Let's Give Every Child, Every Day, Every Chance to Succeed

June 18, 2010 - PRLog -- By: Bill Gerard

In the past few months of traveling across South Carolina, I hear some form of the same questions and comments, again and again:

“Elizabeth, do you feel that our schools are doing all that they can to help prepare our children to become independent, self sufficient, and successful adults? I mean, we need to make sure that our kids have the education and gumption to make it on their own, and be successful for their and their future families’ sakes. Our state needs this too. And America! If we continue to pay for a school system that’s not working for all of our children, then what are we doing wrong?”

Good questions, and let me add another: the automotive and aviation industries, along with companies specializing in alternative energy, biofuels, new medicines, and computer and internet technologies are looking to South Carolina as a place to settle, incubate if necessary, and grow. This influx of businesses will create jobs. But, will these jobs be for South Carolinians, or will these companies be forced to import the needed skilled labor from other states? Our one-size-fits-all, one-pathway-to-a-diploma education system is not built for fully preparing our children to enter this career path if they should want to go in this direction.

We also should prepare our children to pursue education at the college level and beyond, if that’s what they want. We do a better job of this, but are still creating problems for these students with some of our ill-advised grading standards.

Also, let’s not forget that a larger portion of our students drop out than continue on to college. Maybe, for part of this group at least, our single pathway to a diploma isn’t relevant to their future either. We need to deal with this, too.

We have quality educators in place, and we must present them with action oriented solutions to bring innovation and engagement back to the schoolroom, increase the quality and diversification of our K-12 education experience, and ensure that our children are prepared for the high skill, high wage, and high demand occupations of the 21st century local and global economies.

First, we need to offer our children the ability to see a realistic pathway to a desired, legitimate opportunity after graduation, and we need to design multiple avenues to get there. This could go a long way to increasing student and parent involvement in their education and also in their future.

Next, we need to help our children become more competitive with out-of-state students for acceptance in our own colleges and universities. South Carolina is using an unfair and non competitive 7 point grading scale that favors out of state students for admissions to our state colleges at the expense of our students. This scale must be changed.

We also need to revise South Carolina’s Standards of Learning to provide for a stronger foundation of the basics - reading, writing and arithmetic - to assure that students have the fundamental tools to succeed in life. We see evidence every day that we are failing in this regard.

We’re fortunate. Thanks to our legislature, we have laws on the books already that can go a long way toward fixing these problems. But, we need a Superintendent of Education who understands the K-12 environment, understands how to create successes for students and teachers at this level, and who can both develop and execute the policies to move our school system forward. I have a 100-days’ plan and am ready to get started.

Elizabeth Moffly is a candidate for State Superintendent of Education, and is in the June 22nd run-off with retired General Mick Zais for the Republican nomination to that office. She currently is the CEO of Moffly Construction and Real Estate Company in Awendaw, SC, and a passionate, informed proponent of a school system in SC that gives every child, every day, every chance to succeed.

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Elizabeth Moffly lives with her husband, four children, and many animals on a farm in Awendaw, SC. She is President of Moffly Construction and Real Estate. Elizabeth has over 15 years of experience with her own four children in SC public education.