Educating South Carolinians on the “Stewardship Mindset” specific to the areas of Food, Energy, Natural Resources, and Waste

The amount of, and manner to which, food, energy, natural resources, and waste are consumed have significant effects on individual, community, and national health as well as a strong influence on future generations. Overconsumption of these resources can result in a plethora of consequences including financial burden, health risks, depletion of energy sources, and nutrient rich soils. In order to prevent these consequences from occurring to their greatest potential, a stewardship mindset must be established among the citizens of South Carolina. Stewardship, in this sense, is the attitude and actions associated with the responsible management of resources in a way that preserves these resources for generations to come.

South Carolina has a long history of gender inequality. From the early colonial era to the present day, men continue to have leading roles in government, academia, business and community organizations.

South Carolina has been plagued with a past of racial inequities in all scopes of life. For the state to move forward in a positive direction, equality in education, the workforce, the judicial system, and government representation must be achieved. Racial inequities still exist in these areas as nonwhites are going to jail twice as often as their white counterparts, earning half as much and are not represented proportionally in the state government.

According to Vertstegen (2002), all state education finance models are antiquated. These models were designed at a time when the goal of policymakers and practitioners alike was to provide for a level of resource equity. With the emergence of state and national education goals and mandates for all students to reach proficiency targets, these systems are now seen as outdated. The Education Finance Act in South Carolina was enacted in 1977 prior to the enactment of the Education Accountability Act. An emerging theme in the literature is the convergence of the standards movement and school finance litigation and reform.

This brief offers insight into the role of headquarters recruitment in economic development and South Carolina’s present condition in this area. Headquarters recruitment is an economic development tactic that fosters the creation or relocation of firms’ administrative and management units in a particular locale. Such efforts also focus on the retention of existing corporate headquarters. As a strategy, headquarters recruitment is underexploited in South Carolina, but it merits consideration as previous studies point to a number of ways in which a city or region benefits from hosting headquarters.

High quality early childhood education (ECE) has long-lasting positive impacts for states (Warner, 2009). High quality begins with developmentally appropriate practices.  In 2009, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) revised their position statement to include five key features of what they would consider developmentally appropriate practice (DAP): creating a caring community of learners; teaching to enhance development and learning; planning curriculum to achieve important goals; assessing children's development and learning; establishing reciprocal relationships with families.

This brief addresses the relationship between the organizational structure that facilitates economic development and economic development outcomes. First, this brief will examine the current organizational structure that facilitates economic development within South Carolina. Next, we will observe selected performance criteria and highlight states that are comparable to South Carolina under these criteria. Finally the brief will inspect the recent literature for clues that may point to improvement methods that are potentially useful for South Carolina.

Nationally, educational policies directed at neediest schools tend to aggregate to urban areas. However, many states and most of the US’s 15,000 school districts are distinctly rural (Institute for Education Science, 2007-2008). More schools receiving federal funding for rural and low income schools are located in the South than in other regions of the US (Magill, Hallberg, Hinojosa, & Reeves, 2010). More children in poverty live in the South (Mattingly & Turcotte-Seabury, 2010).

Because of a series of unique characteristics of South Carolina’s state government structure, the state is subject to issues less problematic in other states. These issues sometimes include 1) marked tension and an uncooperative relationship between the executive and legislative branches; 2) confusion generated by the role of the state Budget and Control Board; 3) concern over the system of legislative appointment of state judges; and 4) unusual (by national standards) autonomy of elected executive offices other than the governor. The relatively weak institutional role of the governor has been the subject of controversy and conflict.

On February 26, 2007, Governor Sanford issued Executive Order #2007-06 establishing the nine-member GovernmentEfficiency and Accountability Review (GEAR) Committee. Through the order, the Governor instructed our committee to“analyze the systems and services within and provided by the South Carolina Budget and Control Board in an effort to propose changes which will reduce costs, increase accountability, improve services, consolidate similar functions, return functions to the private sector and help South Carolina become more competitive in a world economy.”