S.C. Senate Plan Would Exclude Homeschoolers from Voucher Program

Skylar Laird/S.C. Daily Gazette

COLUMBIA — The senator who pushed for a law creating South Carolina’s K-12 scholarship program attempted to lower the number of students who can participate in the coming school year. But a day after adopting his proposal, Senate budget writers flipped on their decision to cap the program at 10,000.

Senate Education Chairman Greg Hembree’s proposal came after the state Department of Education gave money to homeschooled students despite he and other senators saying they didn’t intend that.

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee voted 16-3 to adopt his budget directive. But on Wednesday, senators who voted “yes” said they didn’t realize they were limiting participation.

While their do-over vote returned participation to 15,000 students total, senators kept in place Hembree’s ban on accepting more homeschooled students into the program.

The disagreement over which students could receive the funds pitted some of the program’s most ardent supporters against each other, as senators grilled state Superintendent Ellen Weaver, who ran a think tank that pushed for school choice programs, over giving homeschooled students the money. Hembree, who sponsored the bill, told Weaver he felt she made him a liar after he repeatedly assured senators the money did not go to homeschooled students.

The law passed last year requires the number of students receiving state-funded scholarships to increase from 10,000 students to at least 15,000 students in the coming school year.

However, Hembree’s frustrations over the Department of Education’s decision and a lack of testing data prompted him to propose freezing the cap at 10,000 students for another year while the Legislature’s oversight agency investigates the program. That report will likely be finished before the next budgeting cycle.

“I think we need to tap the brakes on this whole thing until we can get our feet under us a little bit,” the Little River Republican said.

The department has already received more than 15,000 applications for the funds for the coming year, which are meant to help students pay for private school tuition, curriculum, electronics, transportation and other school-related costs. The amount per student is set to rise as well, from $7,500 to $7,634.

Applications open first to students already in the program and their siblings. A second application window gave priority to students with parents in the military, families with incomes at 300% or less of the federal poverty level and students enrolled in public school.

The money is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning the cap would have removed the 5,000 families last accepted.

Sen. Larry Grooms said he did not realize the full extent of Hembree’s proposal.

“I don’t want to limit the scholarships,” the Bonneau Republican said in proposing the change.

Senators then unanimously approved keeping participation at 15,000 as expected under the law. The House’s budget plan also funded 15,000 slots.

However, senators still struck the section of law the education department pointed to as allowing students who learn from home to receive the money, effectively ending that option for any future applicants. Hembree’s bill to do the same thing stalled in the committee process.

The roughly 1,000 homeschooled students already accepted would be allowed to remain, though with added requirements, Hembree said.

“I did not feel right about pulling the rug out from under these children,” Hembree said. “Somebody’s told them this was OK, and they’ve signed up for it. Their families have signed up for it. They have not done a thing wrong.”

But those students need more oversight to make sure they’re actually learning, Hembree said.

Under the program as the department is running it, parents’ signature satisfies the state’s attendance requirements, and students need to show up for a test once a year, though the law does not require them to pass it.

“They don’t have to go to school one day,” Hembree said.

The budget clause would essentially put those students under the first of the three existing homeschooling options in state law. Students in what the education department calls the “unbundling” homeschooling option would be supervised by the agency.

The department would have to approve all lesson plans. Parents homeschooling their children would need to hold a high school diploma and pass an exam or have a degree in teaching. Parents would also have to submit records showing the students’ work, and students would have to take an annual statewide test for their grade level.

Whether the directive striking the unbundling option makes it to Legislature’s final spending plan will depend on upcoming floor debates and negotiations between the chambers.

Some committee members questioned whether the students should be allowed to remain in the program. After all, keeping them would mean nearly 1,000 of the maximum 10,000 spots would be automatically filled with students grandfathered into the program, said Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, who ended up voting for Hembree’s proposal.

Many of the students were homeschooled before applying for state funding, suggesting they didn’t need the money to continue their education, Sabb said.

“I don’t know that I understand how we now say that they can’t otherwise go to homeschool unless we fund it,” he said.

Not every student was homeschooled before receiving the money, Hembree said. Many who had homeschooled their students for years said previously the money opened up new avenues of learning for their students through classes and curriculum they otherwise couldn’t afford.

Although the department has yet to give senators complete testing data for the most recent school year, making it unclear how well students are performing, some families certainly benefit from the program, Hembree said.

The issue wasn’t the program itself, Hembree said. The law excluded homeschoolers in the first place because many homeschooling parents asked legislators to leave them out, not because creating a workable program was impossible.

Running the program through a loophole in the law with no clear guardrails, as the education department was doing, created the problem, Hembree said.

“I think that this approach has been a catastrophe,” Hembree said. “I mean, it’s just been a mess, and it’s a mess we are having to clean up.”