Dr. Jim Rex: Former SC Superintendent of Education
It could be a rocky road ahead for the state’s newest education chief. Outgoing State Superintendent of Education Dr. Jim Rex offers his insight about the potholes in that rocky road and how the new school chief can swerve around them.
He tried. He really did. Outgoing South Carolina Superintendent of Education Dr. Jim Rex devoted almost every waking moment to trying to better our state’s ill-reputed, beleaguered and much-maligned public education system.
From 2007 to 2011, Jim Rex, the former English teacher, football coach and college president-turned educational reformer gave it his all. “The first half of my term was great; the second half presented us with some great difficulties,” says Dr. Rex now.
Mild-mannered, articulate, intelligent and polite, yet driven, Dr. Rex found himself facing difficult odds when he took office.
“I believed we needed citizen-legislators, not career politicians. I wanted to use my years of experience as an educator and administrator to help improve a public school system that was not improving fast enough.”
The odds against any reform were, and still are, daunting. So were the statistics.
“We ranked highly in some areas, with improvements we made, and we did very well in teacher accountability. But, during my term in office, we lost some $730 million dollars in funds, we lost 4,000 classroom teachers who were laid off, and my agency suffered a 45 percent cut in its staffing positions. 200 people here lost their jobs.”
Rex adds, “Ideology and partisanship can stop good ideas, even when there is overwhelming support for the vast majority of what is being proposed.”
Rex says one of his biggest disappointments in office was “barely missing the passage of legislation requiring school districts to create robust choice plans for all students and parents. It passed both houses but fell short of overriding Governor Sanford’s veto.”
Much attention is always given to South Carolina students’ and schools’ poor test performances.
The problem is not that the state’s students are stupid, and it’s not that their parents don’t care — the problem is that they are poor. Very poor. They live in small, poverty-riddled rural areas where the quality of life is also poor. “It’s hard to attract quality, experienced teachers to towns that don’t even have a movie theater; there’s a constant teacher turn-over,” says Dr. Rex, “It’s as though the students who need the best are getting the very worst.”
Dr. Rex goes on to say, “Our poverty levels drag us down. Three years ago, we had 1,000 homeless kids in our public school system; now we have 4,000. The state’s high unemployment and underemployment has a tremendous impact on kids. Three quarters of the kids in South Carolina’s schools are eligible for free or reduced lunches.” This means that their parent or guardian’s incomes are so low their children are given free lunches. Three-quarters of the state’s school children live at or below poverty level, their families earning less than $20,000 for a family of four.
“We have to break this cycle of generational poverty,” asserts Rex.
To address this, Rex created the first-of-its-kind project targeting 16 of the state’s worst-performing schools from poor areas and began a collaborative group within the education department so those schools would receive special attention.
Consequently, instead of the state taking over poorly performing schools, Rex persuaded state lawmakers to create the Palmetto Priority Schools program to improve student achievement by giving those schools access to a support system augmented by state colleges and universities.
According to the Department of Education, half of the 16 original Palmetto Priority schools improved their report card ratings, and 24 more schools have since joined the collaborative.
His supporters say Rex has been the most interactive Superintendent of Education in the state’s history, using technology to offer a more inclusive platform to educational professionals and their students.
Rex held the first-ever statewide virtual faculty meeting for state teachers and administrators, and he led the way with the creation of a new web presence for the State Department of Education, making it easier for parents to access information, relay concerns and question school administrators.
Rex now says, “Creativity and good will overcome most obstacles. Though not mandated, many school districts voluntarily embraced the public school choice initiative, making South Carolina a national leader in the area of expanding choice. For example, we doubled the number of students enrolled in public charter schools, nearly tripled the number of magnet schools, became the national leader in three years in single-gender programs and dramatically increased the number of Montessori programs.”
Rex remained positive and surprisingly idealistic enough to try for an unsuccessful run at the governor’s office. Those hopes dashed, he now says, ”I am a passionate supporter of public education, while being an equally passionate reformer of the system. (I would like people to know that) my term saw substantive, measurable improvement in test scores, graduation rates and closing achievement gaps. Even under less-than-ideal circumstances, an historic recession and a governor and legislature that were not always supportive, we still moved steadily forward.”