By admin 
Issue: Teacher pay
South Carolina’s minimum starting teacher pay was once the lowest in the Southeast and near the bottom nationally. But over the past decade, at the urging of Gov. Henry McMaster, lawmakers have raised first-year teacher pay above $50,000, an increase of nearly 70% since 2018.
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Beyond hiking first-year salary minimums, state lawmakers have also appropriated millions of dollars for teacher incentive pay. In each of the past two years, South Carolina has made $5 million available for performance-based bonuses tied to student test scores.
Ellen Weaver, Republican nominee
Republican state Superintendent Ellen Weaver has been a strong proponent of raising starting teacher salaries and offering performance incentives to educators.
“Continuing to boost teacher pay is foundational to recruit and retain the best and brightest to serve in South Carolina classrooms,” the department wrote in its , which sought a $2,000 across-the-board salary increase for teachers and another $5 million to support the third year of the state’s strategic compensation pilot.
The pilot program, the department said, would reward educators for great teaching rather than simply years of service.
“These grants acknowledge the real impact teachers make, shifting the focus from years served to measurable academic growth,” it said in a statement.
Last year, the Department of Education awarded $2.5 million in performance grants to more than 400 teachers across 37 schools, with bonuses tied to student growth in math and reading.
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“This Strategic Compensation pilot is a small — but concrete — part of our larger plan to recognize the hard work our educators invest in their students every single day,” Weaver said in a statement announcing the performance bonuses. “We’re honored to invest this tangible ‘thank you’ back into our teachers.”
Sylvia Wright, Democratic nominee
Democratic challenger Sylvia Wright also supports raising teacher pay — she’s floated a $60,000 starting salary — but is not in favor of performance-based incentives.
She called performance bonuses a “culture killer” that she experienced firsthand while working as a teacher in Texas.
“It doesn’t build that collaborative community,” said Wright, who argued that rewarding teachers based on student performance is fundamentally unfair.
“To blame the teacher and say, ‘Oh, it’s the teacher’s fault that the kids are not growing’ … doesn’t take into account what’s happening in the students’ lives,” she said.
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