The Other Brooks Brothers and Their Sister, Too. — “Suddenly-relevant”

I’ve always found it sad that our schools are required to strive to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP. After all, “adequate” isn’t anything to brag about – unless it’s my golf game which still hasn’t gotten there.

At work, when it’s time for the annual review, the boss isn’t going to reward with a raise and/or promotion for adequate work.

In sports, as the coach makes lineup decisions, he or she isn’t going to put those with adequate skills as starters.

When it comes to hiring, as the pool of applicants grows, it’s pretty certain that those with adequate credentials/skills won’t get the job above those prepared to compete.

Why is it that “adequate” progress is what we strive for in our schools, then? What’s worse is having to ask why we can’t even seem to achieve that adequate progress we work so hard to attain.

For the record, this is not a post in support of vouchers. Frankly, I don’t support vouchers.

At the same time, I will say that something isn’t working. I’m not blaming the teachers. Their hands are often tied, and they’re doing the best with what they have. Unfortunately, what they have isn’t much.

I blame the system. I blame elected officials at several levels who are convinced that money is the ultimate answer and refuse to expand the debate further.

They haven’t wanted to talk about the outlandish levels of administration. They haven’t wanted to talk about squandered finances resulting from unnecessary redundancies and waste.

They’ve been convinced that if they throw enough money in this pit it will eventually fill up.

Excluding local bond revenues, South Carolina’s 2009 educational budget has plans for $11,480 ($4,867 in state funds, $1,097 in federal funds, and $5,516 in local funds) per pupil. That’s $200 more per pupil than Georgia and $2,000 more than North Carolina. For what are deemed our state’s “worst” schools, they will receive as much as $20,000 in per pupil funding.

That means that excluding local bond revenues, total K-12 appropriations for the upcoming school year in South Carolina will be more than $7.9 billion.

The numbers are deceiving, though. The unfortunate reality is that only 44 cents of each “education” dollar ever reaches the classroom. Out of each dollar, 44 cents pay for things like classroom materials (at least the ones that teachers aren’t forced to pay for out of their own pockets), books and teacher salaries. That means 56 cents of every dollar never reaches a classroom because that’s reserved for “non-instructional” expenditures like administration and bureaucracy.

It’s easy to see that the problem really isn’t that there isn’t enough money like some want us to believe. The problem is the system we created, fostered, and continue to support.

I know I wrote about this back in January, but the debate rages on, and these updated numbers illustrate even more than before how broken the system really is.

All of this explains why I was so encouraged to read the latest proposal (highlighted yesterday by The Palmetto Scoop and echoed by FITSNews) from Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and his friends.

Yea for us! A constitutional amendment adding the line “that will provide a high quality education, allowing each student to reach his highest potential” makes perfect sense.

Why didn’t we think of that before? It’s brilliant.

Revamping the educational system to foster real education for our children seems so silly now.

Putting money in the classrooms instead of breeding a bigger bureaucracy now seems downright ludicrous.

Of course. The answer is a constitutional amendment with no enabling legislation to spell out how this new public school system would operate to provide this high quality education and how we would pay for it.

A new line in South Carolina’s constitution will make us feel good, so the superintendent’s plan has to work. Right?

Thank you, Superintendent Rex. You’ve done it, old bean.

When you went on your name-calling tirade against someone who disagreed at the end of January, who knew it would only take you three months to single-handedly move South Carolina from 49th to 1st and prove all of your detractors wrong?

I have egg on my face now.

– Wilson Charles

There are a few field changes in this year’s BMW Charity Pro-Am.

Tournament officials announced yesterday that four event celebrities were forced to withdraw due to production schedules of their latest projects. They are:

• Lucas Black
• David James Elliott
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Kevin Sorbo

Replacing them in the field are:

• Ty Gretzky
• Joe Pesci
• Sterling Sharpe
• Kordell Stewart

Additional tournament information and celebrity biographies are available from the tournament’s news release.

