SC must treat teacher shortage as the crisis it is

The State’s excellent series on South Carolina’s teacher shortage raises red flags on the future education of students in our schools. The rate of teachers leaving their profession is now the worst in state history.

Five thousand teachers resigned for various reasons this past year; 22 percent of them were first-year teachers.

The number of graduates from S.C. teacher programs is down 30 percent.

The average S.C. teacher salary in well below the Southeastern average and $6,000 below Georgia’s average salary.

And a $33,000 starting salary and the 1 percent salary increase this year by the Legislature are inadequate and not competitive in the marketplace.

These facts predict a downward spiral that will soon adversely affect the state’s entire economy. The parents of more than 720,000 children in our public schools should be incensed. So should the business community. The ability of children to learn is directly related to the quality of their classroom teachers.

Why was this crisis allowed to happen? The governor and the Legislature have to assume much of the responsibility for not providing adequate funding years ago that would have kept teachers’ compensation competitive. If such supportive action had been taken, this problem would not exist. States and school districts that have well-paid teachers do not have a teacher shortage.

Better educated high school graduates yield better college graduates, which yields better-paying jobs, which yield higher tax revenues in South Carolina. This equation would greatly reduce the state’s tax burden from funding more Medicaid and food stamp recipients and housing more prison inmates.

How can we remedy this crisis? In order to prevent the Legislature and the Education Department from kicking this can down the road, we need to initiate collaborative lobbying campaigns targeting every legislator in South Carolina.

Teacher organizations cannot accomplish this alone. They have to get the grassroots citizens’ support. The parents of those 720,000 children, chambers of commerce, and multiple education advocates must persistently lobby their local legislators until they realize that South Carolina’s citizens demand better funding of education as their top priority in 2019. It is up to everyone to get really proactive if they want a better educated South Carolina.

Put teachers ahead of football stadiums

Every time I read about another multimillion-dollar football stadium being built, I am reminded that there is never enough money to raise teacher salaries in Richland County. Why is high school football so much more important? Why can’t the players and parents continue to share football fields, so we can pay teachers even close to what they are worth?

Not all churches are losing ground

While I agree it that declining church attendance seems to be a trend in some cases, I don’t think the whole story has been told (“Losing Faith: Why South Carolina is abandoning its churches”).

There was a full house Sunday morning at my church, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Columbia, and First Presbyterian, First Baptist, St Joseph’s Catholic Church and, I’m sure others, have strong, active and vital congregations. All of these offer mostly “traditional” services.

Some liturgies have been updated, but Trinity, for one, remains a large, diverse, multi-generational congregation very involved in community outreach.

Congress is ignoring entitlement fraud

Your article about a $500 million Medicare fraud (“Doctor risked it all to blow the whistle on a national Medicare fraud”) reminded me that U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn has said the U.S. government loses $200 billion to $400 billion per year from fraud, waste and abuse of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other entitlement programs.

That’s enough to balance the budget.

All the members of Congress know about these losses but refuse to do anything to correct the problem.

Who’s calling whom incompetent?

I find it amusing that Gov. Henry McMaster would describe anything Rep. James Smith does as “raising questions about his competency” (“James Smith wanted a 3rd-party nomination. Will it cost SC Democrat a spot on ballot?”).

When I think about incompetent, I look back at the debate between McMaster and John Warren. When he was asked what worries him about South Carolina’s future, McMaster said: “It would be a lack of inspiration and lack of hope. A lack of leadership. Leadership going in the wrong direction.”

Isn’t he the leader? Hasn’t he been the leader of the state the last couple of years? In fairness, he did go on with the typical politician’s answer about how he can fix everything, but the first part of the answer told me a lot. To me, that’s kind of the definition of incompetent.

We need more business regulations, not fewer

According to my insurance company, if you loan a car to someone who causes an accident, it’s possible that y’ll be liable. So it only makes sense to always borrow a vehicle. This is what happens when businesses write the law.

The reason there are so many restrictions on businesses is that people have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted around large sums of money or cheap labor. Apparently, there are not enough restrictions.

The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.