On December 17, 2024, the Charter Institute launched the Institute Success Agenda, a $1.75 million set of strategic initiatives aimed at transforming education in the State of South Carolina. The initiatives are focused around “three pillars of success.” They are:
- The Corridor of Success,
- Math Success, and
- The Acceleration of Success.
The agenda is designed to take the first steps toward generational transformation for the children, teachers, and families of South Carolina.
The Corridor of Shame has been a specter of South Carolina’s education system for many years. Made infamous by a 2007 documentary of the same name, the Corridor of Shame is a collection of school districts located along I-95, running from Dillon County to Jasper County. Almost every district in this region is academically underperforming the rest of the state. It is the vision and determined goal of the Institute to transform this pariah of education from the “Corridor of Shame” into the “Corridor of Success”.
In order to achieve this transformation, the Institute will offer $100,000 in forgivable, no-interest loans to each of ten approved, experienced applicant groups committed to opening schools in the Corridor of Shame. Transformation of this scale takes time and often herculean effort to achieve. For those schools that are able to achieve academic benchmarks within the first three years, their loans will be forgiven in full, positioning the schools to become trailblazers as Corridor of Success schools. Within ten years, these efforts will revitalize the region and provide a pathway for the children of the state to reach brighter futures.
And this is far from wishful thinking. The Institute has already achieved such results within the region. Located in Jasper County, the foot of the Corridor of Shame, Royal Live Oaks Academy Charter School (RLOACS) defies the standard created by generations-old poverty and neglect. Its student population is 89% minority, 55% multilingual, and 75% qualify as students in poverty. Despite this, not only is RLOACS the highest performing school in Jasper County, but one of the highest performing schools in the whole state. It has received an Excellent rating in Growth for three consecutive years, was recently recognized by Superintendent Ellen Weaver for their continued success, has an Excellent rating on the State Report Card, is an Institute School of Distinction, and was recently named a Middle School to Watch. RLOACS demonstrates that the persistent cycle of failure in the Corridor of Shame can be broken, and the Institute is ready to replicate that success throughout the region.
Success does not start and end with transforming South Carolina’s Corridor of Shame, however. Math scores across the state have continuously declined for years. The state is not unique in this problem, either. The decline is the rule rather than the exception across the nation. After the fallout of COVID-19, math scores across the country have seen a worrying decline with no clear indication of leveling out any time soon. The Charter Institute strives to not only reverse this downward trend, but to conduct a root cause analysis and reimagine math instruction. It plans to do this in three key ways:
- Utilize global math experts to conduct groundbreaking research in classrooms, uncovering root problems.
- Host a Global Math Summit in Columbia in Spring of 2026 to present the findings of the aforementioned research and begin developing solutions based on these findings.
- Reward excellence via a “Success Performance Bonuses” as high as $5,000 for Institute teachers who achieve success in math in alignment with Institute targets.
With the United States ranked 34th in the world in mathematics and South Carolina ranked 49 out of 50 for education in the United States, it is clear that looking only within the US – let alone only within the state – is not a viable option to induce better math outcomes for students and teachers. This is why the first part of this pillar is exploring the learning models and instructional techniques of nations with high math performance. By studying their systems and receiving feedback on our methods, the Institute plans on identifying not just the root problems facing schools in the state, but to begin implementing effective solutions.
Once these insights have been compiled and reviewed, the Institute will host teachers, administrators, and education leaders from all over the world to attend a Global Math Summit. These leaders will share their key insights, knowledge, and ideas for what South Carolina and the United States can do to improve math education. The Institute will likewise present its findings and plot a course for how it will change and enhance the education of its students going forward.
Yet, as wonderful as the sharing of ideas and knowledge is, without tangible action to follow-up, a shared idea is just a wasted breath. This is why the Institute plans on rewarding teachers who achieve academic excellence in math by implementing a Success Performance Bonus. This bonus ranges from $1,000 to $5,000 and will be earned by teachers who exceed math averages according to the Value-Added portion of the SC Ready math assessment.
The third and final pillar of the Institute Success Agenda is establishing vehicles for accessible, below-market-rate financial support for new and expanding schools. Most traditional forms of financing for traditional public schools are not available to charter schools. Instead, schools are often reliant on philanthropic investors, or resign themselves to renting a temporary space for years until they acquire the capital to build or buy. The private market is teeming with investors willing to provide start-up capital to charter schools on one condition: the investors can make a return, most often in the form of interest through loans. As charter schools receive money per pupil, this means the ability to pay off such a loan is directly tied to how many students it has. As the Institute’s COO, Vamshi Rudrapati, put it, “It’s a chicken and egg situation. You need a building to get students, but you cannot get many students until you have a nice building. Chicken and egg.” For this reason, the Institute has committed to working with existing schools and applicant groups to find below-market-rate loans, connect them with philanthropic donors, and negotiate favorable lease-to-own agreements.
With these three pillars, the Charter Institute is ready to launch forward into, as Superintendent Cameron Runyan noted in his testimony to legislators in the South Carolina State House, “With the alignment of the General Assembly, our State Superintendent of Education, and the amazing work that is happening nationally right now, we’re really at a golden age for families and children when it comes to education in this state and in this country”. The Charter Institute is excited to move forward with these initiatives and continue fulfilling its mission to providing quality education to the children of South Carolina.
