Cheap labor: Our children in their corporate context

Those curious about what happens to unskilled high school graduates in South Carolina -- and the choices made for them by corporate titans whose interest is the bottom line, the profit margin -- would do well to read Adam Davidson's "Making It in America," a feature in the current edition of "The Atlantic" magazine.

Davidson enjoyed his visit to Greenville and Easley -- "a largely charmless

Read More

Haley to state's children: Want state parks? Pay up.

If you live in NORTH Carolina, your access to all of North Carolina's state parks is absolutely free. Even after the new conservative legislature imposed some fees for some services last year, admission remains free statewide.

That's because in North Carolina, people regard some spaces, programs and services as necessary to promoting a high quality of life for all its citizens. So North

Read More

Chesterfield forum to discuss search for new supt

Chesterfielders, don't miss this opportunity.The S.C. School Board Association will be holding community meetings to give the public an opportunity to give input on what characteristics, experiences, and professional traits the board should look for in the recruitment, screening and selection process of the new superintendent of Chesterfield County School District.

The public is invited to

Read More

Wanted: DHEC head, skilled in health, environment issues

Failing that, a demonstrated bias against South Carolina's working class will do.

File this one in the folder labeled "Questionable appointments by Governor Nikki Haley," right behind her replacement of the University of South Carolina's largest single benefactor, Darla Moore, with a campaign contributor on the university's board of trustees. Stamp it "Service to Haley and ideology trumps

Read More

Paving the road to Charleston with good intentions

I remember being a kid in school, seeing other students' parents there for any and every school activity there was. They were present so often that when they were absent, it was cause for alarm. Were they all right? Had they taken ill? Were they visiting family out-of-town?

My own parents didn't do that, and I knew well why. Both worked, full-time, to support a family with several children. We

Read More

Duplicitous Gov. Haley, who hates duplication, duplicates.

A parable.

South Carolina has two things in abundance: A history of treating poorly those who earn their living by the sweat of their brow, and governors who look for more ways to treat poorly those who earn their living by the sweat of their brow.

We might as well post signs at the borders: "Abandon hope and your rights, all ye who enter to work here."

First, the record.

Governor Nikki Haley

Read More

House nearly criminalizes teenagers' poor judgment

What do you say?

There comes a point in a young person's life when their freedoms and autonomy outpace their capacity to think and act rationally. Some call it their twenties. Most scientists and medical practitioners call it puberty. And science has reached some data-driven conclusion about this phenomenon.

Yes, science is hard, but this isn't very long:In calm situations, teenagers can

Read More

Sumter Item opens online poll on "Sweet 16"

As of this morning, the Sumter Item's online front page features a poll on "Sweet 16," the complex new teaching evaluation instrument implemented this year across Sumter County public schools.

The poll addresses "Sweet 16" directly and by name:What's your stance on the implementation of the SWEET 16 in the Sumter School District?

I'm a teacher and I'm for it
I'm a teacher and I'm

Read More

Parents and educators pack the Sumter board meeting

The review by the Sumter Item of Monday's Sumter County board of trustees meeting was interesting for what it said and what it didn't say. After reading numerous emails from parents and educators in the area throughout today, I went back to re-read the Item's coverage before offering commentary.

The comments of parents and educators continue to be enlightening, and they're attracting the

Read More

When billionaire businessmen take over public education

A number of correspondents have referred to billionaire Eli Broad and the influence of the Broad Superintendents Academy in American public education over the past decade, and have asked for more information on the topic.

So, what follows is a digest of coverage of the man, his ideology and his training programs for superintendents, principals and other administrators. It's only a sample, by no

Read More

Tea Party to Tennessee educators: Teach only pretty history

This is laughable: Tea Party activists in Tennessee don't want their children to learn that America's founding fathers owned slaves and killed or drove away Native Americans.

So they're "seek[ing] to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

If these people weren't such a powerful rump group driving the agenda

Read More

Will Dorchester 2 vote to make needed repairs and renovations?

It comes back to resources, again and again, and whether or not our priorities will include quality public education.

