Rex Scrutinizes Ideas to Propel Public Education

By Ashlei N. Stevens, Herald-Journal, Spartanburg, S.C.

Feb. 13–South Carolina should increase teacher salaries, change its current funding process and offer more public school choice options.

These are among a list of 97 recommendations State Superintendent Jim Rex received from his transition team Monday.

After his November 2006 victory as the state’s top public school education official, the retired coach, teacher and college administrator appointed a 78-member panel to set an agenda for change. The team, chaired by former S.C. Governor and U.S. Secretary of Education Dick Riley, included clergy, parents, teachers and business people.

Two local educators were appointed to Rex’s team: Spartanburg District 7 interim superintendent Walter Tobin served on the innovation subcommittee and Spartanburg District 3 superintendent Jim Ray served on the accountability subcommittee.

“There’s no recipe for how you do this — how you reform public education while you’re implementing it,” Rex said. “You can’t disrupt it, but at the same time, you have to change it.”

The top suggestion from the innovation subcommittee is that the state Department of Education shift its mission from a regulatory, oversight organization to one that supports, promotes, assists and facilitates.

Other suggestions included improving technology use in the classroom, providing incentives to promote effective teaching, and encouraging parental involvement by providing skills and resources for underprivileged parents to help their children.

Ronny Townsend, a former state representative from Anderson, said his committee on accountability suggested ways to reduce the number of tests students have to take, preserve the rigor of academic standards, and make sure schools are inviting and welcoming to parents.

Townsend also mentioned that there will be talk to revise, or discard altogether, the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, or PACT, which is the state’s standardized test taken by third- through eighth-graders each spring.

“I think you’ll see a change in PACT, and it’ll be change based on recommendations from teachers and administrators,” Townsend said, adding that discussion has focused on making it a computerized test and reducing the number of test items.

Jim Ray said the exam does not provide enough diagnostic data. And by the time the data comes back, he said, the child already has moved on to the next grade level.

“The state has spent over $80 million on PACT since it was implemented, and it can only be viewed as a horrible waste of tax dollars,” Ray said.

Rex, in many ways, agreed.

“PACT is unacceptable as it is now, and it needs major revisions,” Rex said. “We want to keep open the possibility that it may not be worth keeping.”

In the area of school choice, the group recommended establishing an Office of School Choice at the state Department of Education, promoting options for alternative routes to high school completion, studying transportation costs, and identifying choice options that could be established statewide as soon as the 2007-08 school year.

Steve Morrison is an attorney with the lead law firm for the poorest and most isolated school districts in the state. He chaired the committee on fair funding, which suggests that teachers in high-poverty areas should be paid more than their peers in more affluent districts, facility and infrastructure needs should be addressed, and an assessment of the state’s tax structure and revenue sources should be undertaken.

To elevate and reinvigorate the teaching profession, the committee recommended that Rex’s staff create a marketing strategy to recruit teachers, utilize regional service centers for professional development, and match South Carolina teacher pay with salaries in North Carolina and Georgia, which are $5,000 to $8,000 higher than the pay scale in the Palmetto State.

“It’s humbling and a little frightening when I think about all these recommendations and the implications of them,” Rex said, “but I think we can do it.”

Monday’s presentation is “just the beginning of the dialogue,” Rex said.

Rex will discuss the recommendations in town hall-style meetings in eight cities across the state between Feb. 21 and March 19. He will visit Greenville at 7 p.m. March 7. The location has not yet been announced.

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