Why a South Carolina Teen Has to Work His Way Through High School
- on 03.21.07
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This is for those who believe only children who attend public government schools should have egual funding.
A teen in South Carolina is working to pay for his own schooling at a local private school. He is doing this because he wants a better education than the local public government school is providing to its students. [Emphasis mine]
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JOHNS ISLAND, S.C.–At 16 years old, Rontrell Matthews has a better idea than most of his peers what an education is worth. This past summer, he made his way through this rural, poor community not far outside of Charleston to show up at the doorstep of Capers Preparatory Christian Academy. In his hand was his first paycheck, a meager sum of $32.86 that he’d earned making sandwiches at the local Subway shop. Spurring him along was a determination to buy his own way out of one of the state’s many failing public schools. School choice is always controversial, and often opposed on the grounds that it will undermine public schools, subsidize middle-class parents and cherry-pick the “best” kids for a private education. After meeting Rontrell in Capers’ cramped conference room on a recent afternoon, it’s hard to disagree that school choice in this state would help one of the best kids get a better education. Rontrell is now excelling in school, encouraging his younger brother to study hard. He has landed a partial scholarship and continues to work at Subway to pay part of his $400-a-month tuition bill. Founded in 2003 by Faye Brown, a 55-year-old retired public school teacher, Capers is one of a handful of “independent schools” that serve the state’s rural poor. It operates out of rented office space, has a total of 42 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and makes do on an annual budget of about $160,000 a year. Nearly all of its equipment–desks, books and the eight iMacs in its computer lab–were donated to the school. The teachers who aren’t volunteers make $8 an hour with no fringe benefits. Many of the kids show up without lunch. Often parents fail to make their monthly tuition bills. Only five students at the school come from two-parent homes, and most of the students are African-American. Each year, Ms. Brown is forced to dip into her retirement account to keep the school running. “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” she told me. “I’ll let the power bill go until they’re about to shut off the lights and then I’m rushing down there with the money.” One place Capers isn’t skimping, however, is academics. The school places a heavy emphasis on reading, writing and math. As a result the school’s average SAT score, 1150, is 164 points above the state average, and this year the school expects every one of its graduates to go on to college. St. Johns High School, the public school these students would be attending if not for Capers, has an average SAT score of 788. South Carolina students are, on average, dead last in SAT scores, trail the nation in graduation rates and turn in abysmal scores on proficiency tests in core subjects. There are an estimated 200,000 students across South Carolina who are poor and stuck in failing public schools. |
I would like anyone who reads this story and still believes school choice should only be available within the public government school complex to explain why you only value the education of some. There is no logical argument to defend not valuaing the education of all children. It’s time to Fund The Child and stop funding the bureaucracy.
Please join me in this effort by joining a href=”http://fundthechild.org” target=”_blank”>Fund The Child. Share this message with your coworkers, friends and neighbors. Let’s let Springfield and the State governments across America that we value the education of all children and we expect action on their parts to remedy the deplorable state of our government run school bureaucracies.
