By Bill Davis, senior editor | 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.
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