Are SC schools really that bad? (Charleston, Greenville: top school, universities, pit bull)

[countrygirl437]

Also, eveyone says that sc students have the lowest test scores
but please remember that the standards are also higher here than in alot of
other states, check the stats.........
no, the schools arent all great, but they aren't all bad the same as any
place.

[GJM]

I agree - the standards here are much higher. We moved to Myrtle Beach from NJ. Our school in NJ was a good school. My son is in lst. grade - they expect so much more from the lst graders in SC then in NJ - he has had a hard time with school, we have had a tutor all summer for him.

In NJ the lst & 2nd. graders don't even do the testing like they do here.

[SCBeaches]

Thank you, GJM, for reinforcing what I have said in previous posts in this forum and in others. At the school where I teach, the students who transfer in from other states (north, midwest, Pacific coast, etc.) are usually behind where our students in the same grade are and the parents are always impressed with our standards, teaching techniques, teachers, and the school in general. Granted, I teach in a above-average rated school, but there are many others like ours which goes to show that ALL SC schools are not poor as some would like to suggest.

As as for Greenville schools, they do have a very good reputation....if I could teach anywhere besides where I am now, I want to teach in Greenville!

[azhlynne]

I live in Horry County and I can tell you that the schools are HORRIBLE. According the the AYP reports for the "no child left behind" act, South Carolina consistently fails to meet the benchmarks it needs to meet each year. A lot of the schools are below average for the basics like reading and math. We only moved here this past July, but I'm telling you right now we are talking about moving out of SC as soon as financially feasible.

[jcubbin]

Originally Posted by azhlynne

I live in Horry County and I can tell you that the schools are HORRIBLE. According the the AYP reports for the "no child left behind" act, South Carolina consistently fails to meet the benchmarks it needs to meet each year. A lot of the schools are below average for the basics like reading and math.

I wonder how many parents are the ones falling behind? How many parents spend time with their kids every night going over what they learned that day, overseeing homework, reading to / with them, etc.

At what point exactly did public schools became a magic pill that allowed parents not to be deeply involved in their child's education?

I'm sure there are inferior teachers and schools, but really, is it all their fault? Are they the only ones failing to meet benchmarks?

[scyogi]

My family just moved to TX from Aiken County schools and my daughter is way ahead of her fellow classmates. SC does have good public schools when you have a good tax base that supports the schools. Lower income/poverty areas will continue to have poor test scores. It is just a sad miserable fact. These are schools that have zero outside help--you don't see parents at these schools volunteering because they have to work to make ends meet. When I was comparing TX schools to SC schools I was very concerned that my little one was going to be behind because the TX schools are ranked so much higher. This has not been proven to me. So I guess my entire point is......... Every district is different. You can't call the entire SC school system crap. I understand many of the schools are bordering on failing but just as many are molding your future docotrs, lawyers, and teachers and doing a really nice job of it.

[PeopleNotPoliticians]

Originally Posted by D33

In SC, you let your teens run off legally at age 17. This is their senior year in school, their most important years of school, or perhaps their most troubled times of their teens years!
Is it the authorities are tired of chasing the run-a-ways so they let them legally leave home?
Here is the funniest and most coonfusing thing, the parents are still responsible for them because they are not yet adults nor can they sign legal documents!
Shall we say SC has some children dropping out of school , teen pregnancies (3rd highest in the US)
How can a child of age 17 get themselves off to school, get ready for college, and study hard when SC lets them run hog wild!
Their morals somehow get lost in the dirt!

Get a grip SC and save your children, stop being behind everybody else and give your future a fighting chance.

It is not unusual for a state not to pursue runaways at the age of 17. Most states don't. Would these kids be better off being returned to (sometimes) abusive homes? Or with a criminal record? Or in kiddie prisons, being trained to be better criminals? Personally, I left my parents house (in Michigan) at 16. There were some hard years. I learned things the hard way I could have learned the easy way ... except that the reason I left my parents house is that I refused to learn those things the easy way.

As for morals, the sad thing is that people actually expect politicians to instill morals in their children. Politicians! People whose jobs require dishonestly and ruthlessness as a condition of hiring! Moral values may be instilled by the parents, they can be learned from interacting with the community, they may be learned from the formal study of ethics, they may be gleaned from religion. The one place you will never, ever, learn morals is from your government, unless you treat your government as a south-pointing compass ... useful only because it is so reliably wrong.

[texasluver]

Originally Posted by SteveO813

This is starting to concern me. My fiance will graduate in May with an elementary education degree, and the last thing I want for her is to be stuck in a run-down, poorly performing school. I'm sure there are good schools out there, but I worry that she might only be able to find work in a subpar district.

