Democrats take GOP to task over education bill

House Republicans today were accused of short circuiting an education reform bill that, backers said, was a bipartisan effort to curtail the number of standardized test state students take. 

Calhoun Rep. Harry Ott and Georgetown Rep. Vida Miller were among the Democrats who took Republican House Speaker Bobby Harrell to task for filing a similar bill last week.

Republicans, according  to Ott and Miller, introduced the new measure after dubbing the effort Ott and Miller worked on this summer as "a Democratic bill."

"That isn't true," Miller said "It was a bipartisan effort."

Democrats agree with much of Harrell's bill, which includes the elimination of PACT testing. Those standardized tests, given to every South Carolina public school student in grades 3-8, are used to grade schools and school districts on the state's annual school report cards.