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- I state the obvious, but it is hard to describe and even imagine the lifelong importance of what a basic education is and means.

Welcome, again, to the most widely watched and the longest running program on Carolina business, policy, and public affairs seen across North and South Carolina for more than three decades now.

In a moment, education on a DNA level is influenced by public schools.

Of course, privates, charters, homeschooling, et cetera, are also important.

But our guest sits on top of the South Carolina public school system.

She is the fairly newly elected superintendent of education for the Palmetto State.

In a moment, we welcome the honorable Ellen Weaver.

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(upbeat music) On this edition of "Carolina Business Review," an executive profile featuring Ellen Weaver, south Carolina's Superintendent of Education.

(upbeat music) - Welcome, again, to our program.

Your Honor, welcome, and thank you for making the trek to the studio because I know you've far flung across the Palmetto State, and you taking time out, so thank you for being here.

- My pleasure to be here.

It was a great drive up.

I already have visited a school, so we're making the most of the day.

- Yeah, I guess there's a few of those on that I-77 corridor- - There are.

- Between Columbia and Charlotte.

- Yeah.

- So Madam Superintendent, Hurricane Helene now is about three or four weeks in our rear view, and still, you can't even describe the epic impact, not just in South Carolina and North Carolina, but in general together, aggregate.

What did it do to schools, the physical plant, the teaching, the education, the already lost leader when what was happening outta Covid?

How do you cope and what do you talk about?

- Oh, Chris, well, I mean, my hearts and prayers are with the people of North Carolina and South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee who are struggling with this incredible devastation.

I mean, it's hard to see, being from Greenville, myself, to see pictures in the upstate and even just north of the South Carolina line there in Asheville.

I mean, the devastation is unbelievable.

I actually had the chance to go down yesterday and visit Edgefield, South Carolina, where they sustain tremendous wind damage, many, many trees down.

They're just now getting power back.

I mean, this is devastation on this side of the state at a level that I don't know that we've ever seen.

And so, you're right, it's had an enormous impact on our schools, on our educators, on their families, on our students.

But I've been so proud to see how our schools and school system has rallied to really serve as a hub of first response within the community.

There in Edgefield, you know, they were housing linemen in the middle school.

They had FEMA folks who were camped out in one of the district office parking lots.

And really, our schools and our educators are part of that first response.

At the Department of Education, we actually manage the entire bus fleet for the whole state of South Carolina.

And so in coordination with our emergency management division, our team was hauling thousands of gallons of fuel all over the state to keep generators running, to make sure that our hospitals and nursing homes were still functional.

So it's really been an all hands on deck effort.

And that's what I'll say in closing is just that as hard as these situations are, it really is so encouraging to see the resilience, the strength, the love, and the hope that is uncovered in our communities when they face these times of crisis.

- Do you feel like, and I had no idea some of those details were happening, but do you feel like your role is chief cheerleader, is to support not just coming outta of Covid that already had people dazed, but now this is?

Are most people hopeful, or are they getting emotionally fatigued?

What does that look like?

- I think we live in really challenging times.

There's great division.

I think social media and technology in general have really fragmented our culture, our society in many ways.

But, again, when you see these moments of challenge where communities come together around what truly matters, and that's loving your neighbor, helping each other, it really is a huge opportunity and illustration of the hope that I believe is in the heart of every Carolinian who's listening to us today.

And so it's been just wonderful to see.

I do believe people are hopeful, and, yes, I do believe that a big part of my job is to celebrate the wonderful things that are happening in education, to be honest about where we have challenges, but to say we believe in the God-given potential of every single student in our state, and we can help them achieve.

- How have those feelings, those faiths, how has that shaped what your priority is for the state?

- You know, really, we have to focus on the fundamentals.

You've already talked about the incredible impact that Covid had on our students, the learning loss that we have seen as a result.

And we know that even before Covid, our students were struggling in many of those core foundational skills.

And so my number one priority in my first 1.5 year in office has been around early literacy.

Reading is the foundation of- - Is this, I'm sorry to interrupt.

- Yeah, please.

- Is this reading by third grade?

- Absolutely, yes, yes.

And so the science of reading is what it's called now because we, actually, through the incredible power of science, understand that there are actually four different areas of a student's brain that has to be connected in order for them to be a good reader.

And you can't connect those four different areas of the brain just by guessing.

You have to have what is called systematic explicit instruction, and that's what the science of reading is based in phonics, which is how I learned how to read.

I'm not sure how you learned how to read.

- Same.

- But it's like what's old is new again, and now we have the science to show us why that method is so important and so necessary.

And so in South Carolina, we are working so hard to really put tools into the toolbox of our K-3 teachers to ensure that they have that science of reading-based knowledge so that they can address the challenges that their students have.

