SC Stays Red for Ed
A photoessay on what teachers still need.
South Carolina teachers were planning to rally at the statehouse today to highlight the low pay/funding and high amounts of bullshit they have to work with, but unfortunately, that got cancelled because nobody wants to taunt the plague.
So I thought I’d share the photos I took at 2019’s May 1 Red for Ed protest gathering, which brought 7,000 - 10,000 (local accounts vary) educators (and their clever protest signs) to the capitol to signal a major state of emergency in the SC education system. Here are a couple issues that SC teachers are still rallying behind:
Class size. It’s SC law that no public school classroom can have more than 35 students per every one teacher (except in P.E. and music classes, where the limit is 40). The SC Department of Education’s report card for the 2018 - 2019 school year (latest available) says we’re at 21.5:1. That doesn’t look too bad, but it’s about six students higher than the national average (15:1) as calculated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2017 figures (latest available). And in January 2019, Paul Bowers reported in the Charleston, SC Post and Courier that the state department of education isn’t enforcing these caps, resulting in class sizes ballooning out of control. (My favorite quote from that is “36. Middle school boys.” from one unfortunate soul who had to deal with that every day.) Fortunately, the state legislature backed down from a law that would eliminate any caps at all on classroom size. But that’s just keeping it from getting worse, legally, not doing anything to help the original (and current) problem.
Dismal pay. SC public school teachers earn an average of $49,737. Starting teacher salaries for those with bachelor’s degrees ranges from $35,000 - $40,000 depending on the district. They receive a 2% raise each year, which approximates the cost of living inflation rate for the U.S from the last decade, give or take a couple tenths of a percentage point. However, SC has been the 41st worst state for teacher wages until Governor Henry McMaster proposed a $3,000 increase for each to boost us to number 25 for this school year. Probably because we hemorrhage new teachers. A full quarter of our new teachers don’t go back for the 2018 - 2019 school year, and while their own pay is part of the issue, so is….
Even worse funding. SC pays a total of $10,589 per public school student (as of 2017, latest, etc.) That’s like half of what we spend on inmates in our state prisons.
These are issues that need continuous attention, and we can’t forget about them, especially as they make tremendous and rapid shifts to accommodate new virus-y norms. Hopefully this sudden shakeup will put the need for permanent, systemic change in even starker relief.
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