‘Are they working?’ Lawmakers, education officials clash over SC school voucher test results

‘Are they working?’ Lawmakers, education officials clash over SC school voucher test results

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - More than $210 million has been allocated to South Carolina’s Education Scholarship Trust Fund, but state lawmakers and education officials are locked in a growing debate over whether the state has enough reliable data to prove participating students are making academic progress.

The voucher program, designed to give eligible families public dollars for private school tuition and other approved educational expenses, is required under state law to collect assessment data to evaluate student growth.

However, questions over transparency erupted this week after State Rep. Neal Collins (R-Pickens) posted on social media that lawmakers were presented with an Education Oversight Committee (EOC) report showing fewer than 300 of approximately 2,879 voucher recipients submitted “suitable assessments” for the 2024–25 school year.

If accurate, Collins argued, roughly 90% of recipients had no usable assessment on file—making it impossible for lawmakers to evaluate the program’s academic return on investment. Collins also questioned how the state could report 1,124 scholarship renewals for the following school year if the vast majority lacked mandatory testing records.

“One, it’s unconstitutional; two, it’s ineffective; three, practically, it will do nothing,” Collins said, reiterating his long-standing opposition and calling for the program to end.

Department of Education pushes back on numbers

In a detailed response to WIS News 10, the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) pushed back against claims that test records are missing, arguing the initial 2,879 enrollment figure does not reflect the actual student population at the close of the 2024–25 school year.

According to the department, mid-year withdrawals, moves, and students returning to zoned public schools reduced the active cohort to 1,440 students by year’s end.

Of those 1,440 students, the department says it submitted scores from approximately 800 students to the Education Oversight Committee. The agency accounted for the remaining 629 students as follows:

- 446 students were enrolled in grades K5 through 2nd, which are legally exempt from standardized assessment mandates under state law.

- 102 students were graduating 12th graders.

- 42 students failed to submit approved testing and were removed from the program.

- 19 students complied with submission rules but encountered technical data-transfer issues.

- 14 students submitted unapproved assessments and received program violations.

- 6 students qualified for documented disability testing exemptions.

Department officials argued the EOC chose to “winnow down” the data set for its own statistical modeling by excluding 177 K–2 test submissions, tossing out 242 approved summative tests (including the Classic Learning Test, Iowa Assessments, and Stanford 10), and excluding scores submitted outside a narrow testing window.

“A researcher’s decision that a record cannot be used for a particular statistical analysis is not the same thing as the state failing to collect the record,” the department said in its statement.

Addressing questions regarding how 1,124 students renewed their scholarships without finalized test scores, the department pointed to statutory timelines under S.C. Code § 59-8-115. State law mandates that the renewal application window open on Nov. 1—months before spring end-of-year testing occurs. Public standardized testing results, such as SC READY, are often not accessible to the state until August, after the following school year has already begun. SCDE noted that accounts for students who fail to submit required scores are frozen and barred from spending scholarship funds.

Legal challenges shaped early data collection

The department also emphasized that the 2024–25 school year marked the maiden rollout of the program, which was significantly disrupted by legal battles.

In September 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in Eidson v. SCDE that using voucher funds for private school tuition violated the state constitution. The ruling stripped independent schools of their status as education service providers, forcing agency staff to contact individual families directly to collect test records.

Subsequent legislative action under Act 11 reinstated private school participation for the 2025–26 school year, returning score-reporting obligations directly to participating schools.

Experts call for stronger accountability benchmarks

While state officials and lawmakers debate the figures, education finance experts say the absence of standardized, comparative data leaves taxpayers without essential answers.

Dr. Davíd G. Martínez, an associate professor of education finance and quantitative analysis at the University of South Carolina, told WIS News 10 that tracking public dollars requires robust baseline measures.

“I think that as a taxpayer, you have to be concerned about how this money is being spent,” Martínez said. “I think you have to be concerned about how we are assessing students that are in this program. Ultimately, $200 million is not a small amount of money for education.”

Martínez noted that determining whether the voucher program works should not be treated as a simple binary choice between expanding it or eliminating it entirely. Instead, he argues the General Assembly must enact standard accountability systems before disbursing future funds.

“To have 10% of students remit scores that are usable for comparisons is not sufficient,” Martínez said. “I think at this point, where the legislatures can move the needle a little bit further is to ask how they are gathering data, what systems are in place to gather data, and to sort of plug up those holes where the data is not coming in, where it should be coming in.”

Martínez emphasized that true program evaluation requires:

- Tracking current-year test scores alongside prior-year baseline scores to measure academic growth over time.

- Standardized reporting across public and private school cohorts to allow direct performance comparisons.

- Collecting student socio-demographic indicators and detailed expenditure audits showing where funds are concentrated.

Looking ahead

The Department of Education conceded that because prior-year baseline assessments were not a statutory prerequisite for enrollment in 2024–25, it cannot currently provide quantitative data showing change-over-time academic growth for voucher recipients.

Instead, the department pointed to EOC parent satisfaction surveys, which showed a 92% satisfaction rate among 1,668 respondents and an overall Net Promoter Score of 90.

Assessment records for the 2025–26 school year were transmitted to the Education Oversight Committee on Sept. 12. The EOC is scheduled to release its comprehensive academic analysis in December, setting the stage for renewed debate when the General Assembly convenes in Columbia this January.

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