Wednesday Oct 26th - Inez Tenenbaum

John Adair hosted the program, inviting Inez Tenenbaum who spoke to us about the accomplishments and challenges of education in South Carolina. Full meeting report will follow on this site.
Meeting report from Bob Berry
Dr. Carey Hite opened the meeting with a congratulations to Dr. Judy Johnson and her committee for our auction. He went on to say that the money will be used to fund our projects this year. Chris Joye asked us to be involved in the Harbison Forest Trail clean-up. We need 6-8 folks who will assist in the trail cleanup. It will be February or March of 2006. Pease put it on your calendar. Our fall oyster roast social is November 9 at Inglewood Manor. Let Ray Hunt know if you’re coming.
John Adair introduced Inez Tenenbaum, State Superintendent of Schools. Inez began her talk by covering the history of education reforms while she has been in office. She talked about the Education Accountability Act in 1999 which created standard testing for math, science and history. She also discussed the "No-Child Left Behind Act."
She also said that our state is unfairly ranked in the SAT because over 62% of our students take the SAT wherein some other states, less than 20% of the students take the SAT. She suggested that all of us could help prepare our children to take the SAT by encouraging them to take the PSAT and by reading to our children. She said that by 2014, every child must be proficient in reading. Some states, she said, will have to raise their standard in order to meet this criterion. Our state already has a very high standard so we are going to have to work to reach our goal. We can find out more about this at www.schoolmatters.com.
Even though we have raised our SAT scores 42 points we face five big challenges in South Carolina:
1. The current equity funding suit between the poorer counties and the wealthier counties.
2. Early childhood education.
3. Gangs, truancy, culture and criminal activity.
4. SAT improvement plan.
5. Rediscovering career-oriented education in our high schools.
In conclusion, she asked us to encourage our educators.
Thank you Jenny for the tireless job you do with our newsletter.