PrintPrint
Calling it the new civil rights movement, Sen. Robert Ford, D-S.C., said parents should be 
allowed to send their children to school wherever they see fit, particularly if those children are mandated to attend failing public schools. He’s introduced legislation to provide tax credits for parents who pay elementary and secondary school tuition. Low-income families would also be eligible for grants and scholarship opportunities, Ford said.
By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published March 24, 2009
Calling school reform the new civil rights movement, Democrat S.C. Sen. Robert Ford joined several Republican colleagues on Tuesday to push the state to adopt a school choice program.
“I’m the one lonely black Democrat attending,” Ford said of the noon press conference at the Statehouse. “The rest are conservative Republicans who have been pushing vouchers for a long, long time.”
Several weeks ago, Ford, who represents Charleston County, filed bill S.520 to provide a tax credit for anyone who pays tuition to send a child to either a private school or to a public school other than the one the child is assigned to attend.
“It doesn’t make sense for elected officials to tell parents that we have to do something to improve the public schools, but, in the meantime, you’re going to have to keep little Johnnie at this failing school,” Ford said. “That doesn’t make no kind of sense to me.”
Ford said his legislation is intended to provide a tax credit of $3,500 per child for parents who choose to pay tuition for elementary and secondary school.
Grants and tuition assistance would be provided to low-income families whose children are attending failing public schools, Ford said.
Because this topic is so controversial in nature, Ford said he doubts lawmakers will reach an accord on it this year. Still, he urged action.
“For the sake of children, we’ve got to get to it fast,” he said. “Any elected official not supporting sending kids out of failing schools is really not concerned with kids.”
Print