SOUTH CAROLINA AND EDUCATION REFORM: A READER
Hartsville, South Carolina sits just north of I-20 and north-west of I-95 about a 30-minute drive from Florence.
Geography matters in SC when discussing education because the state has a long and tarnished history of pockets of poverty and educational inequity now commonly known as the Corridor of Shame [1], a name coined in a documentary addressing that inequity as it correlates with the I-95 corridor running mostly north and south paralleling the SC coast.
The town’s schools are part of Darlington County School District that serves approximately equal numbers of white and black students, although significantly skewed by poverty as reflected in the district’s 2014 report card detailing tested students:
Hartsville is the focus of an upcoming PBS documentary co-produced by Sam Chaltain, who writes about the community:
Take Hartsville. Until recently, no one there had ever asked Thompson or her colleagues what they noticed about their child passengers on the bus, or thought to connect their observations to the behavior teachers might witness in the classroom. Moreover, while Hartsville’s teachers were expected to be knowledgeable about their students’ academic standing, they were not expected to be attuned to their psychological states.That began to change in 2011, when the community announced a five-year plan to transform its elementary schools. It partnered with Yale University’s School Development Program, which helps schools identify and meet the developmental needs of children. It began to evaluate its schools by a broader set of measurements – including the number of disciplinary referrals a bus driver had to write each morning. And it started to coordinate its social services to ensure a more equitable set of support structures for Hartsville’s poorest families.
This focus on Hartsville specifically and SC more broadly is important for understanding the entire education reform South Carolina and Education Reform: A Reader | the becoming radical:
Big Education Ape: In rural towns like Hartsville, S.C., school ‘choice’ doesn’t make sense. Here’s why. - The Wash... http://bit.ly/1GKa5YU
