Justices to Continue Overseeing Education Funding Case

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – The Legislature must report back to the state Supreme Court next summer on its progress complying with the justices’ 2-year-old order to fix South Carolina’s education system.

While commending legislators for their efforts so far, justices rejected GOP leaders’ request that the high court end its oversight on the 23-year-old case.

Tuesday’s order also requires rural school districts that sued for equitable funding to detail their efforts. Both reports are due June 2017.

In November 2014, justices ruled that poor, rural students lack educational opportunities and ordered legislators and educators to work together to fix the problem.

Justices later gave legislators a June deadline to submit a plan.

The districts’ attorneys criticized that report as an accounting of meetings and budget items, not a plan. Justices called their criticism “unnecessary.”