- So how do you address, how do you make sure that you keep the same teachers in the same place?

How do you keep them in the workforce as teachers?

How do you find, oh, the right principals, you know, as the CEO for each school?

Is it just about increase in pay?

Is it about throwing more money at it?

How do you make sure that unit stays together?

- Well, you know, we've made incredible progress in South Carolina over the last five to six years in increasing teacher pay.

In 2018-19, our starting teacher salary was 32,000.

This year, it's $47,000.

That's a 47% increase.

And the governor, the general assembly, and I are committed to taking that to 50,000.

We know that in South Carolina, we have to stay competitive with our neighbors around to the southeast because we're all in competition for the same talent pool, right?

And so we want the best and the brightest in our classroom.

And so pay does matter.

Pay is part of the equation.

But I'll tell you, Chris, when I talk to teachers, what I hear more often than not is that teachers want to feel supported.

They want to know that somebody has their back.

They want to know that they can be safe in the classroom, that when they send a student down to the office for some discipline infraction, that student isn't going to be back in their classroom two minutes later continuing the same disruptive behavior.

And I think that speaks to what you mentioned, which was principal leadership.

We know that leadership is everything in life, whether you're talking about education, business, philanthropic, faith, whatever community you're in, leadership matters.

And that principal in that school building is the one that is creating the culture that will either attract and retain or repel great teachers.

And so I think really investing in that high quality principal leadership has to be a big priority.

- What kind of vacancies do you have in the principals job and in teachers right now in the state?

- You know, we do have high levels of turnover, and it's hard, vacancy rates are a moving target, you know?

But I think that what we are seeing is that the workforce is starting to stabilize.

And I think one of the things that we really have to look at, especially here across the southeast where we're an in migration area, right?

We have people who are coming here because they want to be where we are.

We need to think about continuing to open up alternative paths to certification.

We already have a number of those in South Carolina, but we know that when it comes to filling that teacher pipeline, our education colleges simply can't keep up with the demand for high quality teachers.

And so we're gonna have to go recruiting for maybe people who started a profession and said, you know, "This isn't really fulfilling.

This isn't scratching that itch to really make a difference that I thought it would.

Maybe I should think about teaching."

And I've talked to many teachers in our classrooms in South Carolina who have gone through that alternative certification pathway.

So I think there are a lot of different things that we have to think about when it comes to filling that teacher pipeline.

- One of the big things your predecessor did, Molly Spearman, was the idea of building bridges across the business and industry.

And I know that's not a new idea, public-private partnerships.

I'm assuming that has gotta be, not gotta be, but that is one of your priorities.

- Absolutely, so we have four big priorities at the Department of Education.

We already talked about the kind of foundational skills.

We didn't talk about math, but, obviously, reading and math, those foundational skills are key.

The second big priority is ensuring that our students have access to career aligned pathways, apprenticeship opportunities, and other work-based learning opportunities.

And as you said, that requires strong partnerships with our business community, working with our local chambers of commerce.

And so South Carolina has actually taken great strides in the last few years to really build out committees of business folks who are helping to inform us about what high quality career and technology credentials look like.

Because, you know, a student can get an OSHA certification fine, but that's not going to ultimately be the skill that they need to go into that welding job or to be ready for a career in advanced manufacturing.

And so ensuring that we're listening to the business community is a big part of making sure that the K-12 system is responsive to the ultimate needs of our employers.

- Is that relationship between even local schools, not just department of education, but local schools and businesses, has that plateaued, and how do you get it to another level?

- You know, I don't think it has, and, again, Chris, this just comes back to great leadership.

I was in Florence 1 a few months ago, and it's incredible the partnership that they're building with their local hospital for a health science career pathway there in Florence County.

It's amazing what they're doing.

And so that partnership is sparked by a board and a superintendent who have a vision for what they want the future of Florence County to look like.

And we know there's huge unmet healthcare needs.

You wanna talk about a teacher shortage?

We have a nursing shortage.

We need folks in that healthcare space.

And so I think there is great vision, great passion for this across the state, and it looks different in different communities, and that's the beauty of how our school system works.

- Let's talk about easy stuff like school vouchers and book banning.

- Sure.

- Some things like, and I'm being a little bit facetious, but the school vouchers, it's surprising, and I know to many people that are in and around education.

North Carolina in 2015 basically ratified the idea that school vouchers and school choice were a thing that they wanted to support.

And fast forward to 2024 and South Carolina over the summer of this past year that the South Carolina Supreme Court, it said it was unconstitutional.

Did that surprise you?

How do you manage that ruling against what you feel like is important to all of the constituents?

