The Bushido

Karen Floyd is bad for Public Schools, Vote Jim Rex!


I am not a teacher; I just play one on television
I guess it should be expected since the S.C. Education Assoc. is backing her opponent (Jim Rex) and considering that Karen Floyd’s background as the owner of a PR/Marketing firm (the Palladian Group) she would not have an actual teacher in her commercial. Not that it really matters to me if the proud teacher of the class in the commercial is Becky Kerr (the office manager/Assistant Controller) of Floyd’s firm, The Palladian Group, but what does bother me is her misleading the general public regarding her political platform.

And now it is time for the break-down
1) Karen Floyd is a “Public-School Mom”: I will give her this attribute, but what candidate Floyd is not telling us is that her children attended private-school until she announced her decision to run for Super-Ed. As Keller over at Smarter Charleston pointed out, Floyd’s children attend “the Pine Street School-a public elementary school with few equals” and she is hardly a champion of public schools. (See: next comment)

2) Floyd wants “more parental involvement”: Meaning she wants Parents to be able to decide where their child attends school by using tuition-tax-credits (e.g. putting public money into private and religious schools with vouchers and tax-credits) for the families which qualify. Meaning, if you are middle-to-low-on the income spectrum get ready to get for a top level dash of abandonment-because if you can’t afford the private-school (even if your child could get in academically) and money is being taken away from the public schools (regardless of the school’s level of success), your child(ren) are getting the worst shake at the academic success in the past 4-years. Fortunately, they had enough support to kill this idea when President Bush and Governor Sanford pushed it a few years ago because it would have costs the state of South Carolina a ½ billion dollars and our school system would have been in shambles.

3) Karen Floyd wants to instill discipline in the classrooms: Candidate Floyd’s band-aide to solve discipline problems in the classroom is to install cameras in every classroom and expel children with video evidence. My first question, how much is this going to cost? Secondly, why not just give teachers authority in the classroom once again? If CIA agents can torture people without legal retribution, why can’t teachers discipline students without legal retribution? What? You think that is an extreme comparison? Well, perhaps that is just left-over thinking from a public-school graduate whose parents gave me twice of whatever I got at school-now that my friends is “parental-involvement”.