Can someone give me some insight into the overall schooling situation in South Carolina? Right now we're looking at the Greenville, Columbia and Charleston areas. I've searched for nationwide school statistics, but I'm having trouble coming up with useful numbers. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I have not read any replies, but would like to tell you that I have previously lived in South Carolina..Spartanburg County to be exact. When I had my child, there was no way on God's green earth that I would have raised in that place with those schools and their system. The kids cannot speak properly, their slang is so bad, you have no idea what they are trying to say, they cut off their words to no end....an example would be this..We say:
"I want pancakes for breakfast daddy"
They say:
" Wa pai br da"
This is no joke, I kid you not. It is all over the place here, I cant stand it. It is especially bad with the African American kids, but in the white ones too.
I feel sorry for your wife, because I am sure she could offer more than what the school systems there can offer. They have some of the lowest grades in the nation, and the state average (which is based on the South Carolina board of Education...that is more leinient than that of most states, especially Texas) is still below the nation average. The school systems there are poor and have nothing to offer not only a teacher, but students as well.
Here is something for you to take a look at and think about.....


YouTube - Miss Teen South Carolina

The sad part about this is that, she really thinks there was nothing wrong with her answer!
Hope it helps.....

[jenn02674]

[quote=texasluver;2203276]Ithe school systems there can offer. They have some of the lowest grades in the nation, and the state average (which is based on the South Carolina board of Education...that is more leinient than that of most states, especially Texas) is still below the nation average. The school systems there are poor and have nothing to offer not only a teacher, but students as well.
Here is something for you to take a look at and think about.....

[quote]


Actually you are very wrong here. You need to get your facts straight. It is FACT that SC has some of the TOUGHEST state standards in the country. This may be a relatively new thing, I'm not sure, but this is very much true. Now when you look at things like the SAT scores, we do score lower on the tests on average. Then again we have some school districts that score way above average. When you look at the state report cards though, if a school gets a good report you can be darn sure that that school is a VERY good one.

I don't think that a you tube video of a pagent girl has any reflection on the state of SC. George Bush has been caught on video saying some pretty darn stupid things but the fact of the matter is, no matter how you feel about him, he for sure isn't stupid.

I do believe that you can't hand a school money and expect them to take care of itself. At the same time it is a very big problem when you have a school with a $500 total book budget and then another school that can afford a computer in every classroom, including kindergarten. There is way too big of a discrepancy. While not the end all and be all, money is very important. Fort Mill, which is known to be one of the best school districts in the country, has not always been the wealthy city it is now. It has always had lots of tax income going to the schools from Springs but it has had a very rural, poor to middle class type population until the last few years but it has had exceptional schools for a few decades now. Basically what I am saying is that it had the opportunity to do well with lots of income from Springs and not necessarily because it had a majority of involved parents.

[gbv]

Actually you are very wrong here. You need to get your facts straight. It is FACT that SC has some of the TOUGHEST state standards in the country. This may be a relatively new thing, I'm not sure, but this is very much true. Now when you look at things like the SAT scores, we do score lower on the tests on average. Then again we have some school districts that score way above average. When you look at the state report cards though, if a school gets a good report you can be darn sure that that school is a VERY good one.

I don't think that a you tube video of a pagent girl has any reflection on the state of SC. George Bush has been caught on video saying some pretty darn stupid things but the fact of the matter is, no matter how you feel about him, he for sure isn't stupid.

I do believe that you can't hand a school money and expect them to take care of itself. At the same time it is a very big problem when you have a school with a $500 total book budget and then another school that can afford a computer in every classroom, including kindergarten. There is way too big of a discrepancy. While not the end all and be all, money is very important. Fort Mill, which is known to be one of the best school districts in the country, has not always been the wealthy city it is now. It has always had lots of tax income going to the schools from Springs but it has had a very rural, poor to middle class type population until the last few years but it has had exceptional schools for a few decades now. Basically what I am saying is that it had the opportunity to do well with lots of income from Springs and not necessarily because it had a majority of involved parents.

No, texasluver is right. My spouse worked in one of the "top high schools" in South Carolina and even the honors kids were lousy writers, spellers, etc. All this talk about certain high schools in SC being among the nation's best is absurd. I work a bit with dual enrollment kids at my middle-of-the-road U in the Midwest and they are leaps above and beyond students in SC. Take the average high schooler from York County, SC and pin him/her up against the average high schooler from Hennepin County, MN and it would be the equivalent of a toy poodle trying to fight a pit bull. SC has no history of social programs and a tremendous class divide. It will take generations to overcome that. If retirees, who traditionally do not want to pay taxes, keep moving there, then SC will continue to lag behind.

BTW, one of GB's former business professors from Harvard U said he was one of the worst, least insightful students he's ever taught. Yes, he is stupid.