- I love that you couch it in terms of what's good for everyone, because I think sometimes the conversation around school choice does get limited to this very narrow slice of private school choice and tuition at private schools.

But we all know that school choice is really so much larger than that.

Covid really accelerated a trend that I think we were seeing in education already, which there was an article written by some former public school superintendents, one from Washington State and one from the East coast called "The Great Unbundling."

And it talks about how really we are so used to customizing in every area of our life now.

And education is one more area where we start to see that menu of options and customizations really coming to life.

I think parents see that, you know, one-size-fits all doesn't really work for children.

And I speak from personal example because I went to a small Christian school, I was homeschooled for several years, and then I graduated from a great public school.

So I have experienced just the wide array of education options that are out there in my own life and have seen how I had different needs at different times in my education journey.

And each of those unique options helped meet those needs.

And so, you know, I think we need to talk about how our public school system really forms the backbone of what I call the education ecosystem of the future.

We have to have strong public schools, and I think everybody agrees that public education is a value that we share, but the question is, how do we go beyond that to meet kids and families where they are to address their unique needs?

And so, in terms of the school ruling, the school ESA ruling in South Carolina, I was not surprised by the court's decision.

I am very disappointed in it, of course, because it created untold pain for families who had already started the school year.

And to have this hope ripped away from them in the middle of a school year, really, is devastating.

And so we're doing everything we can to work with those schools where they are currently enrolled to ensure that they can remain in those schools for the foreseeable future if that is where their parents choose to keep them.

So, I mean, that's the real on the ground impact of what the South Carolina Supreme Court did.

I'm very thankful for our governor, for members of our general assembly, who are committed to ensuring that we come back in January when the general assembly reconvenes and addresses the ruling of the court and ensures that we are offering all those options to South Carolina families, just like they deserve.

- I was gonna say in the follow up, your Honor, is this idea that would the State House find, not find a way around it, but legislatively find a way to make something work that is opposition, not oppositional, but not, my question is terribly clumsy, I'm sorry.

But can the general assembly move past that decision to get to the end result of school vouchers, the intention of school vouchers?

- I think as terrible and as misguided as the majority opinion decision was, I do believe that, yes, they have shown a clear path forward for our general assembly to come back and to enact a program that will fully meet the strictures that the court has laid out.

- Certainly more to come on that.

Book banning, another one that tends to raise the hackles of both sides of that.

So, how do you empower parents who are concerned about books in libraries, either new publications or old legacy publications?

How do you allow parents to have some control of exposure of children, but also allow freedom of choice and freedom of speech?

What does that look like?

- Well, we've been very careful about how we have gone about handling these very, as you have appropriately said, touchy topics in South Carolina.

I wanna start by just saying, I think it's a misconception to think that because we are trying to ensure that there is age appropriate material in a South Carolina school, and, again, we're talking about materials that are bought on government time and dime, right, that somehow equates to banning material.

Material is still widely available to anyone who wants it.

But we're simply saying this is not how we're going to allocate resources in South Carolina.

And what we've really been focused on in working with the State Board of Education who unanimously passed a policy regarding instructional materials in South Carolina schools.

We said, "We are going to be looking at material that is sexually explicit," and that's clearly defined in longstanding South Carolina law.

And that's what the policy refers to.

And so, you know, I think that there are folks out there who, for whatever reason, have made it their mission in life to create controversy where there isn't any or where there shouldn't be any.

Because I don't know anyone who I've spoken to, Republican, Democrat, who when I show them some of the examples of the literature that has been pulled out of schools because of sexual explicitness think that that is an appropriate thing that we should have in our South Carolina schools.

So I think there's actually greater consensus on this than maybe the loudest voices on both sides allow us to think.

- How did those pubs get into the school system?

How did they get into libraries to begin with?

- You know, it's a great question.

I think a lot of times there are just large collections that are provided to schools from various publishers.

And if there's not an adult on the other end of that who is going through every single title, you know, I think that there's probably opportunity for some of that to get in there.

And I'll tell you, most of the titles that I have heard parents express the greatest concern about are things that have been published in the last few years.

And what I want to just keep coming back to is the idea that there are so many wonderful pieces of literature that are out there that have been written over the last, you know, thousands of years that we can expose our students to that will expose them to the big ideas of humanity in the world and a global perspective that we want our students to have.

But it just doesn't have to be sexually explicit.

- We touched just briefly on school safety and security.

Just anecdotally, I know in North Carolina and South Carolina that many teachers and principals are more than just concerned, are fearful about shooters, about violence from students, from outside.

Is there any way to lock down a school?

Are schools just always porous because they're part of the community?

And how do you embrace the idea of safer schools?

- Yeah, well, you know, at the end of the day, if our students and our teachers aren't safe, nothing else matters.

