News
New regional centers, graduation plans, and guidance counselors mark first year of effort to improve education in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. (Aug. 1, 2006) – Businesses looking for skilled workers and students looking for apprenticeships and jobs have a new place to “virtually” meet in South Carolina.
State education and economic development officials are creating Regional Education Centers (RECs) across the state to give students, educators, employers and the community a place to share information and resources online. The first Centers will open in the Midlands and Pee Dee areas this fall.
“The Regional Education Centers will virtually link suppliers, the education community with buyers, the business community,” statewide coordinator Ann Marie Stieritz said. “Think eBay.”
The Centers are part of the state’s overhaul of the way businesses, educators and students use education. The Personal Pathways to Success program was created last year to help students define, then achieve their post-graduation goals—which will lead to a more skilled labor force for businesses.
“If students can apply the skills they are learning in the classroom to real-life work situations, they are more likely to buy into what our schools are trying to accomplish,” State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum said. “When that happens, we’ll see greater earnings potential for South Carolinians and a better quality of life for our entire state.”
Concerns about the state’s future quality of life led business and education leaders to form the Education and Workforce Task Force five years ago. The task force found significant gaps in the skills of graduates and the requirements for career success.
To bridge that gap, state leaders drafted the Education and Economic Development Act (EEDA), which Gov. Mark Sanford signed into law in May 2005.
The EEDA calls for the creation of the Centers, initiatives to lower dropout rates, and programs to help students develop a body of classwork that will achieve their post-graduation goals.
Each student’s Individual Graduation Plan (IGP) requires post-graduation goals, core academic courses and the selection of one or more specific areas of academic focus. The state has organized professions into 16 clusters of study. Students interested in becoming lawyers, for example, would list the Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security cluster on their IGP.
The point of an IGP is not to make students exclusively focused on future careers, however, said Dr. Karen Woodward, superintendent of Lexington School District 1.
“It’s to integrate academic and career concepts,” said Woodward, whose district is implementing the new IGP format and clusters of study so they can be smoothly rolled out across the state. “For students to be successful when they leave us, they have to have a strong academic base. But you cannot counsel students in academics without thinking about what they’re going to do when they leave us.”
The EEDA emphasizes the importance of counseling by addressing historical deficits of guidance counselors at the school level. Beginning this school year, state officials are providing school districts with money to hire one counselor for every 300 students—a ratio experts say is ideal for student development.
Armed with counselors, clusters and IGPs, students will be ready post-graduation. The state is encouraging businesses to become actively involved in the RECs says Stieritz.
“I tell business owners if they were upset with any other supplier they’d have a meeting,” she said. “If you’re dissatisfied with your quality of employees you need to talk to the educational community. The Regional Education Centers are a place to have that dialogue and find solutions.”
Each Center will be governed by a legislature-appointed advisory board comprised of educators, business leaders and members of local workforce and tech-prep groups. The board will act like a broker for businesses and educators.
State leaders are working on a website to house more information about the RECs and other parts of the Personal Pathways to Success program. The site, www.scpathways.org, is expected to be completed in the fall.
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