Public works, Ehrhardt, S.C.
In the foreground is a classic old public works building in Ehrhardt, S.C.. In the background is the town’s water tower. Both illustrate how rural communities invested in infrastructure in decades past. But the broken windows in the building also highlight how some infrastructure is eroding and needs more upkeep to stay modern. Photo by Andy Brack. More: Center for a Better South.
NEWS
Crafting a blueprint for better schools
By Bill Davis, senior editor
AUG. 7, 2015 | S.C. House Education Committee members are leading the legislature’s off-season efforts to prepare a policy response to a two-decades-old lawsuit that found the state failed to provide “minimally adequate” education to a large swath of its residents.
Last November, the S.C. Supreme Court ruled 3-2 that the state had failed in its educational duties in the Abbeville County School District v. State of South Carolina lawsuit that sought remediation for poorer counties and school districts largely located along the I-95 corridor.
The “Corridor of Shame,” as Bud Ferillo nicknamed it in his nationally-acclaimed documentary film of the same name, has suffered from a host of problems related to low educational attainment, lower employment rates, generational poverty and the like.
In the November decision, the second time the case had been heard, the court found the state at fault, but did not supply a solution. The last time the court supplied a solution, the state’s Pre-4K program was created.
This time, it will be up to the General Assembly to resolve the sticky educational fairness issue. In January, the court denied a rehearing of the case.
A blueprint for change
Also in January, House Speaker Jay Lucas (R-Hartsville) named a blue-ribbon task force that has met four times since June. The task force includes educators from the affected school districts, legislators, administrators and other stakeholders.
Lucas named House Education Committee chair Rita Allison (R-Lyman) to head up the task force. She oversees a task force that has been split into five subcommittees addressing specific topics from transportation and teacher retention to career pathways and accountability.
In an interview, Allison said the five areas are meant to address the issues that have “bubbled up” through the process of hearings and discussions with the districts.
She also said that the subcommittees would soon begin to report back to the main committee, with the point being drafting a series of recommendations for the House when it reconvenes in January. The next subcommittee meeting is Wednesday.
“What this is, is creating a blueprint for what we have to do once we’ve identified the specific problems,” said Allison, who added that nothing would be gained by simply “throwing money at the problem.”
Allison said the legislature needed to understand why certain districts within the corridor are doing so much better than others, like schools and districts that have better leadership or buildings.
Allison said she understood public perception held that the root of the corridor’s problems was money – money for better superintendents, teachers and facilities – but added that what the public perceives may not tell the whole story.
“This process will create a pathway, with all the facts, for the legislature to proceed,” she said. “The money part will come.”
Teacher pay and other issues
S.C. Education Association president Bernadette Hampton said she hoped money will be spent judiciously so that the poorer counties and districts were taken care of, but not at the direct expense of the rest of the state’s public K-12 schools.
The SCEA has released a position paper that focuses on five areas of concerns related to the case. One sure to attract the most attention and perhaps criticism is the call for a statewide uniform teacher beginning pay of $40,000.
Hampton, a 21-year veteran of the Beaufort County School District, said by having the state guaranteeing a uniform pay scale, it would provide better teachers and higher teacher retention rates in the corridor. At the same time, the larder wouldn’t be left bare in the richer districts by teachers leaving for pay increases.
The SCEA plan would be to phase in the pay scale over a five-year period to minimize budgeting hardships. Hampton, who spent Thursday speaking at gathering of teachers in Clarendon County, stopped short of calling for a statewide millage to pay for the salary program, noting that her association hadn’t identified a funding mechanism for it.
Allison said that she didn’t know if there would be the political will in the legislature next session, an election year, for a statewide millage that could take money from richer communities like Charleston and Greenville and funnel it to the corridor.
On the other side of the lobby
Senate Education Chair John Courson (R-Columbia) has assigned himself and three other co-chairs to address the issue, beginning with a “working lunch” with S.C. Superintendent of Schools Molly Spearman after Labor Day. The other three are state Sens. John Matthews (D-Columbia), Minority Leader Nikki Setzler (D-W. Columbia) and Wes Hayes (R-Rock Hill).
