South Carolina’s public schools, teachers, and students are in for some tough times. Republicans went to the polls and selected a rightwing ideologue as their candidate for state superintendent. Ellen Weaver does not have the master’s degree that state law requires the state chief to have. She has signed up to get a master’s in “Christian Leadership” at Bob Jones University and expects to get her degree in eight months.
Weaver has made her hostility to public schools and professional teachers clear. She (and the SC media) refer to education professionals as “the education establishment.”
Ellen Weaver, president and CEO of the Palmetto Promise Institute, handily defeated teachers advocate Kathy Maness in Tuesday’s GOP primary runoff, a development with potentially major implications for the state’s public schools…
Weaver, who does not currently meet the statutory requirements to hold officebecause she lacks an advanced degree, has cast herself as a bold reformer fighting to eradicate liberal ideologies like so-called critical race theory that she claims are seeping into public education.
“The fight to save our schools is a fight to save that American dream for the next generation,” she said at a debate last week. “If we don’t stand in the gap for our kids and against the wokeism and sexualization agendas that are coming out of Washington, we have lost our country.”
Weaver will face Democrat Lisa Ellis, a Richland 2 teacher and student activities director, in the general election. Ellis, who is best known for founding the grassroots teachers organization SC for Ed, won the Democratic primary outright earlier this month.
Weaver refers to a master’s degree as “letters behind your name.” Presumably, at a better time, when politicians weren’t putting a wrecking ball to public education, they set that qualification there to assure that the state superintendent was an experienced educator, not an ideologue who is contemptuous of the state’s most important public institution.
Sadly, South Carolina got the kind of leader that the law was supposed to bar. Teachers are upset about what happens next, as well they should be.
South Carolina needs a leader who will fight for more funding, especially for its most vulnerable children. If Weaver beats her Democratic opponent, the state will have a leader who dabbles in nonsense about race and gender instead of improving the schools.
If you are a parent, a teacher, or a concerned citizen, help elect Lisa Ellis. She’s a teacher, she has experience, she knows what students need and will fight for it.
Color me not surprised.
That’s hilarious. My first thought was, “and you were expecting…?”
The race to the bottom stumbles on.
The race to the bottom in red states is a marathon, and if you aren’t a dangerously dumber-then-dumb fascist Republican, expect to get tripped and trampled during that race so you won’t reach the finish line.
Fascists cheat and lie repeatedly. Their campaigns run on hate, fear, misinformation. slander, libel, and conspiracy theories.
So a degree from Bob Jones. Makes me think of a guy who used to live near there. Right after he moved there, he discovered that the convenience markets that were in close proximity to the staunchly religious and staunchly racist college were filled with all sorts of porn that was not available in most stores. This friend was not from the US saw all of this and thought: what the heck? What is this.
“what the heck? What is this.”
It’s required reading at the BJ University.
This is what happens in fascist states. They thrust unqualified ideologues into positions of power. The whole “they make the trains run on time” thing is nonsense. Such states are about loyalty to Glorious leader, cronyism, and kleptocracy, and eventually, they crumble under their own incompetence. Yeah, Hitler pulled Germany out of its hyperinflation and joblessness. But how? BY BORROWING VAST AMOUNTS OF MONEY FROM FOREIGN BANKS, which REQUIRED him to declare war and loot neighboring countries in order to pay it back.
Sad news after the good news from Boston.
But I guess a Red State has gotta be Red…NOT well-read.
We here in SC who support public education are devastated and terrified. I have been a teacher here for over 20 years. I plan on reevaluating my career choice after the election. This may be my last year 😢