Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.
- State issues report on education fixes, so far, The State, June 30, 2016
The state Supreme Court gave legislators an end-of-session deadline for developing a plan to improve schools, and the result is $400 million in budget increases, four new laws and 18 items in the 2016-2017 budget. The report says the effort to fix South Carolina’s education system isn’t over. Critics say the legislature hasn’t provide an overall plan. Read the 18-page report from the legislature | Read a response by Gov. Nikki Haley.
- Arguments heard in nuclear fuel lawsuit, Associated Press, June 30, 2016
Attorneys for the federal government and the state of South Carolina will be in court today in the nuclear fuel lawsuit filed by the state.
- State’s interstates are sixth most deadly, WMBF TV, June 27, 2016
According to a study released Monday morning by TRIP, travel is surging on the interstate system and South Carolina’s interstates have the sixth highest fatality rates in the nation.
- U.S. has become more of a renter nation than having housing owners, Associated Press, June 25, 2016
Ten years after a housing bubble peaked and the nation’s housing market crashed, America has a growing class of renters who are still struggling with higher costs, stagnant pay and increasing home values that make it difficult to realize the American dream of a owning a home. The story profiles a Mount Pleasant couple.
- Study outlines billion-dollar best to address poverty, Philanthropy News Digest, May 6, 2016.
Here’s a report that we just found that you might find interesting — how billion-dollar philanthropic investments in key areas could improve social mobility and revive “the American dream” for low-income families. The report, “Billion Dollar Bets” to Create Economic Opportunity for Every American (33 pages, PDF), identified four areas in which investments of $1 billion could dramatically improve the lifetime earnings of low-income Americans — building skills and assets, addressing cultural and structural inhibitors, transforming communities, and building the infrastructure to implement and scale interventions that work.
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!