“Children are our future.” Thomas Jefferson once said. “They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

When nearly half of our students are fine with socialism, we indeed are in danger of losing our republic. And it’s public education’s fault!

Quality education reform in SC that will lead students to cherish the preservation of our liberty is not going to happen by merely paying teachers more, giving them a duty-free lunch break, doing more data-mining of children from age zero, expanding pre-4K to all day, or instituting competency-based education.

To improve education outcomes for students in SC:

1. SC should be 100% in control of education. Getting less than 10% of funding from the federal government, which comes with 100 percent control over the standards we teach children, is ridiculous.
2. Standards drive curriculum and tests, and present SC college/career-ready standards are 90% in line with proven-failed Common Core. We need to return to proven successful classical standards like the ones Massachusetts had before Common Core. Paying teachers more to teach by failed standards in line with Common Core is insanity.
3. The Education Oversight Committee should be abolished and its duties given over to an elected state school board based on judicial districts. Elected representatives from  local districts could be held accountable for their education decisions; appointed boards cannot. The EOC has failed for decades in providing quality recommendations.

If SC is to rise from the bottom of the education ratings, it’s going to take bold actions. Throwing more money at education woes is not working; jumping on new bandwagons that have no long-term proven success rate is continuing down this road of bad decisions.

SC taxpayers’  money is being wasted, and more important, improving student outcomes is stagnant. … this is unacceptable.

Legislators, be bold … stop listening to the Chamber of Commerce and progressive educrats. Return to classical standards and change the governance structure to give local control back to parents and taxpayers.

Johnnelle Raines

Pickens, S.C.

The Publishers of ALPHA-PHONICS hope this opinion of a South Carolinian will be of interest to our Blog Followers.  We also hope Parents of public grade school students might consider teaching their OWN children to read.  The information below can show them that many thousands of Parents have taught their OWN children to read, and they found it was much easier than they thought…..and less time consuming than they thought.  Take a look:

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