools either. But that's not the way it works. There are plenty of items that one could argue are not fair. I have social security taken out of my check every week, conventional wisdom says I'll never see a dime of it. I am pretty sure I've seen a sewer fee on my taxes but I have a septic tank. I have to pay that uninsured motorist fee to State Farm even though I have a good driving record and insurance. I could go on but I think you see my point.
Kevin Bryant and other choose to home school and or privatly educate their children. No one is forcing them to do that. Parents have different reasons for making this choice, some religious, some not happy with the quality of education and I am sure other reasons. But because those parents are not happy with the system it does not give them the right to take money away from it and deny other children an education. Even with vouchers the vast majority of parents could not afford to send their children to private school. They would cause an already divided system to get further divided. Our state has some of the worst statistics in the country, let's not make them worse.

They currently have a choice: send their kid to public school that we all pay for or home school or pay up for private school. But they should not have the option of taking their share of the money needed to support public schools and redirect it to private school. Public schools are public good, like roads and libraries. All need to pay and all have the right to use them. And JD, I that Brown v. Bd was about segregation not race. The school voucher program that Kevin Bryant, Don Bowen, Dan Harvell, Mark Sanford and Howard Rich so fervently support is just a new form of segregation in education. It was right 50 years ago and it certainly hasn't become right since.

Ed the social security was just an example, I hope you are right and it will be available to me in the >20 years when I will be eligible, but if it isn't I will not begrudge my elders who received it. But education is the real issue here and I have dealt with you and JD long enough to know can't change your mind once it's made up. Afterall JD is still mad at me about that Kennedy thing that happened when I was in kindergarten. But I will tell you this -educators are mad at Bryant about the vouchers and health care workers are scared for their jobs because of him. So regardless of what you, I or JD believe to be the right answer on vouchers Kevin Bryant is facing a much bigger challange than he realizes in Nov. people are afraid of what he will do next and how it will personally affect them.

Our public school system and it's teachers are far more competent and dedicated than you pundits give them credit for. For all the criticism leveled at them, they've been making silk purses out of sows ears for years. I hope every teacher, and every parent, every health care worker, every environmental advocate, and every community-minded citizen of Bryant's Senate district will vote for Marshall Meadors and give Kevin more time to participate in his own home schooling experiment. Bryant's anti-guvment rhetoric is his biggest political failing. "No guvment" is not the answer all the things people care about. "Good guvment" is. Kevin and his Libertarian ilk just don't get it.

Ed, You should come to service area 1 where I work next time the drinks are cheaper :-)
But seriously. I can assure you that no matter what they are charging for the drinks that is not what they are being reimbursed by medicaid. I think the rate is something like- and I can't remember the exact fiugre so don't quote me on this- something like 5 cents on the dollar.
Now I don't know what the answer to the problem is, and I can assure you I wrote more than one 12-15 page research paper on it while at MUSC tying to figure it out. However I do know the solution won't be easy. And I also don't know what Kevin Byant thinks on the issue because last time a medicaid related issue came up he recused himself.
And despite the high prices you are seeing, you need to remember the folks in service area 4 or any other service area of the hospital aren't setting pricing policy. They are going to work every day and doing their jobs. And they are concerned whether they will have jobs. And I am not just talking about AnMed I am talking about health care workers in general, down to the guy that sweeps the floor at NHC. And that's a lot of people Ed, 5000+ if I'm not mistaken and a lot of them are upset with Kevin Bryant and concerned for their jobs.
Back to education. Aren't you the same fellow who about a week or so ago was saying how much better children were educated 50-60 years ago in their large classes? Yet now your saying smaller classes are the answer? Which is it? I'm confused.