Candidates offer views on education

GREENVILLE — Six candidates for state Superintendent of Education outlined their positions on issues ranging from financing of education to vouchers to school accountability in a forum Tuesday night at Furman University.

Republican Elizabeth Moffly, owner of a construction company and a seafood business in Mount Pleasant, said the state needs to reduce the number of credits required for graduation from 24 to 19 and use the money that would be saved to offer a wider variety of courses, including offering a vocational diploma.

She also called for a 10-point grading system, saying South Carolina's uniform grading scale, like its higher number of credits for graduation than most states have, puts the state at a disadvantage in competing with other states for business development.

Former U.S. Deputy Superintendent of Education Frank Holleman, who faces former S.C. State dean Tom Thompson for the Democratic nomination, drew the loudest applause in defending his opposition to vouchers. Furman political science professor Brent Nelsen had questioned whether the state needs to elect 'someone deeply invested in the status quo.'

'I've been working to reform public education for years,' he said. 'Working, not just talking about it when I'm running for state superintendent.'

Nelsen, a Republican, said he would work to create more individualized educational opportunities for students across the state, such as charter schools, magnet schools and special programs.

Thompson, a former math teacher and trainer of teachers and principals at the state Department of Education, said he sees the superintendent role as 'the state's top teacher.' He said he would work to create safe and secure schools, greater community involvement in schools and improvement of school facilities.

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Republican Mick Zais, a retired Army brigadier general and president of Newberry College, touted his leadership abilities and his record of success, including raising Newberry to a ranking as one of America's Best Colleges by U.S. News & World Report.

Timothy Moultrie, a psychology teacher from Columbia and the only Libertarian in the race, called for doing away with financing education with property taxes and wants to attach education funding to individual students to 'harness the power of the market.'