SC Education Programs Face Review With $18M EIA Surplus

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina is on track for an estimated $18 million surplus in the Education Improvement Act money that pays for many state school programs, and the Education Oversight Committee is using the cushion as a reason to ask hard questions about what those programs deliver.

The committee is going program by program through groups funded under the act, checking whether each one is hitting the goals it was paid to reach. No group that has presented so far has asked for more money, but the reviews are meant to show lawmakers where the biggest needs are before next year’s state budget is drafted.

Teacher pipelines drew close attention. Carolina CAP, which certifies teachers to help fill staffing gaps, told the panel that 113 educators have reached professional certification since it started. Members wanted to know how many are still in South Carolina classrooms and whether they landed in districts that struggle to hire.

Early learning was the other big topic. South Carolina First Steps, the agency behind a state-funded 4K program, wants at least 75% of the state’s children to arrive at kindergarten ready to learn by 2030. Its numbers put the state at 38% today, down from the 39% of kindergartners who met the benchmark on the state readiness assessment in fall 2024. Committee members said the priority should be raising the quality of early education rather than just adding more 4K seats.

The gap is widest among poorer families. First Steps estimates that about 116,000 South Carolina children under 5, or 41% of the youngest children in the state, live in low-income households and are far less likely to start school ready.

Members also talked about whether part of the surplus could help high-need counties that have trouble raising the local match required to draw down state dollars. The committee will keep hearing from programs and weighing funding requests before it sends its recommendations to the General Assembly.

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