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Education
On Wednesday night, Gov. McMaster gave his first “State of the State” address. In the end, what he offered felt like little more than pandering and empty promises—albeit with a handshake and a smile. While speaking of “New Prosperity” and broad tax cuts, he conveniently omitted that the proposed cuts would largely benefit those who…
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Monday of last week marked the 4th Anniversary of the date when the first applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) were submitted on August 15, 2012. The DACA program, first announced by President Obama in June 2012, gives immigrant youth who were between the ages of 15 and 31 who came to the…
Read MoreSouth Carolina’s scores on standardized mathematics tests of elementary and middle-school students over the past 10 years have declined, making the state one of the nation’s poorest performers in that regard. The National Center for Education Statistics recently released its state-by-state scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests in math and reading…
Read MoreThe KIDS COUNT Data Book, a major initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, was first published in 1990 and provides each state with a ranking, percentage, and itemized summary based on four criteria to assess overall child well-being and shows us a picture of children at risk based on these criteria: education; health; economic…
Read MoreThe school-to-prison pipeline is the result of zero-tolerance policies and practices that push children out of school and into the juvenile or criminal justice system. Zero-tolerance policies are rooted in the belief that removing students from schools when they when they misbehave makes schools safer. These policies forget we are talking about children and fail…
Read MoreEarlier this week, SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center (SC Appleseed) and The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and filed a federal lawsuit to protect the rights of US born college students of immigrant parents. Currently, the South Carolina’s higher education system classifies dependent US citizen students residing in South Carolina as “non-residents” for tuition, scholarship,…
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After 21 years in the courts, our school finance lawsuit has finally ended. Late last year, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in a 3–2 decision that the state is inadequately funding the poorest districts and failing to meet the constitutional standard of a minimally adequate education. The state’s defense attempted one last-ditch effort to…
Read MoreA few weeks ago we told you about our recent win in Jasper County. This week, we wanted to tell you more about the kids who were denied their right to an education and the School-to-Prison pipeline that is permanently altering the lives of so many kids in our state. Imagine being an 18 year…
Read MoreDid you know the State of South Carolina spends as much as $155,490 annually to incarcerate a young person? This is in addition to the estimated billions of dollars in long-term costs created by the excessive use of youth confinement, including reduced income levels, lower tax revenue, greater reliance on public assistance, higher costs to…
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