Signs of Progress: 2025 Report Cards Show South Carolina Schools on the Rise

Yesterday, the South Carolina Department of Education released its 2025 school report cards—offering the latest snapshot of how our public and public charter schools are performing. These annual report cards do more than just track test scores. They reveal whether students across our state are truly gaining ground—or if persistent gaps remain. For policymakers, the report cards are a tool to identify what is working and where support is needed most. For parents, they are a window into how well their child’s school is preparing students for success beyond the classroom. 

Statewide School Ratings 

This year’s results were promising.  South Carolina separates schools into five performance categories – Excellent, Good, Average, Below Average, and Unsatisfactory.  Last year, 232 schools were rated “Excellent,” 317 were “Good,” 477 were “Average,” 186 were “Below Average,” and just 49 schools were rated “Unsatisfactory.   

The table below shows marked improvement across the board, with more schools moving into “Excellent” or “Good” and schools moving away from “Below Average” and “Unsatisfactory.”  

More Specific Data 

Teacher employment grew, climbing from 46,686 to 47,295 — an important sign of stability in classrooms statewide and is evidence that the Palmetto State is becoming more teacher-friendly (for more information, explore Finding #2 in our report, South Carolina’s 2024 NAEP Scores: A Few Unconventional Conclusions).  

Even more impressive, the percentage of students who are college or career ready jumped from 71.5% to 75.1%. Students who are both college and career ready ticked up as well, from 30.6% to 31.2%, while career readiness alone saw a strong surge from 69.6% to 73.3%. 

High school success is also trending up. The state’s overall student success rate rose from 84% to 85.9%, with more freshmen staying on track to graduate (83% to 86.6%) and more students completing high school within five years (85% to 87.9%). Academic achievement improved sharply in core subjects, too — the percentage of students who met or exceeded expectations in English Language Arts (ELA) scores climbed from 54.1% to 60.3%, and the share of students earning a C or higher in Algebra increased from 47.8% to 51.6%. Even among multilingual learners, the percentage of those who achieved English language proficiency rose significantly, from 22.3% to 26.8%. 

Moving Forward  

Overall, South Carolina’s 2025 school report cards tell an encouraging story of growth and momentum driven by effective policy leadership. However, the work is not done – the key to any successful school report card program is to continue to raise standards by including an automatic escalator in cut scores for each rating.  The specific scores required to achieve each rating are listed in the Accountability Manual published annually by the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee. The table below is copied from the 2025-26 Accountability Manual, and lists the cut scores for each school rating, separated by school type. 

If we look at prior year’s accountability manuals, we see that these scores have never been updated. Just one school has scored 100 points on its report card (HCS Scholars Academy High School in Horry County at Coastal Carolina University), but standards must be strengthened regularly to ensure that report cards continue to drive success and innovation in schools.   

Florida, who revolutionized school accountability nationwide by pioneering the A-F report card system, is currently facing a peculiar top-heaviness in their scores. According to their most recent report card, not a single school district scored below a C, and only 68 of the 3,446 schools included in their report card scored a D or an F.  This is just 2% of Florida’s schools scoring a D or F, compared to South Carolina’s 13.8% of schools who scored comparably. Though this points to the high quality of Florida’s schools, it also points to a scoring system that allows for clustering at the top of the grading scale. Our report card is not clustered at the top as severely as Florida, but policymakers must be cognizant of this trend and ensure that cut scores are strengthened regularly. 

By that same token, a school that consistently scores highly on its report card is still preparing students for success, but they are not incentivized to innovate – the incentive is to keep the status quo. Put more simply, “don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.”  Innovation drives progress, and our schools should strive for continuous improvement. 

Ultimately, the 2025 school report cards show that more students in South Carolina are graduating on time, more schools are excelling, and more young people are leaving high school ready for college or a career. There is still work ahead to ensure every student has access to a high-quality education that fits their unique needs, but these results show that progress is possible when educators, families, and policymakers stay focused on what matters most: helping every child succeed.