Parents are entrusting us with their greatest treasure every day when they send that little girl or that little boy through those doors of that school.

And so in South Carolina, I've been privileged to work with Governor McMaster with our state law enforcement division with the general assembly to invest in hardening the infrastructure of our schools.

And, you know, sometimes people think that has to be really fancy technology, but oftentimes it's just as easy as ensuring that there are locks on classroom doors, that there is film on windows that have access to the outside.

So there are really practical things that we are trying to do to ensure that our students are safe.

And one of the things that I feel very, very passionately about because you mentioned the fear that is involved in all of this is addressing the mental health challenges that our students and our teachers are facing as a result of the violence issue, but as a result of overuse of technology and so many other things that our kids struggle with now and are exposed to that maybe we weren't when we were growing up.

And so in South Carolina, we actually have worked again with the general assembly and the State Board of Education to create a statewide cellphone-free policy in our schools to ensure that phones are up and away for the entirety of the school day.

And as that relates to school safety, what our law enforcement members tell us is that in a high pressure situation like that where minutes matter and lives are on the line, the most important thing is that a student is focused on the adult who is seeking to get them to safety.

We don't need them distracted by cell phones, filming things, and all.

We need to make sure that they can get to safety.

And so I think that this cell phone policy is something that is not only going to be good for mental health, for academic instruction to make sure that our teachers know that they don't have to be cell phone police all day every day, which is another frustration that they face.

- I'm sure, I'm sure.

- But it's also about keeping our students safe in an emergency situation.

- And Madame Weaver, how do you answer a parent that says, "But I want to get ahold of my child if there is an event going on."

- Yeah, no, I absolutely understand that.

And that's where I think we've taken the right middle way in this policy is that the phone has to be up and away the entire day.

But we have not said that the phone cannot be physically with the student as long as it is off and away.

And so in the case of an emergency, students would likely still be able to access their cell phone once they were in a safe place.

- We've got about three minutes left.

What is the one thing, and you seem like a hopeful person, I've heard that about you.

You are optimistic, you seem to be optimistic.

- I am.

- Seem to be inclusive about many things, and you wanna bring everyone around the campfire, so to speak.

What is that one thing that you worry about most around delivering, not just maybe delivering education, about kids in schools, about teachers, about principals, about parents, but what is that thing in your head that really is the biggest bugaboo for you?

Not very technical, but I think you're gonna understand, that worries you, that you need to fix, and need to deliver.

- To me, it really is the delivery of those foundational skills.

If our students are not equipped to read, they are going to be behind for their entire life.

I've seen a variety of statistics, anywhere from 65 to 80% of the incarcerated population is functionally illiterate.

If you don't have those literacy skills, you are automatically at a disadvantage in life.

And so that's where I think we have got to be laser focused on that early literacy, because our children have to be lifelong learners.

We know that in an economy that is evolving and changing as rapidly as our economy is, I mean, AI today, what is it going to be tomorrow, right?

- Good question.

- Our students have to be lifelong learners and reading is the foundation of being a lifelong learner.

- What's the biggest barrier to that?

Is it poverty?

- Historically, I think it is teacher knowledge.

Our teachers have not been taught how to teach reading in the way that brain science now tells us.

- So it's literally the science of reading is not deployed enough in the system?

- Yes, that's exactly right.

And we actually have seen those states that are doing this.

I know your superintendent here in North Carolina has been very passionate about this.

Mississippi is now outpacing the rest of the nation in closing achievement gaps for students in poverty for students who need it most.

And it's all based- - Didn't Mississippi used to be at the bottom of the pile?

- Yes, we used to say, "Thank goodness for Mississippi," which is terrible, but it's true.

And so now they are doing incredible things in this early literacy space and it started with investing in teacher knowledge.

And, Chris, I know we're winding down in our time, but that's the bottom line in all of this is that we know our teachers are the number one in school determiner of how a child learns.

And so when we are investing and pouring into our teachers, we are investing and pouring into our students.

- Madam Superintendent, I hope you'll come back because we didn't get to a lot of things, but we'd like to also check the pulse on the system in about a year.

So I hope within now and maybe next year we can get you back.

- I'd love to do that.

Thanks for having me.

- Well, and again, thanks for making the trip because we taped this program in Charlotte.

You hauled it up I-77 from Columbia.

- Yes.

- Your day is important, but you spent some time with us and we appreciate that.

- Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity.

- Thank you, and thank you for watching our program.

Until next week, I'm Chris William, but before that, we're gonna be having DOT secretaries on within the next two weeks about infrastructure.

Certainly, education's one of them.

Stay with us, more to come, happy weekend.

Stay safe and enjoy the fall.

Goodnight.

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