A judge in South Carolina granted a temporary restraining order to stop the governor from giving $32 million of the state’s $48 million in coronavirus relief to pay for vouchers.
Governor McMaster wanted to use coronavirus relief aid to pay the tuition of 5,000 kids in private schools while stiffing the 800,000 kids in public schools.
It is not clear why pandemic relief money should be diverted to vouchers when it was intended to protect the health of students.
Not so fast, governor. A judge hit the pause button, at least temporarily, on Republican Gov. Henry McMaster’s plan to put $32 million in federal COVID-19 aid toward helping parents with private school tuition this year. As reported by The Post and Courier’s Jamie Lovegrove, Orangeburg attorney Skyler Hutto filed a motion in court claiming that the effort to give public funds for private school tuition goes against the state constitution. Judge Edgar Dickson granted Hutto — who is the son of longtime Democratic state Sen. Brad Hutto — a temporary restraining order in the matter. As Free Times was going to press, court arguments were set to be heard in the matter this week. As reported by Lovegrove, Hutto filed the suit on behalf of a public educator from Orangeburg and cited a section of the state constitution that says, “No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
Meanwhile, McMaster’s office insists the governor’s plan is proper. “Working families in South Carolina are struggling to make ends meet during this pandemic and every parent should have the opportunity to choose the educational instruction that best suits their child’s needs,” McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said. “Federal coronavirus relief cannot, and should not, be denied to any citizen in need.”
Convoluted logic.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane They’ll probably slip in under the concept of “public-private.”
More Orwellian double-speak. BTW, if you watched Barr yesterday, he gave an almost flawless performance of twisted word games, double-speak, and prevarication.. . . followed today by the fabulous four. CBK
PLEASE correct the spelling of the word Restraining!
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Done! That’s the result of blogging on a cell phone as my eyes were closing.
Steal from the middle and working classes and give to the privileged who attend private school or parochial schools . . . . Sounds like a reverse Robin Hood to me, and SO American.
Giving PPP to charters and private schools, and then the foul-bulous 4 showing hp to defend their monopolies and grotesque, UNTAXED wealth . . . . It’s so villainous! More tilted and hilarious than the camera angle in a Batman villain scene. Holy laughing stock of the world, Batman!
Well, that those 4 white rich guys were really doing was “relationship building”. I am sure some kind of God-motivated “volunteerism to not do to this and refrain from doing that will be the biggest result from these hearings. Using the law to regulate them would make us all look like commies and socialists. And anyway, regulations and laws are to be appleid to the working class, not to the rich and powerful.
Snap out of it! Wake up and smell and feces this federal government has become. Get a LIFE . . . maybe in another country? Our lives are going down the toilet.
But this is nothing compared the tsunami of tragedy that is about to hit us as schools reopen unprepared and underfunded properly by the federal government. Something tells me that little to none of all these billions of dollars of aid from PPP and otherwise have not flowed – not even trickled – back to the public schools. When we home owners pay our taxes to fund our schools, that’s capitalism. When our very own federal tax dollars (that should be increased to finance public schools) pay for public schools, that’s socialism and communism. Now I get it.
I can’t wait to buy my first pickup truck or motorcycle and pave them with “Trump 2020” stickers and cute little American flags flapping in the wind on a flexible stick I can attach with duct tape. SO cool. Or maybe I’ll go green and just build an altar with candles and incense and lots of framed photographs of Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul.
But in all seriousness, it’s NOT the end of the world by any means.
It’s the end of the United States.
a reverse Robin Hood indeed. What generic name goes to that guy?
Of course they never mention that the schools have the choice not the parents!
South Carolina has a history of opposing racial integration. Talmadge, a former governor of its neighboring state, Georgia, first proposed privatization as a means to thwart integration.
From the publication, “The Catholic Miscellany”, of the Diocese of Charleston, “Across the country at the state level, Catholic Conferences are involved in lobbying efforts to promote school choice… The South Carolina Catholic Conference was a key sponsor of the school choice rally held in Columbia, S.C.” In the article, the director of Kentucky’s Catholic Conference is quoted touting Betsy DeVos’ appointment saying, “People feel more hopeful.” The Director of the Iowa Catholic Conference’s statement to Iowa lawmakers is cited, the “middle class would benefit from school choice”. The Miscellany article continues, “School choice is no longer at the the back of the class…today, it is taking a front seat in…state assemblies and Washington politics….Vouchers have some extra wind in their sails” with the election of Donald Trump.
Evidently, the spin of a director at the National Catholic Education Association is that “school choice is a justice issue.” The sister should read “Slaying Goliath and the positions of the NAACP and ACLU.
“School choice” was birthed in the South by segregationist governors and legislatures.
When religious leaders are in alliance with despots, it is religion’s followers who are obligated to defend the vulnerable and expose the alliance.
Many congregants in the churches of the two fundamentalist American religions are truth-challenged. They’ve bought into their clerics’ propaganda that they are the ones under attack. Same old GOP/Russian playbook- volley back the charge. Remake the argument against theocracy into, “Christians are under attack”. As “proof”, the clerics point to a Christian sect persecuted in some theocratic state and say, “See”.
So little intellectual advancement in hundreds of years- tribalism.
Perfect logic: 67% of the money goes to 5% of the kids and 33% goes to 95% of the kids.