The Rex Record
Improving South Carolina’s High School Graduation Rate. South Carolina had the nation’s best improvement in on-time high school graduation rates between 1996 and 2006, according to a national report. According to Education Week’s “Diplomas Count,” South Carolina’s on-time graduation rate increased from 53.2 percent for the Class of 1996 to 66.3 percent for the Class of 2006 (a national ranking of 37th). The national average for the Class of 2006 was 69.2 percent. In 2007, that number rose to 74.9%.
Fighting to bring federal stimulus funds to South Carolina. Throughout the winter and spring of 2009, Jim Rex led the fight against Governor Mark Sanford to help ensure that federal dollars meant for South Carolina made their way to the Palmetto State. At stake was $700 million in federal stabilization funds -- $350 million the first year – that Sanford had refused to draw down unless the General Assembly agreed to devote an equivalent amount of money to reducing state debt. Many school districts across South Carolina have placed their budgets on hold because of uncertainty over how many positions they would have to cut next year. A South Carolina Department of Education survey of school districts indicated that about 2,600 jobs, including 1,500 classroom teaching positions, would be eliminated next year unless the state receives the stabilization funds. With those funds available, about 700 jobs have been saved, including 500 teaching positions.
Improving SAT scores. According to the College Board, which tracks 10-year SAT trends, the state’s 34-point improvement since 1998 in reading and math remained the nation’s best.
Making South Carolina a national leader in public school choice. Jim Rex has made public school choice a cornerstone of his term as State Superintendent of Education. Instructional options in South Carolina currently include single-gender, Montessori, natural resources, arts-infused, language immersion and physical fitness programs, magnet schools, charter schools and virtual schools. In the face of opposition from liberal groups like the ACLU, Jim created the first-in-the-nation Single Gender Education office at the State Department of Education. As a result, of the roughly 500 single-gender programs running in public schools in the nation, nearly 250 of them are in South Carolina.
Leading the fight against vouchers for private schools. Jim Rex has led the fight against a voucher scheme that would take millions of dollars from the state’s public schools and give those resources to private schools with no accountability and no guarantee of accessibility to all students. Such a program would force a massive, statewide tax increase. In May, the Senate Education Committee sent back to subcommittee a bill that would subsidize private school tuitions with public funds, effectively killing the legislation for this session of the General Assembly. Legislators had rejected similar bills every year since 2004.
Reforming accountability and ending the PACT test. In 2008, Jim Rex led the fight to reform the Education Accountability Act of 1998, ultimately winning unanimous approval from both the State House and State Senate. The new law eliminates the PACT test and replaced it with a new and better test - the PASS - aimed at giving timely results and helping to better inform instruction. In addition, it eliminated countless hours of useless paperwork for teachers.
Reducing the achievement gap for minority students. South Carolina’s minority and lower-income students have raised their scores and reduced achievement gaps on standardized reading and math tests, according to a national report released by the Education Trust. According to the report, eighth-grade math performance by the state’s African-American students ranked ninth in the country when compared to similar students in other states and the District of Columbia. Fourth-grade reading performance by African-American students in South Carolina ranked 33rd.
Freeing schools from unnecessary mandates. In an ongoing attempt to ensure that resources make it to the classroom, Jim Rex fought for and won unprecedented flexibility for school districts to make decisions at the local level how to best spend state dollars, freeing them from dozens of mandates that had accumulated over years of policy making.
Listening to South Carolinians. Making good on his 2006 campaign promise to continue to tour the state to build support for reform and listen to the concerns of the people of South Carolina, Jim Rex has held dozens of town hall meetings in communities across the state since taking office.
