Current SC Education Legislation Dooms Another Generation of Students

March 6, 2019, the SC House of Representatives passed a bill that will reinforce the status quo of public education in South Carolina, which is obsolete at best and broken at worst. This will doom children in South Carolina to inadequate education for another generation.

I served for several years on the Education Oversight Committee. The fundamental problem is political, education, and business leadership in South Carolina does not treat teachers as professionals. There is an amazing blizzard of bureaucracy all dictating how teachers teach. There are 87 school districts, elected or appointed in different ways, which run their schools differently. There is a elected State Superintendent of Education who does not report to the Governor and manages the State Department of Education, which regulates how schools run and teachers teach. There is a State Board of Education, to whom the Superintendent does not report, but which has certain legislatively assigned responsibilities to dictate how teachers teach. There is an Education Oversight Committee, created because the Legislature did not trust the State Board or the State Department of Education, but which has certain legislatively assigned responsibilities to dictate how teachers teach. On top of all of this there is a Federal Department of Education with yet more mandates for how schools operate and teachers teach. Incomprehensibly, this legislation creates yet another bureaucracy, the 0 to 20 committee, to study education and "make recommendations," which will become more dictates for how teachers teach in the classroom. There is a reason teachers are giving up and fleeing their classrooms in droves. Who can blame them?

All of this bureaucracy should go away. All of it. The money saved can be spent in the classroom where it can improve education. The Legislature should define what is essential in a South Carolina public education. The definition of what is essential should be as light as possible to maximize flexibility. Money should follow the child so parents can choose the best options available for their children within the public school system. Then the Legislature should get out of the way and let professional teachers do their jobs.

Teachers should be treated like professionals with every school in the state having the flexibility of a charter school, so teachers can be creative in meeting the needs of children in their classrooms, while delivering what the Legislature has defined as essential. The people most knowledgeable about how to improve education are the teachers working with students every day, not people working in any of the blizzard of bureaucracies in the state. What is essential is no longer a cram down from above that results in teaching to the test, but what teachers must be accountable for so they can then be highly innovative in how they run their schools and educate their students.

Who gave me this basic model is Virginia Uldrick in describing how she created the Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. She defined what was essential for her school to exist. She recruited the most outstanding faculty she could. She held them accountable for what was essential. Then she got out of their way and allowed the faculty to take their students to the mountain top. Every school should operate like this. I have met with groups of teachers who would be thrilled to work in a system like this.

If parents in the Woodside neighborhood choose to send their children to Berea High School, fine. If they choose to send them to Legacy Charter School, fine. All of the money taxpayers spend for that child should go to Legacy, not a small portion which is the case now. If a group of teachers organizes a different alternative that parents choose, fine. As long as the essentials are met, that alternative does not need to look like the typical public school looks now. Perhaps it looks more like an engineering firm, like Next High School does. Perhaps it looks more like a maker space or a writer's workshop. Perhaps an option is presented that we can't imagine now.

Weight the allocation of funds to acknowledge the extra needs of children in poverty and children with special needs. Rather than the top-down, Columbia-knows-best education model that this legislation reinforces, each year teachers in each school plan how to improve their school for the coming year to attract parents and their resources to their school. Those teachers who do the best jobs will flourish. Those that don't will go away, and another group of teachers will get to run that school. The diversity of education options will grow to match the diversity of children served,

This fundamentally changes the dynamics of public education in South Carolina. It puts teachers and parents in control, as it should be. It does that with the same funds spent now, the same teachers, the same parents, and the same buildings. It will inspire teachers, and empower parents. It will vault South Carolina from being at the bottom of education in the country to being seen as an education leader.

Freedom works.

This is a few paragraphs. I have a more comprehensive plan which I have shared with legislators before. The challenge is that the system as it exists today is controlled by the adults who benefit from the status quo. They have the interior lines in this battle. Reformers have to win. All those who defend the status quo have to do is not lose. Legislators who support this legislation acknowledge that by stating that reinforcing the status quo is the best we can do. That lack of leadership is tragic and does not provide the education our children and grandchildren need and deserve.