Courson, who has a son in school and a daughter who teaches special education students, said he split the co-chair duties equally among Democrats and Republicans to make sure that the work would be bipartisan and hopefully more effective.
Bill Davis is senior editor of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
COMMENTARYSurprise: South Carolina shows it can be progressive
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
AUG. 7, 2015 | The South Carolina General Assembly, among the reddest of the conservative red legislatures across the country, is getting credit for being progressive.
Twice.
First, our lawmakers were the first in the nation to require use of body cameras by police, according to the State Innovation Exchange (SiX). The law came about after the much-publicized shooting death of Walter Scott in North Charleston after a traffic stop. A police officer, no longer with the city’s department, is charged with murder.
Second, lawmakers voted to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds less than a month after nine people were shot to death while in Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. The shooting galvanized the world after victims’ families, all black, forgave the white man now in jail on murder and hate crimes charges.
“And with the stroke of a pen, a state-sanctioned symbol of racism is now a step closer to once more
becoming a relic of the past,” said a report by SiX, whose mission is to serve as a “resource and strategy center that supports state legislators to advance progressive policies across the country.”
Recognition for taking two major progressive stances certainly is an odd twist of circumstance. But it’s sad to reflect neither measure likely would have passed in South Carolina had there not been such media attention to the 10 people who died in the two tragedies.
So what now is important for all South Carolina leaders — conservatives, moderates and progressives — is to realize that by working together to move forward as they did this year, progress can be had for all. Indeed, there might be kernels of progress around the corner where you’re not looking — or expecting — them.
Therefore, it’s instructive to take a look at some of the ideas being implemented across the country that the Exchange highlights:
- Keeping guns away from abusers and stalkers. The report didn’t give South Carolina legislators credit for a new law that toughens domestic violence penalties, including some controls on guns in the hands of abusers. The report, however, suggests more can be done.
- Closing the wage gap. It’s well documented that women make far less than male counterparts, despite a federal pay equity act passed more than 50 years ago. Some states, such as New York, Connecticut and Oregon have enacted pay equity legislation to close the gap by strengthening laws to mandate equal pay for equal work and raising penalties for recalcitrant employers. Why not here too?
- Expanding access to higher education. Tuition at colleges has been skyrocketing for the last 30 years as hourly wages have declined. Oregon made history, the Exchange said, by becoming the second state to enact free community college. With South Carolina’s technical education system the envy of states for how it integrates education with business needs, doing more to make it available to more makes sense.
- Cutting carbon emissions. States like Vermont and Hawaii are on the leading edge of reducing carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired plants, as mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. South Carolina’s power generators are working to add more nuclear power plants and cut down on coal-fired plants, but lawmakers can do more to promote renewable energy strategies to reduce emissions further.
- Modernizing voter registration. As courts look more in-depth at controversial voter identification laws thought by some to curb voting, states like Oregon, California and New Jersey have passed measures to automatically register citizens to vote when they interact with other state agencies, such as when someone gets a driver’s license. Other ways states are working to expand access are online voter registration.
Additional ideas promoted by the Exchange included accommodating pregnant workers and new mothers so they don’t have to pick between their jobs and children; helping students tackle their education debt; allowing millions of workers to earn sick leave; repealing the death penalty ( which won’t happen in South Carolina); and increasing police accountability.
If we don’t start looking at ideas that are working elsewhere, we will just have more of the same here. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
S.C. Association of Counties
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This week’s featured underwriter is the South Carolina Association of Counties.
The SCAC was chartered on June 22, 1967, and is the only organization dedicated to statewide representation of county government in South Carolina. Membership includes all 46 counties, which are represented by elected and appointed county officials who are dedicated to improving county government. SCAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that operates with a full-time staff in its Columbia offices. It is governed by a 29-member Board of Directors composed of county officials from across South Carolina.
The Association strives to “Build Stronger Counties for Tomorrow” by working with member counties in the fields of research, information exchange, educational promotion and legislative reporting.
MY TURNWays to resolve South Carolina’s racial tensions
By David Phillips, Special to Statehouse Report
AUG. 7, 2015 | I think that is a great question for us all to consider. The seeds of the bad fruit are still scattered throughout our community in South Carolina. We need to work on many levels to help resolve this problem. We need to have more dialogue in comfortable settings, and we need to discuss the challenges with racial tensions and to try to sew love and isolate those whose efforts seek to create disagreement, bitterness and hate.
