After a year of silence on the issue, the South Carolina General Assembly is finally taking steps to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the South Carolina Transparency and Integrity in Education Act (H.3728) and send it to the Governor to be signed into law. Palmetto Promise has advocated for this important legislation that
In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we’d like to draw attention to important legislation aimed at addressing South Carolina’s teacher shortage. South Carolina’s teacher shortage is one of the major problems facing education in our state. At the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, there were roughly 1,600 teacher vacancies statewide, a 9% increase from the previous
Learn more about our June 22 event with the Carolinas Academic Leadership Network. Whether you are a community member who wants to learn how to make a difference and find out what to look for in a good candidate, or a school board candidate who wants to run an effective campaign and fight for our public schools, this Primer is for you!
This spring, there have been several bills moving through the General Assembly that would streamline licensing for healthcare professionals and ensure South Carolinians have more choices in healthcare. These healthcare freedom reforms are much needed here in South Carolina. Following last year’s repeal of the burdensome Certificate of Need (CON) statute that prevented healthcare from
At Palmetto Promise, we are always reluctant to question any move by the South Carolina General Assembly to cut taxes or flatten tax rates. So, we greet with joy the fact that in the wake of an estimated $500-$600 million state revenue surplus that has built up since 2020, the Senate and the House are
UPDATE: The SC House overwhelmingly passed S.1046, amended as outlined below. The Senate did not concur in those amendments, and the bill now heads to a Conference Committee, made up of Senators Rankin, Massey, and Malloy and Representatives W. Newton, Caskey, and Stavrinakis. At the end of March 2024, following two weeks of debate and
Palmetto Promise has been a stalwart defender of free enterprise here in South Carolina, and this week, we had the privilege of recognizing a dedicated public servant and Champion of Free Enterprise at the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion. The Honorable Terry Branstad served as Ambassador to China in the Trump Administration from 2017-2020. Before that,
The State Department of Education (SCDE) has threaded the needle amazingly well in their recently passed new regulations for school textbooks and other curriculum materials. This is the regulation that would govern which books and other curriculum materials could be in school libraries and classrooms. Because all regulations must receive the approval of the South
A version of this commentary originally appeared in the South Carolina Daily Gazette. As the South Carolina House of Representatives was debating (and overwhelmingly passing) an expansion of the state’s Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) program, it became clear that some basic facts about the concept of “school choice” and how the ESTF program in
