First Year in Office for Education Superintendent Mick Zais an Under-Reported Fiasco

Republicans have now enjoyed total control of South Carolina government for just over a year. While they’ve dominated the legislature for over a decade, in November of 2010 they took over every statewide office for the first time in modern history. 

So far, things aren’t going very well.

Most South Carolinians have recognized that Governor Nikki Haley’s first year in office was a disaster. Her approval numbers are in the thirties.

Lt. Governor Ken Ard could be indicted and suspended from office any day now for breaking campaign finance laws.

Legislators seem to want to return to the good old days of the 1890’s when only a select group could vote. The United States Justice Department is all that’s standing in their way as Democrats are powerless to stop them.

The brief reign of Superintendent of Education Mick Zais hasn’t received as much attention but is perhaps even more troubling.

South Carolina still ranks near the bottom in education and, in the corridor of shame, students are still going to schools not fit for human cohabitation. Yet in the last year Zais has literally refused millions of dollars in aid for South Carolina schools and teachers.  

Zais is an ideologue who put his extreme beliefs over the needs of South Carolina’s children and teachers. He also hid these beliefs from the voters in his 2010 campaign.

Last December, Zais refused to follow a directive from the state board of education to accept millions in federal funding for education. In August, he refused to apply for $144 million from a federal education jobs program. The money was meant to help keep teachers employed during the recession. South Carolina was the only state in the nation not to receive any funding from this program. In May, Zais refused to apply for federal funds from the "Race to the Top" initiative. In doing so, Zais turned down what could have been $500 million of funding for state preschools.

Earlier this week, Democratic State Senator Phil Leventis released information he received by filing a freedom of information request with Zais’s office. Zais initially tried to fight the request and told Leventis is would cost him $497,000 to obtain what is public information.

Zais finally backed off and Leventis found a bombshell in the records.

In his first ten months in office, Zais didn’t show up for work 35 days. Nearly all those days were listed as “personal” and not sick.  His personal days off include trips to a stamp collecting convention and campaign fundraising. 

South Carolina taxpayers paid him in full for all days missed.

A disgusted Democratic State Sen. Brad Hutto held a press conference last Thursday saying

"If a teacher didn’t show up for work 35 days – it wouldn’t even take that many – they would be fired. But our superintendent somehow thinks he’s beyond those rules."

The irony of a guy who refuses millions and millions of dollars to educate our children but expects taxpayers to pay his salary while refusing to show up for work is astounding. It’s also shameful. And our children and educators are the victims.

Zais is hoping that South Carolina voters will once again put the party over the person and re-elect him in 2014.

Let’s hope he's wrong.