My personal feeling is that our public officials in the greater Charleston area have been working for years to address this problem and ease the concerns of the African American community, and the African American leaders have been letting their voices be heard for years, so there has been an exchange and even dialogue. My feeling is that because this discussion has been happening, our leaders knew that people of all faiths and all colors want to get along and to prosper and grow a loving and more tolerant community. That is why, in my humble opinion, we did not have riots in Charleston. The victims of violence and their families were such people of strong faith that they taught the rest of us, and the nation, how to walk out the faith of forgiveness and hope.
Yet to do justice to the nine human beings who were massacred at Mother Emanuel AME Church, we have to work to see that there is progress at a quickening pace. We, as a community of white, black, Latino and all races—and we as a community of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindi, Buddhist and no faith traditions — need to have a wider and deeper discussion of the things that we have in common, and we need to celebrate our common humanity. We need to discuss our differences—beliefs, customs, ideas, passions, hopes and dreams. We need to celebrate our distinctiveness and marvel at how each of us wants to live in peace and safety.
Each of us wants to love and be loved by family and friends. Each of us wants a better future for our children. But each of us looks different and each one of us approaches their lives differently. We need to try to learn more about each other so that we might learn how to appreciate each other, respect one another and ultimately to love one another.
- We should be teaching children to love all people at an early age, and teach them the evils of discrimination among any kind of people. We are all interconnected; we are all intertwined.
- We should not tolerate civic and social leaders who are insensitive to the struggle. If we cannot acknowledge something is wrong — and that there are undercurrents of racial tension throughout our society — we cannot address it and bring healing remedy.
We can create a monthly recurring series of meetings to which we could invite accomplished speakers and leaders in reconciliation, healing and growing closer together. A casual and open forum with rules for polite and frank exchange that is moderated by trained leaders can help to heal wounds which have been bound, but are not yet healed properly and may not be likely to heal without an opportunity to vent. Perhaps alumni from the Diversity Leadership Institute at Furman University could participate as resource people and help promote attendance, etc.
- We can encourage the press to cover positive stories of cooperative and collaborative work in the community to show people that most peace officers are honorable and ethical (like the North Charleston citations for doing good—brainchild of Bill Stanfield), and we should also encourage the media to shine a bright light wherever there is even a perception of evil or deceit with regard to discrimination and inequity.
- We can encourage our political leaders to work hard to find ways to better educate the people in the rural and poorer sections of South Carolina (the corridor of inequity and shame).
- We can demand that our political leaders find ways to release the thousands of nonviolent offenders warehoused in our S.C. Department of Corrections and invest significant resources in the best programs for reducing recidivism (The Jumpstart program takes recidivism from the normal rates of 50 percent to 70 percent to under 5 percent.) South Carolina spent some $450 million locking up and maintaining prisons, but it spends a negligible amount preparing these men and women to re-enter society effectively and successfully.
- We should encourage business leaders to ‘Ban the Box’ or the checkbox on job applications that ask, “Have you ever been arrested.” Or, at the very least, encourage them to give a man/woman another chance by providing a state tax credit, just like the one the federal government provides.
- We should expand Medicaid in South Carolina, as it will provide as many as 40,000 jobs, many in rural areas and provide tax dollars for the state (every one of those new jobs pays taxes for income). It would lead to a healthier, happier and more secure family structure for at least 200,000 people. It would lower infant mortality dramatically and ensure that more mothers got prenatal care, which in turn would reduce the enormous expense when a premature babies arrive and the both the mother’s and the baby’s health are in jeopardy (but nobody has insurance, so the public and private insurers pay the bill).
These are some of the things that we can do. These, in addition to the many things that nonprofit organizations continue to do, can bring about true and lasting racial peace and eventually harmony. We must not lose the energy and the opportunity to expose injustice and inequity wherever it is. It is not fair, it is not right and it ought not to be tolerated in a loving and compassionate society—not in the wealthiest country on earth.
