What's wrong with South Carolina?

Well, perhaps this is a clue:


COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Almost 20 percent of the prospective law enforcement officers in the past year at South Carolina's Criminal Justice Academy could not read at a 10th-grade level, a study shows.

The study also showed that nearly 4 percent of the 843 candidates were reading below a sixth-grade level, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Sunday.

Academy Director Hubert Harrell said instructors have encountered students who cannot read or comprehend the material presented to them.

"They are functionally illiterate," Harrell said.

snip...

Academy officials are encouraging police agencies to screen recruits for reading comprehension. Some larger agencies already do this, but smaller agencies with fewer resources often do not. The study found nearly 34 percent of the failing candidates came from departments with 50 or fewer officers.

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SC_POLICE_CANDIDATES_ILLITERACY_SCOL-?SITE=SCCHA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Tx for 6 yrs &GA for 10. Every Public school ciriculum was terrible.

because they can't understand the whole picture and they are too embarrassed to say so. Plus the uneducated are easier to scare and control.

things like christianity, an inerrant bible, and creationism.

I was flipping stations, and some race was on, one car drove by with an anti-abortion message.

Now, what on earth does driving noisy, useless, gas powered cars in endless circles have to do with abortion?

with NASCAR driver/fan spermatozoa might strive to AVOID perpetuating that particular subspecies, unless forced by law to carry to term?

/overusedphrase

One of the big differences between the South and New England was the expectations of Government. The South, even in Colonial America, did NOT view the Government as being effective, relying more in what each person could do for themselves, including getting an education and law enforcement (The South, to this day, underfund their court system, their welfare system, and every other area of Government or Community action.).

New England, being Puritan, believed in the power of the Community. The Classic case is when the Puritans settled New England they was no starving time for the Puritans took care to plan for their move (Sending in a group of men to plant the first set of crops the year BEFORE their families and the rest of the Settlement came over). This is unlike the earlier Plymouth and Jamestown Settlements which starve extensively the first winter their were in America.

Even in the Settlement of the "Old West" (Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River) the HOW people built new towns differentiated. In right is now the Mid West (Ohio to Iowa) the two groups did intermix to a degree (The South more along the Ohio River, The New Englanders along the Great Lakes) but you could tell the difference is who settled a town by how it was set up. If you were from the south you looked at how to make money first, thus a Inn was the first thing built. If you were from New England you looked at where you could go to have a meeting to discuss what was good for the Community as a whole, thus a Church was built first (And between the two largest Protestant faiths, Methodists and Presbyterians there was an agreement to build one church and share it till there were enough people of both faiths to support two churches, furthermore there was a tendency to view their Churches NOT just as places of worship but as "Meeting houses" where even non-believes could come and discuss issue of importance to the community). Notice the difference, the South on how to make money, the North on what was best for the Community.

When Public Education started during the years AFTER the Napoleonic Wars, it was the North that supported the idea of Public Schools. Most of the South refused to even discuss Public Schools till Public Schools was forced down their throats as part of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The North viewed the creation of Public Schools as another example of doing what was good for the Community, as it has done in the past when it came to Public squares in New England and New England settled towns. This idea that we are members of a Community that should work together to better the community was the hurt of Puritanism (Contrary to what the Fundamentalists like to say Puritanism was, the Fundamentalists love to take the Puritans out of Context, and the main Context of Puritans was the idea of being an ACTIVE member of a Community).

Thus, to this day, those things that are for the benefit of the Community, including the Courts, the Police, Parks, Recreation facilities, and public education has support in the North but barely any support in the South (What the South has in these regards reflect, either the affects of Reconstruction, i.e. Public Education, the affect of the New Deal (i.e. TVA, Federal Parks and Forests, and even Welfare and Social Security) or had been originally founded to help suppress the Blacks (The Police, but NOT the Court system, The Court System was adopted to help defined property rights and how the rich can keep their wealth).

In this case we are seeing the affect of the lack of Support for Public Education that is widespread in the South. In the North even the Upper Middle Class send their Children to Public Schools (Exception is for the ultra rich, but the Ultra Rich have always had more in Common with the South then the rest of the United States). In the South the Upper Middle Class tend to send their children to private Schools, even if inferior to Public Schools in the Same Area. Such Upper Middle Class then oppose ANY Support for the Public Schools and given the level of low funding those that are hardest to education (i.e. those whose parents can NOT read and write) need, such hard to educate are either ignored OR driven out of the School (Or given classes where actually reading and writing is NOT needed OR can be passed without such reading and Writing skills).

My point this is characteristic of the whole south, not such this state, since Colonial times and except when the Federal Government forced them to upgrade social areas, the South has refused. What the South Needs is either a new period like Reconstruction (Forced change), The New Deal (Changed paid by the Federal Government) or the educations reforms of the 1970s (In 1974 the Federal Congress finally provided Federal Funds for Education but restricted it to integrated Schools, that act more then anything else killed segregation).

In around 1986, Mack Trucks shut down a big plant in PA and moved much production to a brand new plant they built in S. Carolina. The workers who were losing their jobs had to go down there and train the new people.

Not many years later, the new S. Carolina plant was shut down completely, and production was moved back to Maryland and PA. Reportedly, it was a matter of worker quality.