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by DUKE BUCKNER
My name is Duke Buckner. I’m the Republican Party’s nominee for U.S. House of Representatives in South Carolina’s sixth congressional district. Today, I want to speak about childhood education in the sixth district and across our nation. We must declare a national education crisis in our country. If we are to save our children, something must be done as our students are not getting the education they deserve. The SC Education Scorecard for 2022-2023 revealed that in the sixth district, 61 percent of eighth-grade students can’t read and write at grade level; 75 percent of eighth-grade students are not proficient at math; and 76 percent of students have a “D” average or are failing in their knowledge of American history and the U.S. Constitution.
These numbers are catastrophic and unacceptable. Each is about 40 percent below the statewide average for South Carolina eighth graders. Also, sixth district math and history scores have shown significant declines over the past six years.
Curiously, the graduation rate in sixth district schools averages 76 percent. How is that possible when most students perform so poorly in reading, math, and U.S. history?
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The answer is that our sixth district schools are not performing nearly as well as they should be. This is a national and a local problem – with serious consequences for our children. “Low literacy” rates correlate significantly with “higher unemployment; reduced income; higher incarceration rates; and poorer health outcomes.” Sadly, the people in charge of our nation’s educational system do not hold the interests of our children foremost.
There is a reason vice president Kamala Harris began her presidential campaign by appearing before the nation’s largest teachers’ union. Such unions are an important constituency of the Democratic Party. These unions, along with Democrat politicians, college and university education departments, and the U.S. Department of Education are closely allied.
Their alliance values progressive indoctrination above practical education. It values Democrat political power above our children’s well-being. It seeks to usurp parents’ role in imparting values to our children. And all too often, in the most open attack on the family, this alliance seeks to sexualize children. It is fair to say that Democrat politicians, the teachers’ unions leadership, and the rest of this alliance are the greatest obstacle to improving education in the sixth district and throughout the nation.
The problems with this alliance can be seen in the “solution” the South Carolina Education Association — a group which receives strong support from the Democratic Party — has proposed to address South Carolina’s atrocious academic outcomes. The SCEA recommended an end to all standardized testing. That is stunning! The only thing the SCEA’s recommendation would accomplish would be to conceal public education’s failures – while allowing these failures to continue in the shadows. It would be hard to imagine something that would do more long-term damage to our children and families in the sixth district. We already saw this before with the removal of the high school exit exam. This resulted in students receiving a high school diploma but lacking the basic skills necessary to prepare them for their chosen field.
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There are many plans to improve education in our state. The most promising at the state level was passed into law last year to give families control over where to send their children to school:
A bill passed last year established Education Scholarship Trust Funds in South Carolina, or what some have referred to as school vouchers. Supporters believe this will give thousands of students’ educational opportunities they would have never had otherwise.
Unfortunately, the teachers’ unions could not tolerate that. The SCEA immediately sued, asking the state supreme court to strike down the law – which it just recently did.
At the federal level, the Department of Education has failed in its mission to better the education of America’s children. Republican politicians want to abolish the department and return federal education funding and control over education to the states where it belongs. I support that – or, alternatively, reforming the Department of Education so that educational standards are raised and not constantly lowered.
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The second proposal at the federal level comes from the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. He believes parents should directly elect their local schools’ principals. Anything that would make schools more directly responsive to parents – rather than unions or politicians – deserves serious consideration.
Let me make a promise to the people of the sixth district. If you elect me as your representative, I will never place partisan politics over your children’s educational needs. I will always vote to validate the parents’ right to raise children according to their values – not values imposed by a teachers’ union.
Lastly, none of what I have written here is meant to criticize those individual teachers who love to teach and – despite the politics being forced into education – manage to connect with and motivate their students. I was a teacher once, too. I loved what I did and hoped that I made a difference in the life of my students.
I’ll close by directing you to a fascinating Ted Talk from Brandon Griggs, a young man who managed to achieve despite his deeply disadvantaged background. Unsurprisingly, he credited much of his success to a middle school teacher who cared about him and held him to high — and objective — performance standards.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Born and raised in Walterboro, South Carolina, Duke Buckner is a 1990 graduate of Walterboro High School and a 1994 Graduate of South Carolina State University. Mr. Buckner began his career as a seventh grade English teacher at Colleton Middle School. He then taught 11th grade American Literature at Walterboro High School. Mr. Buckner left the school system to start the first African-American owned and operated weekly newspaper in Colleton County. After serving as the newspaper’s managing editor for eight years, Mr. Buckner received his J.D. from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in 2007.
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3 comments
Besides throwing out the usual Republican buzzwords concerning what is wrong with SC’s public education system —teacher unions, indoctrination of students, lack of parental control, etc., etc., please tell us specifically what steps the state needs to take to improve its public schools. And don’t say vouchers, that has already been declared unvonstitional, and rightly so, by the SC Supreme Court.
Besides throwing out the usual Republican buzzwords concerning what is wrong with SC’s public education system —teacher unions, indoctrination of students, lack of parental control, etc., etc., please tell us specifically what steps the state needs to take to improve its public schools. And don’t say vouchers, that has already been declared unconstitutional, and rightly so, by the SC Supreme Court.
Start failing students who don’t meet the minimum requirements to advance to the next grade. Schools have already dumbed down the grading ranges (A = 90-100, B = 80 -89, C = 70-79, etc…), I recall school grading as being A = 94-100, B = 88-93, C =82 – 87, D = 76 – 81, F = 75 and below. So what is now a C used to be a failing grade. I also remember when kids would be held back a grade.