I don’t know about you but I find the older that I get, the more that simple, practical logic provides the answers to most of life’s most complicated problems. When I was younger and someone would explain something really complicated to me, I would tend to think, “They just must be smarter than me.” Well, now when that same situation happens, I kind of think, “Mm, they don’t really know what they’re talking about.”
Well, education is no different. You know, so many of us care so deeply about education, as we know it is inextricably linked to the future of our country. Yet so many of us are so confused about what to do. I know, I used to be one of those confused people too. What if I told you that if you’ll stay with me, for the next 10 minutes or so, you will find that the same simple, practical logic applies. While you’ll have some real clarity as to the answers, make no mistake: the answers may be relatively simple but the work is very, very hard.
I care about education, not because of some idealistic view of what people should know. Heck, I didn’t even like school all that much to be honest. For me, school was a stepping-stone or a box to check before I could get out into the world. But the public schools that I attended, they were good schools, schools that gave me the ability to communicate in writing and verbally, and gave me a solid background in math.
I like to say that when I graduated college I didn’t know anything, which is totally true. But I did have the ability to talk to people and to learn what I needed to and this is why I care so much about education. Because in this amazing country of ours, I believe everyone should have a chance to succeed. No one should be guaranteed anything. But everyone should have a chance to obtain their version of the American Dream. And for many children, given the schools they are required to attend, it’s not possible.
Without that solid educational foundation, its not possible, and its under-resourced kids that have the least educational opportunity. In my mind, that’s unfair and that’s un-American. And that’s why I started a school in Charleston called Meeting Street Academy. And I’d like to introduce you to one of our students, Byron.
Byron is a bright, young kid, comes from a great family, and was zoned to attend one of Charleston’s lowest performing schools. So instead his parents decided to send him to Meeting Street. Well, let’s look around our state at what’s going on for kids like Byron.
When we take a look at fourth-graders from low-income or under-resourced background, we find that out of every six kids, only one is proficient in reading. One out of six. And here’s the part that really, I think, surprised me when I started looking at these numbers. You look at the South Carolina public school students; over 50 percent – 54 percent are considered low-income. This is outrageous! Fifty-four percent of our kids in the public schools are low-income. Of those kids, only one out of six are proficient in reading. Makes your head explode.
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