And finally, each of us as individuals needs to walk this talk, to love — or at least respect each other — and to hold each other accountable to the rigorous pursuit of social justice and equity
David G. Phillips is president of Custom Development Solutions, a Mount Pleasant-based fundraising consulting firm. More: http://www.cdsfunds.com. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
FEEDBACKDon’t get me started
To the editor:
What’s next? [Brack: Time to deal with the elephant in state’s room] Don’t get me started.
The flag was a symbol of centuries of race based systemic injustice in South Carolina. Now the real work begins. Since Charleston is being held up as a model for how a community comes together rather than comes apart, then we have to be the model for how to act on these ideals. Perhaps to begin, we have a series of community forums that are almost like truth and reconciliation committees — with police and city and community leaders — where people come and describe unjust encounters and experiences with police, courts, workplace, schools and housing. I know this would go a long way toward starting to heal. It works and leads to tangible change, and I could give countless examples. Accountability is critical, and forgiveness needs to happen in a broader forum. And some wounds can begin to heal.
Other thoughts:
Guns: To begin, I think Charleston should create a STAY AT HOME Day (the day after Thanksgiving). Everyone stays home and does not shop. The premise is that, since we are not safe in our churches, schools, movie theaters, cars etc., we stay home, where we feel safe. We should demand that gun laws change, and that gun manufactures and stores who sell to criminals are CLOSED. It’s a public safety issue. We ask our friends in Columbine and Aurora, Sandy Hook, Lafayette to participate. The only way to change the gun situation in this country is economic, since the gun lobby has more power than any U.S. citizen, including the president. IF Target and Walmart etc are affected financially, then the rest will follow.
Social services: The governor and state legislature has cut funding for social services across the board for years, and this hurts the poor and marginalized the most. This mind-set needs to be reversed so that the governor accepts federal Medicaid dollars.
Education: A statewide plan is needed to create equality in the classroom. Too many schools are segregated. Perhaps law students need to work the way they do on wrongful death penalty cases to create court cases around these issues? Why not?
These are all human rights issues. Looked at in this light, they should matter to all of us.
— Marjory Wentworth, Poet Laureate of South Carolina, Mount Pleasant, S.C.
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From Lourie and Boeing to tax holiday and Wilson
Thumbs up
Lourie. Hats off to Sen. Joel Lourie, D-Richland, for years of service in the state legislature, first as a House member and then as a state senator. He has announced he won’t seek re-election. Lourie’s vigilant pursuit of common sense legislation, such as holding the state Department of Social Services accountable for poor operations, has made the state a better place. Yes, you’ve got one session left, but we’ll miss you after 2016.
Boeing/USC. Hats off to the state’s university for its new $5 million aerospace research partnership with Boeing. It’s good news for the whole state as up to 24 home-grown research projects will solidify our growing reputation as a major player in the aerospace economic cluster. More.
Goff. If there’s anyone deserving of the Order of the Palmetto, it’s the Rev. Norvell Goff, who has led Emanuel AME Church in Charleston since the deadly shootings that killed nine. Congratulations.
Case expands. It’s good that the corruption case that netted former House Speaker Bobby Harrell has finally been expanded to look for other lawmakers who have “potential misconduct.” Leave no stone unturned to make the legislature a professional place, not a caricature. More.
Sandy Island. After years of debate, the island is getting a new boat to be used as a bus for children to be taken to school. About damned time. More.
In the middle
Sales tax holiday. From today through Sunday, parents can buy lots of school supplies without paying sales taxes, thanks to a gimmick from the state legislature. But the holiday often is criticized as unfair because it highlights tax inequities from the rest of the year — and not everyone is home at this time of year to take advantage of the freebie. It’s a low-cost gimmick and bad public policy. Better: Fix the whole tax structure to make it fairer.
Hurricane. All of these stories about how this year looks like a quiet hurricane season makes us very uneasy. Yes, we’re superstitious still. Hugo, remember, came in late September.
Thumbs down
Wilson. Attorney General Alan Wilson is trying to get out of paying legal fees of a couple who challenged the state’s gay marriage ban because, he says, his office was merely defending a state law. Hogwash. Pay up. More.
NUMBERFive
That’s the number of death certificates that the state will issue due to the unexpected closing of the state’s vendor for certificate paper. Here’s an idea: Use different paper. More.