This time, it's Dorchester 2, where voters in November may be asked to decide between raising additional revenue for necessary repairs and renovations, and new construction, or leaving their schools behind a few more years.The Dorchester District 2 board did not vote to hold a

Read More

Race continues to influence state support for public schools

"And Huckleberry walked up to the creek, gazed through the clear water to its craggy bottom and watched minnows dart in teams between brownish rocks in its bed. He surveyed the width of it from this bank to the other, and turned left and right to see where its gurgling length had come from and was going to. A stem of hay still pinched in his teeth and pointing from the corner of his mouth, he

Read More

"Standing ovation" for teacher's perspective at Sumter meeting

Early feedback from tonight's Sumter Board of Trustees meeting reports that Jackie Hicks, president of the SCEA, carried the perspective of Sumter's classroom professionals to the table, a perspective that earned applause and a standing ovation from approximately 200 parents, educators and others. Writes one commenter tonight,THANK YOU JACKIE HICKS for coming to our board meeting to say what we

Read More

Supt. Agnes Slayman starts on the right foot in Chester

Only two weeks into her new assignment as superintendent of Chester County School, Dr. Agnes Slayman is starting off on the right foot, according to reporting by the News & Reporter of Chester County.“The first thing is, I want us to hire and retain great teachers,” Slayman said. “The teachers we have in the classroom are the foundation for student learning.”Well-begun is half-done! And in the

Read More

Richland's Ford disapproves Zais's labels proposal

Superintendent Mick Zais's alternative to No Child Left Behind -- a waiver application that includes a proposal to label schools A through F for performance -- isn't collecting many supporters among veteran educators. In Richland County, school board member Vince Ford has become the latest to question the Zais model.Richland One School Board member Vince Ford explains: "It's really about taking

Read More

What is candidate Stephen Colbert's education platform?

The last entrant to South Carolina's Republican presidential primary was native son Stephen Colbert, who missed the November 1 filing deadline and therefore couldn't be included on the ballot. But Colbert convinced former candidate Herman Cain, who made the deadline but since suspended his candidacy, to mount a mind-meld candidacy in which votes for Cain would suffice as votes for Colbert.

The

Read More

Anderson IM: We can't cut our way to education excellence

Editors of the Anderson Independent Mail wisely waited until the hordes cleared the field this week before issuing comment on Governor Nikki Haley's State of the State address, and I'm glad they did.

Through Saturday evening's primary returns, news of other sorts got washed away, and this is too great a concern to let go by unheard.

Their verdict on the the Haley speech? Not enough.As is

Read More

Teaching: The most important job in America

Yet again, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof knocks one out of the ballpark. This time, it's the discovery of a successful businessman named Olly Neal, who was well on his way to becoming a juvenile delinquent with no future in the segregated South, but whose meanness to a teacher was repaid with a secret favor that led to Neal's own success and the success of his own children.

The only

Read More

PLThomasEdD: South Carolina defies education reform myths

I discovered today a great new voice being published at the mega-blog, Daily Kos. Daily Kos has a left-leaning reputation, which simply means that the people who post there rely heavily on facts, figures, rational thought and reasonable solutions. That's certainly true of the blogger PLThomasEdD, whose essays I spent the morning reading.

I commend his work to South Carolina's education

Read More

How corporate greed, neglect of public education doom America

Sunday's New York Times observes symptoms of distress and diagnoses an illness in America.

Problem is, corporate interests own the cure and choose not to administer it to us.

The text is extensive, but here are a few of the highlights. Read and weep.
When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for

Read More

Important Film Alert: Free "Uprising of '34" screening Tuesday

If this weren't a free screening -- if admission cost $30 a head -- I'd still recommend that anyone within driving distance of Columbia come to Conundrum next Tuesday, January 24, to watch "The Uprising of '34." Conundrum is at 625 Meeting Street, West Columbia, and the film begins at 7 p.m.

