Strong evaluation systems are foundational to improving teacher and principal quality; meaningful evaluations recognize excellence, support development, and address ineffectiveness. Unfortunately, South Carolina's teacher and principal evaluations do not substantively assess educator quality. The state's evaluations lack critical components, including a four-tier rating of effectiveness, objective measures of student growth, and for principal evaluations, annual frequency. South Carolina must invest in its educators by evaluating teachers and principals according to a framework that significantly weighs student growth and links to professional development and that incorporates multiple measures. These should include classroom observations and student feedback in teacher evaluations and effective management of teachers in principal evaluations. Evaluation criteria are not subject to contract negotiations, providing districts authority to implement meaningful evaluations on their own or under a revised state framework.

Basing personnel decisions on performance is critical to building schools that retain effective teachers and make student achievement paramount. South Carolina is behind in this area; specifically, the state does not use performance to drive decisions around teacher assignment, layoffs, and tenure. Schools do not have the authority to build and maintain an effective instructional team, including having the ultimate say in hiring decisions and the dismissal of ineffective teachers. Furthermore, when forced to lay off teachers during a budget-related reduction in force, state law is silent regarding the criteria for layoffs. Districts are permitted to prioritize seniority over performance, placing effective teachers at risk. Teachers receive tenure status after serving a short two-year probationary period. Attainment and revocation of tenure are not tied to performance. Prioritizing students and great teachers means that performance, evident through strong evaluations, is the driving influence for all personnel decisions.

To encourage a high-quality, diverse workforce, professional pay should be based on performance rather than other non-classroom factors such as seniority or degrees held. South Carolina sets a minimum salary schedule for teachers based on years of experience and the attainment of advanced degrees. The state has established a performance-based accountability system, but it does not require districts to align teacher compensation to this system. The state has also implemented an awards program to recognize and financially reward schools for increased academic achievement and for closing the achievement gap. To strengthen compensation systems across the state, South Carolina should eliminate automatic pay increases for master's degrees alone and require all districts to implement pay-for-performance systems that prioritize student outcomes.

South Carolina permits two alternative routes, the Program of Alternative Certification for Educators (PACE) and American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE). Both programs are operated by the state and require content exam mastery and a bachelor's degree. PACE mandates that the degree be in a critical shortage area, and ABCTE only licenses selected subjects. To strengthen alternative certification pipelines, South Carolina should allow alternative certification programs to license all subjects, expand providers of alternative pathway programs beyond the state-run programs, and increase selectivity criteria, such as requiring a 3.0 undergraduate GPA or 2.5 GPA with five years of experience. The state evaluation system reporting includes ABCTE and PACE candidates. To hold alternative certification programs to a higher standard, South Carolina should require a clear authorizing and evaluation process for programs and establish a process for decommissioning those that do not produce effective educators as measured by student growth.

South Carolina has recently established a school letter-grading system that empowers parents with the information they need to make informed decisions for their children. This system gives each school an annual A_F letter grade that reflects students achievement. South Carolina must continue this momentum around providing parents with information by allowing parents access to teacher evaluation information upon request and requiring notifying parents when their children are placed with an ineffective teacher. Additionally, the state should require that districts obtain parental consent to place a student with an ineffective teacher. Finally, South Carolina should empower parents by establishing a parent trigger law that allows a majority of parents to band together at the grassroots level and petition to turn around low-performing schools throughout the state.

South Carolina must ensure its students are not trapped in a failing school by increasing the number of high-quality school choice options for parents. The state does not restrict the growth of public charter schools, but it should establish a fast-track process for authorizing high-performing charters. Additionally, the state could strengthen its charter accountability policies by requiring charters to enter into performance-based contracts limited to five-year terms and provide stronger authorizer accountability. South Carolina should also consider creating a publicly funded scholarship program that allows low-income students in chronically failing public schools to attend private schools that meet certain accountability standards.

Children stuck in chronically failing schools should have an option to attend another school of their choice without being punished by the state through reduced funding. South Carolina law states that locally authorized charter schools should receive generally equal funding from their school district, but the actual per-pupil amount is based on prior year expenditures. South Carolina provides state funding to other charter schools based on a separate appropriation from traditional public schools. It also does not give them local tax revenues and allows authorizers to keep up to 2% of operating funds. South Carolina should provide comparable operational funding to all public charter schools and ensure that skimming is prohibited. South Carolina should also provide a per-pupil facilities allowance, in addition to the revolving loan program enacted in May 2012.

The ability to turn around failing schools is often hampered by bureaucratic red tape and politics. South Carolina allows for governance flexibility at the state level but not the local level. For schools that continue to struggle after a plan for intervention has been implemented, South Carolina law allows the State Department of Education to declare a state of emergency, replace the school's principal, and assume management of the school. To strengthen accountability and options for intervention at the local level, South Carolina should allow full mayoral control of low-performing school districts.

Given the limited resources available for public education, states must ensure that districts spend as many dollars as possible in the classroom rather than in bureaucracy and that the dollars invested drive the greatest change. South Carolina imposes ineffective regulations on class size and has student-to-staff ratios for non-teaching positions. South Carolina should provide greater staffing and spending flexibility to school districts by removing these ratios and maximums for students past the third grade and by removing other restrictions that limit districts' ability to allocate resources to their greatest needs. Moreover, South Carolina should empower data-driven decisionmaking by improving the financial data it collects and linking spending to academic achievement. The law should enable the state to initiate governance changes at school districts when resources are mismanaged.

Attracting a high-quality workforce will require a competitive retirement plan. Portable retirement options, such as 401(k) plans, are an essential component of compensation packages and make the teaching profession more competitive. It is a classic win-win for teachers and districts. Under current policy, South Carolina provides two employer-sponsored retirement options for employees of traditional schools and conversion public charter schools: a defined benefit plan and a portable defined contribution plan, referred to as the Optional Retirement Program. South Carolina has made progress; however, to provide teachers with the most flexibility and ensure sustainability of the existing system, the state should require all traditional school employees to participate in its Optional Retirement Program and permit employees of all public charter schools to opt out of the system.