Yesterday, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R) ignited a firestorm of controversy by claiming that most kids in Washington, D.C.'s public schools end up as gang members. But maybe before speaking out about education failures in our nation's capitol the senator should focus on school problems in his own state.

Sen. DeMint made the comments yesterday to defend Washington, D.C.'s school voucher program, as The Washington Times reports:

"If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating," Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, said during a news conference at which he joined three other lawmakers seeking to keep the voucher program alive.

The statement not only offended families and school kids across the District. Local education officials were also quick to point out that it wasn't even close to accurate.

In fact, D.C.'s public school graduation rate appears to be dramatically increasing. According to the District, graduation has increased to 70% in 2008 -- a big turnaround that puts D.C. on par with the national average.

How does D.C. compare to South Carolina? According to Education Week's "Diplomas Count 2008" study [pdf], the District ranked 47th in the nation for its public high school graduation rate.

Not too great -- but it's a notch above South Carolina, which ranked 48th. According to the study (which is based on 2005 data), Sen. DeMint's home state only graduated 55.6% public high school students, compared to 57.6% the same year in D.C.

Sen. DeMint might also want to look into another dangerous problem growing in South Carolina's schools: the rise of racial re-segregation, in part due to the growth of private schools.

Like other Southern states, desegregation in the 1960s brought a rise in "white acadamies" in South Carolina -- private schools that allowed white parents to avoid sending their kids to schools with black students. (For example, see this study.)

A MSNBC report in 2004 showed how this is playing out in South Carolina's schools:

Take a trip to Scott's Branch Public High School, and you'll be greeted by a student body that is more than 99 percent Black.

Fifty years after the Supreme Court outlawed school segregation, residents say schools in this school district are as segregated as ever.

For proof, they point to a nearby private school, Clarendon Hall, which is 90 percent white and admitted its first black student only four years ago.

"We're still separate, and we're not equal," said Scott's Branch parent Shirley Black.

The private/public inequalities are exacerbated by the massive funding difference between funding of public schools in white and black communities, MSNBC reports:

Poor black schools like Scott's Branch receive about a million fewer tax dollars than schools in the state's richer districts.

With "experts" like DeMint weighing in on the fate of their schools, one can see why D.C. residents want voting rights.

UPDATE: Sen. DeMint's people are now saying the Washington Times -- the main media source on this story, who have pulled their piece -- misquoted DeMint. Here's DeMint's response, via Washington CityPaper:

"The Washington Times completely misreported Senator DeMint's comments, leaving out the opening of his statement that he was told this by a DC parent. As the New York Post points out here, Senator DeMint was simply quoting from a mother who said those words to him this week, that she was concerned her child was likely to end up in a gang instead of graduating if forced out of the scholarship program."

But is that really true? First, the New York Post piece doesn't claim that DeMint was "simply quoting from a mother" -- here's how it reads:

"Parents tell us . . . if they are sending their kids off to public schools, the chances are very good that they are going to end up in a gang rather than graduating high school," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) at a press conference with Richard and two other children in the program.

In other words, it wasn't a direct quote from a parent -- it was a general claim about what DeMint claimed to be hearing from "parents."

We have no way of knowing if this is exactly what "parents" have been telling DeMint, or if he's putting words in their mouths. Neither the Washington Times or New York Post stories has a direct quote from one of these "parents" saying anything like that.

But to go a step further: What's Sen. DeMint's responsibility for setting the record straight and getting the facts right? Are D.C. public school children really more likely to end up in gangs than graduating? Of course not -- especially not now, with the District's graduation rate now rising to 70%, if city statistics are to be believed (making it impossible for anything else to rank higher than "graduate" on list of potential public high school outcomes).

In other words: Even if a parent DID tell DeMint that they are concerned their child is more likely to end up in a gang than graduate if they go to D.C. public schools -- and we have no evidence that ever happened -- why did DeMint pass it off this misconception as a fact?