I've referred to "The Uprising of '34" before, but it bears repeating and deserves, particularly in South

Read More

Gonzales recalled on 109th anniversary of his murder

A note for the state's history teachers and buffs among us: Brad Warthen exhumed the memory of Narciso G. Gonzales, co-founder of The State, on his blog today. Warthen has a modern-day anecdote to share, but the example of Gonzales is a powerful one about political power in its own right. After all, how many lieutenant governors of South Carolina have pre-meditatedly murdered an editor of The

Read More

Garrick bypasses Zais: A law whose time has come

This is precisely why we have legislators and a legislature in the first place -- to check executive power. Kudos to Rep. Mia Butley Garrick for her advocacy for public education.

From the current edition of Columbia's Free Times:Superintendent Mick Zais’ controversial stance against accepting federal education grants will soon spark a battle in the legislative chambers.

Rep. Mia Butler Garrick

Read More

Teachers, pamper your feet: Some tips

It's not easy being on your feet most of a school day.

This note is a couple of years old, from NEA Member Benefits, but it still offers good advice:When you’re on your feet all day, it’s not uncommon to experience pain, strain and muscle weakness. Your back aches, your dogs are barking and all you want to do is sit down! Before you take a load off, it’s important to realize that these symptoms

Read More

Haley proposes elimination of arts funding, again

I missed this entirely but Brad Warthen didn't:Based on the emails I get, one of the best-organized lobbies in South Carolina is the one that promotes the arts. Of course, they need to be if their favored programs are to survive, since it appears that each year that Nikki Haley is governor is going to be a battle for existence for the state Arts Commission and related recipients of state

Read More

Students respond to Haley's SOS

That's State of the State address, not a distress signal, although...

Editors of the Daily Gamecock wasted no time answering Governor Nikki Haley's remarks to the General Assembly on Wednesday:Gov. Nikki Haley spent most of her State of the State speech Wednesday night addressing the economy, but she glossed over one of the biggest issues facing South Carolina today.
Haley touched on education

Read More

Questions about "Sweet 16" draw impassioned responses

Clearly, there's a deep well of emotion beneath the imposition of the new teacher evaluation model, "Sweet 16," on Sumter's education professionals this year. A note that attempted to root out some information and chase some rabbits toward answers earlier this week drew several responses from readers, including one from the editor of the Sumter Item.

If one subscribes to the old saw that for

Read More

Some South Carolina facts for discussion in quiet rooms

Some fascinating facts about South Carolina's people, wealth, businesses and home ownership were updated by the U.S. Census Bureau late last month, and they offer a snapshot worth considering.

Here are only a few notes:

How many are we? Our 2010 population totaled 4.625 million, an increase of 15.3 percent over the 2000 census. It would appear that despite all the rhetoric advising Americans

Read More

Charleston City Paper recaps Haley's tumultuous first year

Governor Nikki Haley's reportedly publishing a book -- can you say 'candidate for national office,' and 'profiting from public service,' boys and girls? -- this spring, but Chris Lamb of Charleston has beaten her to the punch with a Cliffs Notes edition of her first year in office. Lamb is a communications professor at the College of Charleston, and author of a new book of his own, the

Read More

Will of voters ignored, voucher bills are back again

A legislative update from The South Carolina Education Association on Friday warns educators that, yet again, our elected leaders in the legislature have chosen to introduce another voucher bill. This time, there are two of them, including one sponsored by the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee himself.The use of public funds to support private schools is the focus of H.4547 (

Read More

Haley to educators: No raises. Now get back to work.

I don't know how Governor Nikki Haley does it all.

She must be working 20-hour days on our behalf, traveling here and there -- even several days last week to New Hampshire, probably trying to bring some of its jobs down here -- and having to escort former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney everywhere he goes (he's so needy), all the while managing to raise her children, and keep up with sending

Read More

Unemployed? Need money? Volunteer for Mitt Romney.

This story deserves national attention.

To educators who have been laid off under the Sanford and Haley administrations, here's a sweet deal. It's likely to expire after Saturday's primary, but while the hot lights of media attention are here, it doesn't hurt to present yourself.