This year’s sites move from The Cliffs Communities’ various courses to three new venues (Thornblade Club in Greer, Bright’s Creek Golf Club in Mill Spring, NC, and The Carolina Country Club in Spartanburg).

The tournament will take place from May 15-18 with all four rounds televised live on The Golf Channel.

– Matthew Wills

I refuse to be another to speak ill of Spartanburg GOP party boss Rick Beltram.

Nope. Not gonna do it.

After all, his hometown paper potentially ended the twisted love affair they shared when it finally turned on him (Here, Here, Here, and Here) for selling campaign services to Spartanburg County primary election candidates out of the party headquarters where he located his office after leaving the family business.

NOTE: Rick, you should have known that it would eventually happen. Maureen Dowd said it best. “Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.”

South Carolina’s blogs have been on the offensive, too. FITSNews hit him twice (Here and Here). Palmetto Scoop presented this piece and this piece. I even disagreed with his practices here recently.

Rick made a mistake. He knows it and was a big enough man to voluntarily quit peddling his services until Sunday when his party leadership gave him permission to restart his enterprise on a limited basis.

I disagree with the Spartanburg County party’s decision, but I’m not going to criticize them over what many view as an overwhelming appearance of impropriety and conflict.

What I will do is applaud Rick Beltram.

He took a free tool like Voter Vault and was able to charge candidates to organize the data and provide printouts of the information.

He actually figured out a way to take a database tool that is worth every penny of what the party normally charges and get $10 American for every precinct.

The secret is that Voter Vault is a mess. It’s not updated. It’s outdated. It’s inaccurate. It’s also a lot of other synonyms that aren’t really coming to mind right now.

In the end it costs the candidates and campaigns that use it.

Candidates base large parts of their communications/messaging strategies on what is a great offering in concept. Unfortunately, Voter Vault’s records are fraught with dead voters (literally, not some metaphorical political term), wrong contacts, and voters who moved. It isn’t updated frequently enough to add new voters, it hates any browser other than Internet Explorer, and it’s also so compromised that Mrs. Charles seems to be the only person without login information. Doesn’t that sound like a great tool?

It’s a great idea, but it has too many errors to be of real value. Until the RNC pays attention and elevates Voter Vault to what it should be in concept, I congratulate anyone who can make money off of it.

Of course whether or not the RNC shares my appreciation is a different story, altogether.

– Wilson Charles

Dear SCDC Litter Control Crew,

Hey, you missed a spot.

Sincerely,

– Bo Burdette

I generally try not to rant. Lunacy is not an attractive quality. I work hard to be rational and relatively logical, but I find that the older I get, the more I’m irritated by small things that the rest of the sane population would find insignificant.

This notion really hit me as we came back from The Heritage yesterday.

We decided not to get gas in Hilton Head because I just can’t justify the island’s $3.45 per gallon market price until the rest of the state moves its prices in lock step.

The car had roughly 150 miles left in the tank, so I convinced everybody that we needed to drive to cheaper gas. It would come. I just knew it would.

It did.

If you know about the UFO Visitor Welcome Center in Bowman, SC, you know there’s only one gas station on that exit. That’s where we stopped for $3.34 per gallon.

After a $52 fill-up later, I decided to patronize the adjoining McDonald’s. I know I don’t need it, but it was warm outside, and I wanted a chocolate milkshake.

After waiting a minute-and-a-half, I believe the clerk asked if she could take my order. Through the garbled speaker she might have asked if I knew how to Salsa. I’m not sure.

Anyway, on the assumption that she asked about my order I stated that I wanted a large chocolate milkshake.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We don’t have large chocolate milkshakes. We only have small and medium.”

Curtly, I opted for the medium. When we pulled forward to the window, I probably could have been a little nicer. Her stupidity really irritated me, though. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

After all, it wasn’t her fault she was stupid. Marketing terms used by fast food joints (and most infamously a certain coffee chain) are out of control. Marketing gurus have so horribly bastardized the English language and word meanings, it’s no wonder South Carolina’s kids are having trouble competing.

