South Carolina Education
An Opportunity Waiting to Happen
The children of South Carolina deserve a high quality education that is based not on where they live, but on the fact that they are the future of our workforce and state. To support them, the Haley Administration will:
Reform the Funding Formula
South Carolina spends more than $11,000 per student, money that goes through 1,000 employees at the state Department of Education and 86 school districts before it touches a teacher and student in the classroom. And still, we are only graduating one out of every two students in four years. If the dollars aren’t going to teachers, students, and technology in the classroom, we need to reevaluate how they are being spent.
Impoverished and underserved communities can no longer be ignored. We need to simplify our funding formula, cut down on our education bureaucracy, and give every student in the state the same chance at a good, quality education that is not dependent on where they happen to be born and raised. This will allow us to fairly weight student spending while also taking into account special needs, impoverished, gifted and talented, and vocational students.
For too long, the argument in funding education has focused on revenue – it needs to focus on the distribution of the dollars. A properly weighted system will allow the dollars to actually follow the child and enable our education system to truly serve the students of South Carolina.
As the mother of two students in Lexington County Public Schools, Nikki Haley understands that if every student in South Carolina had resources like Lexington’s, our state would be at the top of the nation in education results. While respecting differences in local spending decisions, priorities, and resources, it is long past time that we do what we can at the state level to direct education dollars toward poor communities in our state that have the greatest educational needs.
Promote Performance-Based Teacher Pay
South Carolina has some of the best teachers in the world. We must reward those teachers and give them incentives to remain in the profession and to take on difficult teaching assignments. Currently, teacher pay is determined by time, degree, and certification, but does very little to reward teachers who succeed. Performance-based pay rewards teachers who take on tough classrooms in high-needs schools, promote excellence in learning, and put in the effort to do more than “meet standards”.
Performance-based pay must be implemented in a way that measures a teacher’s real performance, not just their students’ standardized test scores. Local evaluations can incorporate the feedback of students, parents, and principals in a comprehensive manner.
Shrink the Department of Education
The Department of Education in South Carolina is far too large and sucks up far too many dollars that should be spent on teachers and students. As an elected official, the State Superintendent of Education has political battles to fight. The most important change we can make in this regard is to restructure our government so that the Superintendent of Education is appointed by the Governor, not elected every four years. This is not an issue of executive power, but of accountability – with a Governor and Superintendent working together for the children of South Carolina, the people of this state will see real results. And if they don’t, they will know exactly who is responsible, ending the finger-pointing that has been a constant thorn in our ability to improve our education standards.
Some examples of changes we should demand:
- Develop scalable pre-designed template drawings for schools. South Carolina school districts spent $212 million on architectural fees over the last two-and-a-half years designing new schools. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time a school is built – using a single, template set of plans will allow us to put the money spent on architectural fees back into the classroom.
- Privatize the school bus system. South Carolina is currently the only state in America that runs a school bus system at the state level. Contracting out school bus operations will provide better services for our students while simultaneously freeing up significant dollars that can again be redirected to our teachers and students.
Focus on Vocational Education
If a student is identified in the 8th grade as at-risk for not completing high school, there should be an alternative education path that allows us to give that student good alternative options. Students not succeeding in a conventional school need access to vocational programs that provide them with skills and a path to long-term employment. Vocational and Technical programs established through school districts and partnerships with local technical colleges that start in the 9th grade are an underutilized tool to give alternative options to students who thrive in non-traditional environments.
Thousands of professionals around the state have knowledge in areas like carpentry and cannot teach due to certification restrictions. Creating alternative certification paths for industry experts will help us staff vocational and technical programs in areas like carpentry, nuclear technology, and health science.
Faith-based organizations, too often left out of education for political reasons, have so much to offer our South Carolina communities. Faith-based organizations should not be pushed out, but rather engaged as partners to promote pre-kindergarten education programs, after school tutoring, and other programs that supplement public education – something that can and should be accomplished without spending public dollars.
Strengthen Charter Schools
South Carolina’s 37 charter schools have successfully integrated themselves into local communities and successfully supplement current education options. While still public schools, these unique institutions have enough autonomy and flexibility to use innovative education techniques, provide outstanding education, and focus on specialized areas such as technology, math, and science. This allows for an engaged and lively education environment, and does not require students to completely leave the public school system in order to find a school that suits them. Texas and North Carolina have seen positive results in student performance as the charter school system has matured, and our neighboring states that each have about three times as many charter schools as we do. This system is showing success around the nation, and South Carolina has that same opportunity.
The answers to expanding charter school use in South Carolina are similar to the ones for other public schools. Improved budgeting practices and allowing flexibility can drive dollars to the classroom, making it financially possible for more charter schools to operate. Alternative teacher certifications for industry-specific vocational programs, combined with generally smaller classrooms, can improve student recovery and high school graduation rates. Finally, these charter endeavors create totally new schools that have a modern mission and measureable goals in place before the first student walks through the door. This can mean fresh starts for thousands of South Carolina’s students every year; this is not an opportunity we can let pass us by.
Summation
For far too long, South Carolina education performance has been vastly below what it should and can be. Much of that is driven by the outcomes in the poorer regions of our state. We can do something about that.
We can make great progress in all of our schools, but especially those in poor regions that need it most by:
- Reforming the funding formula to get more dollars to schools in poor areas
- Rewarding great teachers for taking on difficult teaching assignments
- Re-orienting resources away from unneeded bureaucracies and into the classrooms
- Focusing on improving vocational alternatives for at-risk children
- Strengthening and expand public charter schools
Education reform must go hand-in-hand with improving our state’s economy, as the two things are inextricably linked. Both will be top priorities of the Haley Administration.
