New Chair of SC Senate Education Committee Voices Concerns Over SC Missteps

   

Sometimes we forget how powerful the South Carolina legislature really is. 
After all, in many (or most) other states, the elected Governor holds the power. Not so in South Carolina, and it's important not to forget it.

It would be helpful if our local newsrag covered the legislature more fully--or at all--but at least Senator Harvey Peeler, new chair of the Senate Education Committee, recently voiced his concerns in an op-ed.

What are they?

He pointed out that the State Board of Education's decision to adopt a state-wide 10 point grading system has without aforethought bankrupted the Palmetto Fellows, LIFE and HOPE scholarships. That's what happens when everybody makes A's and B's, folks. It's an unnecessary illustration of the law of unintended consequences, with which we are all too familiar. 

Time to strengthen the requirements. "We have a challenge on our hands in terms of restructuring scholarships in a way that’s fair to all involved. In the process, I’m hoping we can create an incentive to train more educators who stay in state and address our teacher shortage."

Focus on technical colleges. They bring skills to the state's workforce that entice new investment in our state. "Our tech schools ought to be thought of as a first option, rather than a fallback, for more students."

Put limits on the power of SC college and university governing boards. Curb their ability to raise tuition, cultivate out-of-state enrollment, and build campus palaces. [Actually, Peeler didn't say "palaces," but we know what he means.] Peeler points out that higher education costs in the state have risen "three times as fast as health care costs have grown in the same time."

That should give you food for thought.

Have our higher learning institutions "created a situation where some have lost sight of our system’s core mission to educate South Carolinians first, rather than build shiny new dorms for kids from Ohio and New Jersey," as Peeler suggests?

Expand power of the Commission on Higher Education. "One of my first priorities is to look at the Commission on Higher Education, and whether its authority to regulate our higher education system needs to be expanded – because each university and college acting on its own clearly isn’t working."

"It’s a conversation that needs to come before the colleges and universities come to the General Assembly asking for millions in a bond bill. If they need more money, I’ll fight to fund them. But it’s tough to understand why higher ed would be on a building spree in the first place before fixing what they already have. The same can be said of their out-of-state enrollment spree, which I want to make sure isn’t driving up costs for students here."

Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, has served in the S.C. Senate since 1981.