For anyone in the service industry who is having trouble with this concept, let me explain. To be truthful, there are 4 (sometimes 5) accepted sizes — small, medium, large, extra large, and the occasional extra extra large. That last only is like when “Y” is considered a vowel, which isn’t very often.

If you work at an establishment and your menu board offers only two sizes, they are by definition “small” and “large” no matter what corporate calls them. The laws of physics do not allow you to have “medium” on that menu because “medium” comes between “small” and “large.” It’s impossible to have an “extra large” without a “large.” These are simple concepts that even preschool age children can understand.

With that said, Mr. Starbucks executive, don’t charge me extra to order a Venti. I’m not going to order a Venti. I’m going to order an extra large, and I don’t want your barista to look at me blankly when I order the extra large. He knows extra large means Venti, we just aren’t buying in to the marketing language.

Likewise, if you happen to work at the McDonald’s next to the Pilot gas station on the Bowman exit on I-26, you don’t have “small” and “medium” chocolate milkshakes. You have “small” and “large.”

Thanks for letting me vent. I’m felling much better now.

– Wilson Charles

UPDATE: If you’re wondering why there’s no report from The Heritage about legislators behaving badly, I was told by our hosts at the hospitality house we frequented that theirs was a “safe house” free of cameras and other recording devices and that what happened there would not leave. We all appreciate their hospitality and abided by house rules.

Representative Sue Myrick (R-NC 9) may be the greatest congressman congressperson representative in the history of the United States House of Representatives.

OK. Maybe she’s not the greatest, but she’s still pretty cool.

Her “one minute speech” on the floor yesterday (April 15, 2008) honored an American who not only loves his country but who has also been a great friend to South Carolina for over thirty-five years, and it’s only fitting that his retirement was recognized in the halls of Congress.

– Bo Burdette

Today it begins.

Across the Southeast one of spring’s most cherished trophies will be on display so that friends, family, and coworkers alike will say, “I like that shirt. Did you go?”

You won’t have to ask, “Where?” After all, everyone knows that the inquisitive party meant The Masters Tournament and the coveted souvenir you’re wearing, and you will have one of two responses.

“Yes,” you’ll say followed by an explanation of how you got tournament badges, how breathtaking Augusta is, what it was like to see Trevor Immelman earn his first Green Jacket, and how Tiger Woods won’t win the grand slam this year.

Of course, there’s the other answer, too.

“No,” you’ll sheepishly admit followed by a dissertation of how Merv from Accounting went and picked it up for you and the rest of the gang in the office.

Alas, today is Monday. Specifically it’s the Monday after the Masters. Augusta will usher the few remaining patrons out of town and prepare for their return in another year.

That means that there are roughly 6000 fans off to Myrtle Beach for the annual Hootie and the Blowfish post-Masters fund raiser, and a whole other slate of folks prepared to descend on Harbour Town for The Heritage.

Is it too early to head over to the Quarterdeck?

– Matthew Wills

Lali, the infant born in India with two faces, is famous not only in her native country but in South Carolina, as well.

“We gotta get that girl here to Columbia,” said one lawmaker today on the condition of anonymity because I just made him up.

“That girl has a real gift,” he added referring to the duplication and functionality of all facial features on Lali’s face.

Another imaginary legislator added, “Some folks sees this child as a tragedy, but I agree with Hindus who see her as a goddess. I thank she’s uh miracle and otta be our new leader in the General Assembly. We’ve been talkin’ out of both sides of our face fur yeers, and we’ve been gettin’ our hydes tanned fur it. This girl can teach us a thang ur two.”

This week, the South Carolina House of Representatives conducted a hasty voice vote to advance legislative pensions and increase the state’s underfunded retirement system by $2.4 billion. This came on the heels of the state’s economists projecting massive revenue shortfalls impacting services and education.

Said one legislator, “Man, it’s good to get elected as a conservative and then come down here throwing principle out the window.”

Only four House members specifically added their names in the journal of the day as having voted against H.4673 during the voice vote. They were Representatives Eric Bedingfield, Bob Leach, Mick Mulvaney, and senator-in-waiting Phillip Shoopman.