Voting Rights Act 50 years later
“It gave people reason for being. It gave people power.”
— Johns Island activist and leader Bill Saunders on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act. More.
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIAGov. Robert E. McNair
S.C. Encyclopedia | Robert Evander McNair was born on Dec. 14, 1923, at Cades in Williamsburg County, the only child of Daniel Evander McNair and Claudia Crawford. He was raised at the family home in Berkeley County and graduated from Macedonia High School. During World War II, McNair enlisted in the U.S. Navy, attained the rank of lieutenant (jg), and served twenty-two months in the Pacific theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his actions in rescuing thirty-five personnel from a destroyed Liberty Boat. McNair married Josephine Robinson of Allendale in San Francisco on May 30, 1944, only days prior to his being shipped overseas. The marriage produced four children.
After military service, McNair returned to the University of South Carolina, where he earned the A.B. degree in 1947 and the LL.B. in 1948. He entered law practice in Moncks Corner and ran for political office for the first time, losing in a 1948 race for the House of Representatives. It would be the only loss of his political career. The McNairs moved to Allendale, where he set up law practice and ran again for public office. He won the state House seat from Allendale County in 1950 and launched a successful political career that would gain him statewide and national attention over the next two decades.
McNair entered the House of Representatives in 1951 and quickly attained positions. He became chairman of the House Committee on Labor, Commerce, and Industry in his second term and shepherded through the state’s right-to-work law that limited the power of labor unions and strengthened the state’s industrial recruitment efforts. Two years later, in 1955, McNair became chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, a position he held until he ran for lieutenant governor in 1962. McNair won that contest, defeating Oconee County senator Marshall J. Parker.
McNair became governor on April 22, 1965, upon the resignation of incumbent governor Donald S. Russell, who stepped down to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Olin D. Johnston. McNair was elected to a full term on Nov. 8, 1966, with significant support from newly enfranchised black voters, defeating Republican Joseph O. Rogers of Manning.
The McNair administration coincided with major civil rights initiatives and significant public protests and demonstrations in the last half of the 1960s. In 1967 a classroom boycott at South Carolina State College resulted in the replacement of the college’s president, changing of student roles and procedures, and significant new funding for the institution. The following year, on February 8, protests at a segregated bowling alley in Orangeburg resulted in the killing of three demonstrators and the wounding of 32 others on the S.C. State campus. At the Medical College Hospital in Charleston, a 113-day strike from March to June 1969 protested wages and working conditions among low-income black workers and sought to gain state recognition for their union local. The governor also faced two weeks of protests against the Vietnam War at the University of South Carolina in the spring of 1970 by students seeking to close the institution in the wake of the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University in Ohio.
Except for the tragedy at Orangeburg in February 1968, McNair saw the state peacefully through the stormy times without yielding on major policy issues. Settlement of the Charleston strike without union recognition in 1969 and keeping USC open in 1970 without serious injury to students were foremost among many public demonstrations in the state in which his moderate leadership was credited with minimizing violence.
McNair also guided the state peacefully through the first year of total desegregation of the public school system in 1970. He counseled South Carolinians at the time, “We have run out of courts and we have run out of time. We will comply with the court rulings.” McNair made the first appointments of black citizens to state boards and commissions and desegregated his own executive staff in the Governor’s Office.
McNair’s support for public education was also evident in several initiatives. He championed compulsory school attendance as part of a comprehensive package of economic and educational proposals. He was successful in initiating public kindergartens, as well as developing programs designed to smooth the desegregation process. McNair pursued the recruitment of new industries and jobs, and he began the program of soliciting overseas investments, a strategy that blossomed under subsequent governors. It was also at his recommendation that the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism was created in 1967, triggering the state’s long and successful development of tourism as a multibillion-dollar industry.
After leaving office in January 1971, McNair established the McNair Law Firm in Columbia, which grew to become one of the major firms in the South. He did not seek or serve in public office again after 1971. McNair died on Nov. 17, 2007.
– Excerpted from the entry by Philip G. Grose Jr. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CREDITSEditor and Publisher: Andy Brack
Senior Editor: Bill Davis
Contributing Photographers: Michael Kaynard, Linda W. Brown
Phone: 843.670.3996
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!