Education Reform is at Risk

Abstract

When the Joint Committee on Excellence in Education sat down in 1983 to consider what might be done in South Carolina to improve the system of public education, we read that our American students simply were not measuring up to the students of other countries. This country's productivity and ability to compete in an increasingly technical world economy were faltering tragically. The United States was falling behind, and the education systems of our country were caught in a rising tide of mediocrity. Our nation was at risk. For our governor, our state superintendent, and the General Assembly, the implication was obvious. If our nation was at risk, what of those states at the bottom of the nation's educational ladder? What of South Carolina's risk? A year later, we were celebrating the culmination of a remarkable response-the passage of the Educational Improvement Act of 1984 (EIA). Right here in this room, legislators-myself included-were saying, We've done our part-now it's time for you professionals to do your part. It is now a matter of record that you have been doing your thing this year, and the results have been successful-thus far. As we consider that success and engage in a little back-patting, why not start with the state superintendent, who has consistently exercised enlightened leadership in setting the high tone for reform and has presided over a department staff that is doing a herculean job of implementation in a thoroughly professional manner? We have a lot of talent at the department level-I have seen it first hand. District administrators devoted countless hours to statewide issues through participation in the district, regional, and state implementation councils, came to Columbia for a never-ending series of task force meetings, and took long, hard looks at professional practice by