By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | House Speaker Jay Lucas is a man on a mission to reform South Carolina’s failing education system for the first time in more than 30 years.
“We have left generations of children in poverty behind in this state and every year that we don’t act [on education], we’ll continue to do that,” said Lucas, a powerfully built Hartsville Republican whose tired eyes mask a palpable intensity.
“We’ve got to buckle down and do it,” he said in an exclusive interview this week. “If it was easy, somebody would have done it over the last 42 years. Part of the problem is it’s not easy.”
When asked if there were anything he’s wanted more in his two decades of service in the House, the answer was simple: “ No.”
Good. It’s about time for someone at the top to step up. As a state, we can’t sink much lower on how our schools perform. And with legislators underfunding the state’s legally-mandated base student cost by more than $4 billion over the last decade, our bottom-of-the-barrel state K-12 schools desperately need the full attention of the General Assembly.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for why change has been slow, Lucas admitted. But it’s time to stop pointing fingers and get something done so more kids aren’t snared in failing schools, he urged.
At the beginning of the 2019 session, Lucas introduced an expansive, 84-page education reform bill that focuses on a broad array of education policy to try to upend how learning is being delivered in South Carolina.
“I’m the last guy that should have put this bill forward, because I’m not an education person, never served on the education committee,” the speaker said. “[But I’m] concerned about education. … I spent six months learning about the system so I could put forth a product that we could begin debating.”
Lucas said his bill, which is mirrored in a companion Senate bill, essentially is a big policy statement on education. It focuses on several areas to press education forward:
Career development. Lucas said the bill pushes earlier and more attention on readying K-12 students to be ready for work, college and career pathways.
Testing. The bill seeks to cut some of the seemingly endless standardized student testing and revamps a “Read to Succeed” program for improving early reading skills.
Changing remediation. It would move student remediation to K-12 schools to allow more students to be ready for college.
New teachers. It would increase the pay for starting teachers.
More accountability. The bill would create major changes for underperforming schools and districts, including possible consolidation of small districts.
Critics may point to critical big-ticket items that the bill doesn’t cover – the need to stick to the base student cost and the formula used to calculate it or the struggle to pay existing teachers more to stop a hemorrhage from K-12 classrooms. But, Lucas points out, there are other bills in place to accomplish those things, both of which will be part of budget discussions. His policy bill would set a new framework for what’s happening now.
Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell, D-Lancaster, this week outlined on Facebook that she was backing the measure because “Speaker Lucas believes strongly in public education — and because I believe in the process. The bill is at the subcommittee level, which is the point for shaping the bill, getting input, and making changes. If it’s not a good bill at the end of this process, I won’t support it, but I have confidence that it will be.”
With about 70 co-sponsors ranging from conservative Republicans to more liberal Democrats, the speaker’s bill should pass the House. It’s up to the Senate to make sure it moves on it, too.
“There’s nothing more important that we’ve dealt with, however, than this issue,” Lucas said. “This issue is critical to where we go as a state.”
Lawmakers must move K-12 education forward so we don’t keep failing our children. But they also need to use a huge state surplus to pay existing teachers more and stop shortchanging students by not investing the money the law requires them to spend.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
This bill is absurd! No educators were involved. 6 months of learning, so Lucas could write it? What?! I have a MEd, teaching for 19 years, $$$$ in student loans, single mom who can’t afford my own place to raise my children. This is nonsense! I haven’t afforded a vacation in 5 years, and the last one was a long weekend! Teachers are tired of beurocrats dictating what we do. WE are professionals. We should be paid and respected as such! 10% MINIMUM!! Many of us have FAR more education, experience, and wisdom than the people who are trying to pass this bill! I feel SICK! Voting next go round will be EASY.
The read to privatization is being paved with this bill. Legislators are willfully spreading misinformation and no one will fess up to writing it. It reeks of special interest money and is not in best interest of our children. Please read it. It does nothing but redirect funds away from classrooms and towards more testing and privatization. It discourages teacher recruitment and retention. Educators are terrfied by the backward steps this will lead us.
Lucas spent 6 months “learning about the system “. I have spent 6 years earning degrees (bachelors abs masters) and 22 years teaching. I know much more about the system, as do all teachers in SC, yet our input/expertise was not sought out. I don’t know what Lucas’ agenda is, but I feel it involves him and not the children, teachers, and citizens of SC. Scrap the bill and start over with input from educational experts, the teachers of SC!
A first year teacher understands the issues in education better than a bystander who “spent 6 months studying” it. This bill will just further destroy education. We need a bill that increases funding, increases teacher pay by miles and not inches, and decreases disruptions to instructional time and planning. Currently I give up about 10% of my instructional days to testing. If you want to fix education we need time to teach, materials to teach with, and well trained teachers. The solution to our fundamental problems is not overtly complicated. Not non-educators who have never been in classrooms telling teachers how to teach their students.
As an educator, this bill is troublesome to me on many fronts. Pay raises only for new teachers, continuation of the failed Read to Succeed, ability for schools to hire more non-certified teachers, abs much more. We must demand more from our legislators!
He is right. Lucas is the last man who should put forth a bill to reform education, a topic he admits he has no experience in. His bill is simply a rerun of proposals to take taxpayer dollars and funnel them to pay private school tuition for the advantaged, while turning over the remaining students to for-profit “education” schemes. He has become an expert in education in six months? I find that hard to believe. Who are the teachers he consulted with? We’re there any?
There are a few minor positive components in the bill. Offering extra pay for experienced, highly qualified teachers willing to work in underperforming schools is a good idea, as is offering mileage for those teachers with long commutes.
Do you really want to improve education? Dismantle the EOC, who has not managed to improve anything. Do not set up yet another committee or appoint a “tsar” of education. It is just a waste of taxpayer dollars. Fund the per pupil mandated rate. Reduce standardized testing to one, yes, one test per grade per years for grades 1-8. No testing for Kindergartners. It is ridiculous. Let the State Department of Education research developmentally appropriate, reasonable standards that are actually possible to teach in depth, rather than hit it and rush on. Reduce class size. Again, reduce class size. Finally, give teachers the 10% raise they deserve.