Changes In Charleston County's Educational Disparity

Systemic change in three years is asking for the moon. That's the bottom line on the Tri-County Cradle to Career Collaborative’s (TCCC's) fourth annual report. The status quo remains unacceptable.

"According to the report, 48 percent of all third-graders in Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley counties last year met grade-level standards on their state-mandated reading assessment and 57 percent met grade-level standards in math. Scores were worse in the eighth grade, where 45 percent and 40 percent of students, respectively, met grade-level reading and math standards."  

"But those numbers conceal wide gaps in performance among white students and students of color. For example, just 26 percent black third-graders and 30 percent of Latino third-graders met grade-level expectations in reading, compared with almost two-thirds of white third-graders. Similarly, 37 percent of black third-graders and 43 percent of Latino third-graders met grade-level math expectations, unlike 72 percent of their white counterparts."

Barbara Kelley-Duncan, former CEO of Carolina Youth Development Center and current member of TCCC's Board of Directors, stated that these statistics prove that "'Our poor and minority children, they do not have equal access. They do not get an equal education.'"

You must ask the question, what is "an equal education? Does that mean equal outcomes?

What we really don't know is what the disparity was fifty years ago when Dr. King was assassinated. We simply lack those statistics. We also know that fifty years ago many poor and minority children weren't even in school. We also know that, despite the best efforts in single-parent families, students without two parents swell the ranks of those who lack achievement on grade level. Meeting Street Academy has shown the gap can be narrowed with the cooperation of parents and extra resources.

TCCC's three major goals are exactly what is needed to improve outcomes:

(1) raising teacher pay, 

(2) providing transportation to students who attend charter schools and 

(3) reforming Act 388, a controversial 2006 state law that exempts homeowner-occupied homes from the property taxes that fund school operations.

Actually, these should be listed in reverse order of importance!

Surely no one beams at the statistic that only 40 percent of high school graduates are prepared for college-level work!