To be fair, retiring Representative Bill Cotty said that he didn’t vote on the bill, but if he had, he would have voted, “nay.” OK.

Since the initial vote, during what should have been an uneventful third reading formality, the House recommitted the bill to the Ways and Means Committee as a result of stubbornness, wrangling, the writing on the wall, and a roll call vote of 58-51.

In a strange turn of events possibly signaling the end of civilization, the SC Club for Growth and The State newspaper’s Cindi Ross Scoppe almost agree on this one.

– Bo Burdette (Wilson Charles contributed to this post)

UPDATE: Wilson just got an earful from Mrs. Charles that it’s horrible to make fun of an innocent infant with a birth defect. We couldn’t agree more, so that’s why we made fun of the legislature instead. We hope Lali continues doing well and are glad that she remains loved and cared for. At the same time we hope House members — especially the “conservatives” — realize what an insult this pension increase is.

UPDATE 2: If you haven’t read it yet, in the “Comment” section Representative Nathan Ballentine tore down a wall and gave an inside look on what happened with the votes on H.4673. We want to thank him for his support of this site and for his contribution to this report.

I seem to be the second person associated with this site who doesn’t necessarily hold the legal community in high esteem.

The latest a-hole lawyer move comes against Adam Fogle over at The Palmetto Scoop.

Late last week Fogle got a tip about where the stars and director of Nailed are expected to lay their heads while filming in our fair Columbia.

At most it was neat tidbit to break up stories of county party chairmen suing their uncles.

Apparently, before Fogle finished clicking “Publish” on his post, a high-priced high-dollar attorney at a Beverly Hills law firm representing Jake Gyllenhaal decided to touch base with Jake’s new neighbors in the way of a “cease and desist” notice.

Mr. Richard D. Thompson or DICK Thompson wrote Fogle and opened with a “soft sell” and discussions of appreciation for Mr. Gyllenhaal’s privacy and security. Then he went in to “demand” mode — demanding that Fogle take down the post, remove any pictures and information included on The Scoop and/or any other site Fogle controls, and that he not post about Jake’s whereabouts while he’s in Columbia.

What the…?

Was DICK Thompson afraid that somebody would go Brokeback on his client?

Wait a minute. Is anyone else sensing a pattern? First there was Brokeback Mountain. Now there’s Nailed. Throw in an attorney named DICK Thompson. Hmmm.

Never mind.

Congratulations, Jake. You and DICK Thompson successfully scared a li’l ol’ South Carolina political blogger whose audience is more likely to believe that a Gyllenhaal is something you need to have examined by a doctor.

Way to make friends on your first day, big man.

It’s OK. You simply don’t know better. In this state we’re used to high-end celebs who accept our hospitality and generosity and are grateful for their time here. You’re obviously no George Clooney.

Now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, welcome to South Carolina, Jessica.

– Bo Burdette

P.S. If you want to make a screen cap of this post and pass it along, please feel free. DICK’s law firm may have us shut down before the end of the day. Make sure you show Adam Fogle some support, too.

Two of Rod Shealy’s clients are reportedly teaming up.

According to SC Hotline this morning, Lt. Governor Andre Bauer will name former Secretary of State Jim Miles as his chief of staff.

Adding in most of his speeches from days of old, “He who does not toot his own horn shall not have his horn tooted,” Miles is famous for promoting himself in the public eye.

He’s a strong campaigner most known for launching the state’s “Angels and Scrooges” list of good and bad charities published each Christmas season. He is also known for campaigning well in advance of the actual election — like plastering the state in large campaign signs more than a year before his first election as secretary of state.

With the 2010 gubernatorial election already heating up and with Lt. Governor Bauer making the rounds at events throughout South Carolina like this past weekend’s Carolina Cup, is this move to include former Secretary Miles a strategic campaign move by the creator of the General Assembly’s new Reform Caucus?

Oh, and where’s current chief of staff Mike Easterday going?

– Wilson Charles