If former Governor Mitt Romney will empty his pockets for one unemployed South Carolinian with medical needs and

Read More

Sun-News: South Carolina is not a national model

It's odd that a columnist for the Myrtle Beach Sun-News would be picked up by the Kansas City Star of Kansas City, Missouri, but that's exactly what happened in yesterday's edition. Odder still is the content of the Sun-News column: It's shocking that one of our state's mainstream newspapers allowed a column of such bold dissent to be published. Watch for future by-lines by the columnist, Issac J

Read More

Moses Waddel: Teacher who shaped South Carolina, America

Moses Waddel is a perfect example of how much one teacher can matter.

Good teachers and great teachers matter surely to the lives of the children they teach, but their influence can and, I believe, absolutely does shape the entire community, a state and a nation. That's what Moses Waddel did.

Don't go looking for any historical markers erected by the state of South Carolina for any notice of

Read More

Educators in Sumter: What does "Sweet 16" mean to you?

Is it a birthday party for a 16-year-old girl, a social spectacle to draw everyone's attention?

Is it a bag of empty calories, coated with sugar or chocolate, to create a lot of activity but really making you sluggish?

Is it part of March Madness, a stage in a process of elimination?

In Sumter, thanks to a new superintendent with an interesting record, it's the new instrument being used to

Read More

King: 'Right to work' laws a 'fraud' on workers

South Carolina has been a so-called right-to-work -- otherwise known as a right-to-work-for-less -- state since adopting its anti-worker law in 1954.

Seven years later, Martin Luther King Jr. commented on so-called right-to-work laws:In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and

Read More

Former students, others remember R.P. Dawkins of Spartanburg

Longtime educator R.P. Dawkins of Spartanburg passed away last week at age 98. Originally from Union County, his prominence in the Spartanburg community through the turbulent times of the last century earned him the honor of having R.P. Dawkins Middle School named for him. But as Kevin Alexander Gray reflects in a fine remembrance, Dawkins's greatest legacy is seen in the generations of children

Read More

Got a job, an income, a home? Thank some teachers.

In today's edition, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof highlights in today's edition a "landmark new research paper" that concludes "the difference between a strong teacher and a weak teacher lasts a lifetime."Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each

Read More

Mark Sanford knocks Nikki Haley: "Lost her focus"

In a freshly-minted item published in the conservative National Review -- William F. Buckley's old magazine -- by Wall Street Journal editor John Fund, former Governor Mark Sanford expresses a strange thought about his protege, Nikki Haley: “She’s taken her eye off the ball and lost focus.”

What's strange isn't the substance of Sanford's opinion; Haley has certainly been all over the map --

Read More

The State details Zais's parsimony, lack of advocacy

Situations like these make me wish there were cameras in committee rooms, so we could all watch the outright foolishness that occurs in them.

In today's The State, reporter Seanna Adcox adds more details to what we knew about Superintendent Mick Zais's lack of commitment to advocating for South Carolina's public schools and the children they serve.Zais asked a Ways and Means panel not to cut a

Read More

Will primary candidates visit Scott's Branch High School?

Statehouse Report editor Andy Brack offered a great suggestion for our hifalutin' guests arriving from New Hampshire this week. Among a list of places he recommends they visit while pressing the flesh and sipping sweet tea for the cameras is Scott's Branch High School. Writes Brack:Scott’s Branch High School. An Upstate professor encouraged GOP candidates to visit Scott’s Branch High School in

Read More

Educators' lawsuit results in return of teacher supply money

Here's some news that apparently wasn't reported in local media: Educators who belong to The South Carolina Education Association filed suit against the Lexington/Richland School District 5 to preserve teacher supply money and won a settlement with the district. An email last Friday told the story:When the Lexington/Richland School District 5 acted to transfer the Teacher Supply Allocation from

Read More

Congratulations to Beaufort's Junior Scholars and their instructors

No thanks to restricted resources from the legislature and a lack of advocacy from the state Department of Education, 135 eighth-graders in Beaufort have excelled academically to be named Junior Scholars this year.

