Each child in this class represents one school that was on Newsweek's top schools list. Wait, there aren't any kids in the class..... and there aren't Pee Dee schools on the Top 1000 list either. South Carolina as a whole didn't fare very well - there were about a dozen schools that made the list -mostly Upstate and Midlands schools.
Lists like these stir up a lot of thoughts. Are they arbitrary? Are they biased? Maybe a little, but generally there are correct. Nearly every school in suburban New York made the list. Do these schools get more tax revenue? Absolutely. Is that why they are better? Doubtful. Many of the top schools are inner city private schools , with very high subsidized lunch percentages. Want a better example? Try Guilford County in North Carolina. Greensboro Page, High Point Central, NE Guilford, SE Guilford and NW Guilford all made the list, and all are public schools with high minority rates in an area decimated by the loss of textile and manufacturing jobs.
It sounds a lot like South Carolina, doesn't it? If NC is making the list , why can't we? Some people (including the two knuckleheads I'll be running against) blame it on equity in educational funding. What exactly IS their definition of equity- I haven't heard a specific one yet. I get the impression that they mean dollar for dollar equity, meaning that a district with 5000 kids should get the same as a district with 30,000 kids. Good luck with that one. I read a list of recommendations given by a local Equity in Funding group recently. Among them was having a class size below 20 students, an assistant in every class, pay raises (of course), and a few other pie in the sky wishes.
I know , you can never spend too much on Education........ and that's what I worry about. For some administrators, an open checkbook is what they really want. While you might not be able to spend too much on education, you can waste too much of my tax dollars on some of these silly suggestions. I've said it a hundred times: we didn't have the tools kids have today, but somehow, despite the freezing old buildings, the lack of computers, and the 32 kids in class, we learned more proficiently than kids today.
What will it take to get some Pee Dee schools on that list? It might take a little money , targeted at specific areas. What it will take a lot of is work. It's not easy to get kids to learn when their parents didn't, and it's not easy when there are so many distractions - both in and out of the classroom.
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