by Dan Reider
January 8, 2025

The rating of a State’s educational performance is measured by various metrics such as standardized test scores, graduation rates, and similar indicators of the quality of the education provided by a State. One rating system might lean more heavily on perhaps test scores while another might look at a combination of test scores and graduation rates. While the listed rankings may vary depending upon the method utilized by the particular organization, the values are typically very similar. In other words, one State would not be ranked 15th by one organization and 37th by another.

In the past 10 or 15 years, South Carolina has consistently been ranked in the bottom 10% of all States regardless of which ranking system one looked at. In the latest listing by US News and World Report, South Carolina is currently ranked at number 42. While still in the bottom 20% of all States, the educational system is ranked higher than it has been in past years, hopefully indicating some improvement and not just a downgrade of several other States. South Carolina is still not quite up there with surrounding States but at least it has moved out of the bottom 10%. Our bordering States’ educational systems are still being ranked substantially higher than South Caroline with North Carolina at 21, Tennessee at 31, Georgia at 25, and Kentucky ranked at 34.

According to the rankings, South Carolina’s educational system is moving in the right direction albeit very slowly. There is still much more work to be done. There is no reason anyone in this State should be satisfied with a ranking in the bottom 20%. So, what can and must be done? It cannot solely boil down to only dollars which is the primary issue one reads about from time to time in the news. It wasn’t that long ago where the minimum starting teacher’s salary in South Carolina was $36,000. Ellen Weaver, SC Superintendent of Education, has been pushing to increase the base salary to $50,000 over the next couple of years. That may help to get more persons interested in teaching as well as motivate some of those already teaching to stay in teaching, but, as the proverbial expression goes, just throwing money at the problem does not necessarily make the problem go away. As we all know, the problem is much more than money.

Teachers Salaries. Before we leave the topic of money, the base salary- whether it is $36,000 or $50,000 may not be enough of factor to convince teachers to work in the traditionally poorest performing districts in the State. Without listing which districts are classified as poor performing districts, one only has to be familiar with the court case of Allendale County School District vs. The State of South Carolina (circa 1993) to know which districts and how many there were, and pretty much still are, considered to be poorest performing school districts in the State. To get the quality of education in each of those districts to where it needs to be, there will undoubtedly need to be additional financial incentives to even get persons to consider teaching and working in those districts.

Educational Facilities. So, what other measures should be considered to help better educate the children of this State? One might look at the better performing school districts and see that they generally have better quality facilities than the poorer performing districts. The districts with better science classrooms and laboratories, better performing arts centers, better athletic facilities, and better overall facilities certainly do seem to have overall much higher performing students. While no one is making the argument that there is a direct correlation between facilities and student success, the State must find a way that each district has the facilities in which to adequately educate the students of that district. Without a good classroom teaching environment, without proper technology, without facilities to allow students to express themselves through the arts, without all those things which help educate and allow the child and young adult to grow, we cannot expect them to reach their full potential while in our schools.

Aiken County School District has made significant improvements with their educational facilities in many parts of the District over the past decade or so. Additions and upgrades were made to several elementary schools including Belvedre, Millbrook, Graniteville and Hammond Hill. A new Leavelle McCampbell Middle School and Highland Springs Middle School were built. Two new high schools, Wagener and Ridge Spring-Monetta, were constructed along with renovations and additions to Midland Valley HS, North Augusta High School and Aiken High School. The new Aiken Career and Technology Center is currently under construction. While several hundred million dollars have been spent on new construction, renovations, and additions, there is still much to do within the District to bring all the facilities up to the standards required by the District. Unfortunately, there are still too many districts within the State that have not made anywhere near the improvements which have been made in Aiken County.

School Choice. There has been much made over the past year or so about the State’s Superintendent of Education, Ellen Weaver’s support of all educational institutions including private schools, charter schools, religious schools and the home school approach towards education in addition to public schools. Make no mistake- this is support in addition to public education and not in lieu of public education facilities. The intent, as many see it, is that we should support our children as best we can no matter where they receive their education. Some have argued that financially supporting any student- except those at public schools- is detrimental to the public educational system. However, one must consider the reasons why a parent may choose to have their child receive their education in an institution or facility other than a public school. Some reasons include the fact that the child might not get a good education at a poorly performing school, the child might have medical or psychological reasons why a public school at that time is not the best environment for that child, the school does not offer certain courses, the student might want to focus more strongly on religious studies, or the school simply does not provide what a parent would consider a safe environment. Financially supporting a child attending a non-public school should not be viewed, as it apparently often is, as an attempt to downgrade or negatively impact public education. It should, however, be motivation for the State to see if there is a way to improve public education in a district especially where there has been a long track record of the district’s poor performance.

