Fast Facts

Download this report. On July 20, 2020, Governor Henry McMaster announced SAFE Grants, a program designed to provide low- and moderate-income families who have been impacted by COVID an opportunity to remain in private school or attend a private school of their choice. According to the Governor’s Office, SAFE Grants has been awarded $32 million

View chart.  How does Governor McMaster’s $32 million SAFE Grants program compare to other education related COVID relief funding? Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund Total: $48.4 million From the CARES Act, flowed through the South Carolina Department of Administration SAFE Grants: $32 million  Funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): $2.4 million Total

Right to Shop offers South Carolina healthcare consumers the opportunity to finally know the real costs of their non-emergency medical procedures.

Across the nation, an innovation known as Education Scholarship Accounts (ESA’s) is enjoying strong, bipartisan, legislative, parental and taxpayer support. Why? Because with ESA’s, a basic principle of fairness and freedom is achieved: state-appropriated education dollars follow the child.

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The guiding principle of the choice movement is that parents – not bureaucracies — are most qualified to pick the right learning environment. Because of that belief, we celebrate all great schools and all great teachers.

South Carolina continues to sink below our southeastern neighbors in education outcomes. On almost every indicator, data shows that South Carolina is behind the curve. In light of that, Palmetto Promise has done some digging to look at how South Carolina really stacks up to our neighboring states on education innovation and performance. We’ve assigned 1-4 rankings

Per pupil expenditures are high while performance is poor. Teacher compensation is flat while administrative spending is high and growing.

In 1930, Americans spent $2.8 billion on healthcare—$23 per person and only 3.5% of the GDP. We currently spend $3.5 trillion, which comes to over $10,000 per person and 18% of the US GDP.