Senators start discussing amendments to education reform bill

Some of the changes include a Teacher's Bill of Rights, more educator input on state education board

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — For the fourth straight day, lawmakers discussed a bill that would shake up education in South Carolina.

Tuesday marked the first day amendments to Senate Bill 419 could be added, and several lawmakers took the opportunity to make changes to a bill where some say has room for improvement.

Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort County) said he has seven amendments he would like to add to the bill. He says one area any education reform bill should address in allocating education money in the right places.

“We put a lot of money into K12, not enough of that money is going into teacher’s salaries, not enough of that money is going into classrooms where it actually makes a difference. We need to simply go beyond spending more money. We need to figure out where that money goes,” Sen. Davis said.

Back in May, 10,000 teachers came to the State House steps to protest the state of education in South Carolina.

Lisa Ellis, the founder of SC for Ed, says Senate Bill 419 does not benefit teachers, and does not improve education across the state.

“What we keep hearing is that it’s not all bad, it’s not all bad. And my response to that is you can put sprinkles and whipped cream on a pile of horse manure and it’s still horse manure at the end of the day. And that’s why we say that this bill needs to be killed,” Ellis said.

Ellis says one negative element of the bill is the change of the start of the yearly salary schedule, which affects how teacher pay changes each year.

“Teachers have no idea how much they are going to be working for, there’s no guarantee that there’s going to be cost-of-living increases each year that they teach, and then they are opening up for merit pay, which research after research shows that’s not how you keep teachers and not how you demonstrate teacher success,” Ellis said.

Lawmakers began the day by asking questions to Sen. Greg Hembree (R-Horry County), the Senate Education Committee Chairman. After a series of questions from Sen. Nikki Setzler (D-Lexington County) and Sen. Brad Hutto (D-Orangeburg County), Senators began talking about amendments.

One amendment that was discussed at-length was one from Senator Dick Harpootlian (D-Richland County), which would add three voting members to the state’s education board. Two of those members would be public school teachers, and one would be a former S.C. Teacher of the Year.

Some lawmakers say while it will take some time to iron out the details of the bill, they want to look out for the best interests of teachers.

“I want teaching to be a profession where students in college aspire to become teachers because it’s recognized, respected, and well-paid. So it’s not just about salary, although we do need to improve teacher pay, but’s also about that quality of life and letting them be able to teach,” Sen. Davis said.”

The Senate returns to session Wednesday at noon.