Indigo Journal

Sanford Stands in the Schoolhouse Door – Again

Posted on 04. Jun, 2009 by Tim Kelly in SC Politics

Sorry We've been so distracted by the stimulus suits to mention this before. But We have to alert you to another example of Mark Sanford's seemingly unlimited capacity to be a jackass.

The Ungov has joined his ideological and intellectual doppelganger Sarah Palin – I know, using “intellectual” in the same sentence with “Sarah Palin” made me giggle, too – to refuse to sign on to the development of rigorous national education standards. Perhaps not surprisingly, neo-secessionist Rick Perry of Texas is also among the four governors holding out. Missouri's Democratic governor has put off joining the effort until he picks a new state education chief this summer.

The effort is led by the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers and is backed by the U.S. Department of Education. A key aim is to eliminate inconsistency in comparing state achievement levels:

A primary goal is to eliminate the patchwork of academic standards across the country that result in students in the same grades learning different things in different states. The effort also is intended to devise a more rigorous common set of academic targets, and then internationally benchmark them.

SC superintendent Jim Rex is on board, in large part because creating national standards would put South Carolina – where standards are among the toughest in the nation – on a level playing field with other states with less rigorous requirements. As Think Progress points out:

In Mississippi, for instance, 90 percent of fourth-graders passed the state reading exam in 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data. But only 51 percent had at least “basic” or “partial mastery” on the test known as the Nation’s Report Card.

Sanford's reason for not signing on is a stunning admission of his own ineptitude:

In South Carolina, a spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford said that the state has a separately elected superintendent of education, and that Gov. Sanford, a Republican, deferred to Superintendent Jim Rex to make the decision.

“The governor does not have a role in implementing education policy,” spokesman Joel Sawyer said.

But even though Mr. Rex, a Democrat, has signed on, Gov. Sanford will still not sign the agreement, Mr. Sawyer added.

A more cynical explanation – and that's really why you turn to Us for these things, right – is that if other states were held to the same rigorous standards as in South Carolina, it might seriously undermine Sanford's argument that the state's schools are the worst in the nation and – by extension – Howard Rich's efforts to pay white people to send their children to private school.

But that's just me, uh, We, uh, Us.