They include 46 students at McCracken Middle School, four at Robert Smalls Middle School, 32 at Hilton Head Island Middle School, 23 at Beaufort Middle School, 11 at Lady's Island

Read More

Zais: No teacher salary increases again this year

This is another illustration of why the Constitution should clearly require that the state superintendent of education be an advocate for public education.Zais asked a Ways and Means panel Wednesday not to cut a key funding stream for classrooms, but did he not ask for an increase. The so-called base student cost primarily pays teacher salaries. The current per-student allocation is about $1,900

Read More

Sen. John Matthews drops a pearl of wisdom about education

Truer words were never spoken than these, by Sen. John Matthews, to the Orangeburg Times and Democrat in Sunday's edition: "If we agree with the premise that every child in South Carolina is due the same quality education as any other, then we as a state should make certain that happens. It won't until we fund education on a statewide basis."

Matthews's comments were part of a larger article on

Read More

Lawmakers move toward privatizing health care, retirement systems

Well, that didn't take long.

South Carolina's legislators came back to Columbia yesterday and instantly got back to work tearing apart the middle class and rewarding corporate allies with profits from the public treasury. An email from The South Carolina Education Association this morning sounded the alarm:H. 3066 will be up for final debate (third reading) today and will create a new Department

Read More

Aiken Standard: Time to leave NCLB

Agreed!When the No Child Left Behind act was enacted 10 years ago it was heralded as a program to bring accountability to the country's education system. It set standards and measurement methods designed to reward achievement and punish failure.

But the program has flaws. For one, it ignores differences in favor of a one-size-fits-all method. And, success is all or nothing. If a school passes

Read More

Charles Dickens was right: Poor people care more for others

Don't take my word for it. U.S News and World Report quotes the journal Emotion, which published last month its findings that "the more affluent face fewer obstacles" and are "slower to recognize the suffering of others" than people with fewer resources. More than that, poor people are quicker to act on their empathy -- to show compassion for their fellow sufferers.The findings challenge previous

Read More

Study: Pay teachers more, student performance goes up

Here we go again: It's a scientific study, it's sponsored by a faraway university and it says that spending more money wisely to increase teacher salaries will deliver precisely the results that lawmakers say they want. That, however, means spending more money on teachers. Ergo, it will be ignored.

In this case, the faraway university is the London School of Economics. On its face, this should

Read More

Who has ALEC assigned to lead South Carolina?

Today, South Carolina's lawmakers reconvened in Columbia to take up pressing issues of the day. One thing that should be addressed quickly is undoing Governor Nikki Haley's Orwellian order that public employees answer their telephones with "It's a great day in South Carolina." While unemployment is still above 11 percent and South Carolina still can't afford to fully fund its meager commitment to

Read More

Will Mt Pleasant's gated communities secede from CCPS?

Mount Pleasant has a rich cultural history. It was once a mecca for African-American musicians from Count Basie and Louie Armstrong to B.B. King and James Brown. There's no sign of that now, as all those musical landmarks have been replaced by manicured right-of-ways and gated communities. Still, realtors in Mount Pleasant boast, "...[T]here is a certain look and feel to Mt. Pleasant that people

Read More

Virtual schools aren't delivering the goods?

Here's another bit of information that virtual-school proponents -- and lawmakers who see virtual schools as a cheap way to deliver public education -- will ignore in their quest to dismantle traditional public schools. It seems that children enrolled in virtual schools don't perform well against children enrolled in real schools.The number of students in virtual schools run by educational

Read More

Turnout low for Zais's first public meeting on NCLB waivers

Here's one area where the state Superintendent of Education and the Obama administration apparently agree: Both want to be freed from the restrictions of the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind." While Congress dawdles over the law's reauthorization, the Obama administration last year rolled out NCLB waiver options for states that wished to apply for them. Coincidentally, Superintendent

Read More

Thank goodness for federal funds from Obama administration

Students and educators at Lake City High School near Florence have 500,000 reasons to thank the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services. Despite state leaders' efforts to keep millions in federal grants and other funds from flowing into the state, one grant has made it through.Last month, Lake City High School and the school’s health clinic known as Health Connections, were

Read More

Have things changed much since 1872 for educators?

During the holidays, I unearthed a framed copy of a document called "1872 Rules for Teachers." It's not an original but a reproduction, apparently reprinted some years ago by the Student National Education Association. One hundred thirty years later, as we begin a New Year, the rules imposed on education professionals bear reviewing:Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.

Each teacher

Read More