We are proud to share that Palmetto Promise Institute, along with our partners in North and South Carolina, have been awarded the Heritage Foundation’s 2024 Innovation Prize for our work on the Carolinas Academic Leadership Network (CALN). CALN aims to empower school board members throughout the Carolinas by honing their leadership skills in governance, professional development,

Come join us for an exciting event with school choice evangelist Corey DeAngelis as he embarks on the nationwide tour for his brand new book, The Parent Revolution.  WHEN: June 14, 2024 at 1pm (doors open at 12:30) WHERE: 1824 Barnwell Street Columbia, SC 29201 BOOK YOUR TICKET TODAY! This is a must-attend event for

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MAY 15, 2024 COLUMBIA — This spring marked the first year of applications for South Carolina’s brand new Education Scholarship Account (ESA) program, the Education Scholarship Trust Fund. In the short two-month application window from January 15 to March 15, the South Carolina Department of Education received an astounding 7,907 applications for

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!

Thank you to everyone who voted the last few weeks on our Greatest Policy Win bracket! It has been a fun chance to reflect on the impact Palmetto Promise has had in South Carolina over the last 11 years. What a journey it has been! It was a tough battle, but in the end, Education

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

Palmetto Promise is quoted in this piece by Patrick Gleason, originally published in Forbes. Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture in 1990, was inspired to turn an Iowa cornfield into a baseball diamond after hearing the words, “if you build it, they will come.” In the reality of