Star Profile
Tim Moultrie, candidate for S.C. Superintendent of Education
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Tim Moultrie

Timothy N. Moultrie grew up in Aiken, although he was born in Augusta where his mother worked. His father was an electrical engineer. Moultrie chose to teach public school, where he has worked over ten years. This year he is taking his classroom experience with him as a Libertarian candidate for S.C. Superintendent of Education.

Moultrie finished high school in Aiken a year early. He had already left home two years before. At 15 and 16 years old he was bagging groceries at Big Star, serving fries at Burger King, and driving kids to school in a district bus. After high school he worked at the Pepperidge Farm plant in Aiken, where they made loaf bread and stuffing. Those early jobs taught Moultrie the real world, and they also steered him back to school.

He studied machine tool technology at Aiken Technical College. Staying in Aiken, he earned his BS in experimental psychology at the local USC campus. And in 1995, he earned his master's in teaching at USC's main campus in Columbia. He immediately accepted a position at Eau Claire High School and more recently, another at Dreher.

Politically, he's no neophyte. He ran for North Augusta City Council in 1988; Aiken County Council in 1990; S.C. Assembly in District 89 in 1992 and 1996; Governor of S.C. in 1998; and the U.S. House of Representatives in the Second District in 2000. At an early age, Moultrie read and re-read philosopher Joseph Campbell enough to where the Libertarian Party made supreme sense to him. He is chairman of the S.C. Libertarian Party.

Moultrie's problem with public education establishment's status quo is the education monopoly's bureaucracy has no check on growth. Too much public education money, formerly property tax money, is spent outside the classroom. The current system is designed to grow itself. Consequently, property taxes rose too high, and 22,000 South Carolina homes were sold last year at tax auctions. Some combination income stream dominated by a sales tax is Moultrie's means to fund public education in South Carolina.

In a Ross Perot style of delivery, Moultrie says we need to change horses, not just put on a new saddle.

A solution can be found in what Moultrie terms the Dutch plan, where education money follows the child and tax credits come into play. The $10,000 S.C. spends on each student on average could be part of the child's mobility. Keep private schools private, he says. He's careful to distinguish between the Dutch plan and a voucher system. With a voucher system a good private school could be invaded and irreparably altered with government controls following government money.

Small schools, little academic gems, are in Moultrie's plans. He sees the possibilities for more student/teacher connections with smaller schools. Big time high school sports need big time high schools to gain the critical mass of student population that produces the incredibly tall basketball team or the unbearably big offensive line. Other than competitive sports and economies of scale, there is little to advocate a high school of more than maybe 400 students, Moultrie suggests.

An alternative is home schooling. Home schooling still has local school district controls and standards, and accreditation must be met or truancy charges result. Moultrie and his wife Elizabeth teach their two children, Liberty Abigail (7) and Hannah Joy (4).