Homework. As we have been seeing for a while now in various school districts around the Country, some schools are implementing a no homework policy. The reason given in most cases is that some students have parents whom check to make sure that the student is doing the homework and, in some cases, even help the student with the homework while other parents don’t even understand or care that the student is supposed to do their homework regardless of whether or not that parent can actually help the student with the homework. In lieu of eliminating homework for that reason, the schools should develop various programs- whether these are after school programs or ones worked in during the normal school hours- to assist students who don’t otherwise understand that homework is an essential part of their responsibility. Obviously, this adds to the school’s workload and could possibly require additional teachers, after school transportation and things like that. However, it is essential that these efforts are made to the extent practical to help keep a student from falling further and further behind in school.

Grade Levels. While it is ideal for a student to keep up with their work and move on each year to the next grade level, this issue of standardized grade levels needs to be given a little more consideration. If in lieu of moving a child up a grade level one year to the next in all subjects, whether they are truly ready in each of those subjects or not, why not move a student up to the next level in only those subjects where they have achieved a minimum level of proficiency? For example, if a 9 year old student is ready to move up to 4th grade for English and Reading but not Math, have that student continue on the current Math curriculum until which time they are ready to move up to the next grade level. We understand that this makes class scheduling more complex and there will some anxieties generated when one’s classmates move on in a subject and a child remains behind in one of those classes. However, this may not be just a few students and when this becomes the norm for a district, the anxiety issues may be not as great of a concern. A change in terminology may help as well. For example, in lieu of calling a class 3rd Grade Math or 4th Grade Math, the course could be called Level One Pre-Algebra, etc. It is well documented that some school districts have been graduating students knowing that they are not proficient in one or more subjects. Statistically, this looks good for the district but is not helping the student achieve future goals.

Student Behavior. Apparently, one of the more sensitive issues is with how to address student behavior while in school and under the care of the teachers and administration. As was mentioned earlier, one reason given by some parents for a student to attend a non-public school is that the family does not feel particularly comfortable with some of the behavioral issues the teachers and administration have to deal with, and other students are subjected to, in a school. The rules for behavior must be clearly spelled out and understood by the students and parents alike. Certain behaviors such as fighting, bullying and things of that nature have always been an issue in the school environment and need to be swiftly and fairly addressed by the administration. These types of behaviors will never be completely eliminated in schools but everyone needs to understand the consequences of such behavior. For whatever reason, the consequences of these behaviors seem to be much better understood by the students in non-public schools than public schools.

Administrative Support. Lastly, but certainly not the least important, the teachers and administration must work closely to create the best educational environment in which to educate our children. We have all heard stories where the teachers in a school did not feel supported by the administration. Teachers are sometimes instructed that when they have a student with behavioral issues, they- the teacher- have to take care of the issue within the classroom. Often, one hears about a teacher losing control and grabbing or pushing a student. While there is no excuse for those actions, the stresses leading up to this could have been the lack of support from the administration in properly addressing certain situations. The administration must be receptive to listening to problems and criticisms by teachers and attempting to resolve those in a timely manner.

Another problem has been where a district may have no clear policy on things such as cell phone use within the school or even within a classroom, but this is quickly changing. Aiken County School District recently joined a growing number of school districts in South Carolina where cell phone use within a classroom is prohibited. Measures such as this have met a fair amount of resistance from parents but overall is viewed as a necessary policy.

We, in South Carolina, cannot continue to accept a poorly performing education system in many of our school districts. Many articles have been written in the past twenty years about how poorly some school districts in South Carolina are performing. A great article summarizing many of these issues, and discussing some potential solutions, was written in an article from Winthrop University – All Talk, But No Action: A Reexamination of Education in South Carolina’s Corridor of Shame (2018).

While there are many reasons for a student not receiving a minimally adequate education, we need to address as many of those as reasonably possible. Without a decent education, many of those students will face many obstacles in their adult lives. Not everyone needs to be a doctor, lawyer, educator, engineer, or have a career job requiring a college degree or post graduate degree. There are a lot of great careers possible without a very high level of education. However, in this day and age, without achieving a minimum level of education- such as a high school education with passing grades- the opportunities for that student become considerably less than if they had gotten a good education. To solve many of the problems, it will take considerably more funding than is currently provided for our educational system- facilities, teachers, administration- especially in our poorest performing school districts. However, it is absolutely essential that we need to move our educational system in the right direction and to move us in that direction as expeditiously as possible.