00:00Not happening. On education, we have been talking about school choice for decades.
00:05I, of course, support school choice, and I support expanding school choice.
00:09But in the meantime, until we have that fight in the courts, there are two things.
00:14The state of South Carolina, we're about 25th in the country on what we spend per student.
00:18Okay, we're 25th. Right in the middle.
00:21We're like dead last in outcomes.
00:24I mean, we're behind Mississippi.
00:26I don't want to be behind Mississippi in anything.
00:30You're from Mississippi. We love you. Thanks for bringing your money here.
00:33But I don't want to be behind education in Mississippi, okay?
00:35It's two things. And I'm modeling this a little bit after Florida.
00:39Okay, I have read what other states are doing.
00:42We're not going to reinvent the wheel.
00:43We're going to do what other states are doing, and they're doing better.
00:45They're doing well. We want to do it, too.
00:46Number one, mandatory, automated.
00:49You're held back in third grade if you can't read and write.
00:52Okay?
00:52We're going to narrow those exceptions.
00:55I want our young boys and girls to be able to read and write, because if you can't read
01:00and write by third or fourth grade, you're not ready for middle school.
01:03If you're not ready for middle school, you'll never be ready for high school, and you'll
01:05never be ready for those good-paying jobs we have right here in South Carolina.
01:08And if the kid cannot read by third and fourth grade, then we're going to assign them a reading
01:15mentor, and they're going to be required to read 90 minutes a day while they're in school.
01:21That is what the state of Florida does.
01:23We can do it here in South Carolina, because literacy is the way to bring our children out
01:28of poverty and into prosperity.
01:30And then the second thing that I want to do is I want to have two very distinct high school
01:36diplomas.
01:38Not everybody in this room has a college degree.
01:39You don't need one.
01:41In fact, my plumber, oh my God, who's called a plumber lately?
01:44I think I'm paying like $300 an hour, $400 an hour.
01:48My plumber vacations in the summer in Cape Cod.
01:52So I'm doing it wrong.
01:54You know what I'm doing when I retire.
01:55I'm going to be a plumber.
01:56But I want to have two very specific degrees, one for the kids who are going to go on to
02:00college, a two- or four-year degree.
02:02That's great.
02:04But then I want to have a second track.
02:06I want these students ready and certified in a trade and highly skilled job.
02:12Okay?
02:14We're going to have a specific diploma track.
02:19If you are certified to weld, you get a high school diploma.
02:23If you are certified to become a plumber, you get a high school diploma.
02:26If you are certified as an electrician, you get a high school diploma.
02:30If you get your CDL or commercial driver's license, you are going to get your high school
02:35diploma.
02:36And kids who are watching are out today.
02:38If you have a CDL, the starting salary for a lot of truck drivers in South Carolina is
02:43$80,000 a year.
02:44In fact, when I graduated from the Citadel, it's crazy good.
02:48I graduated from the Citadel, I had a four-year degree, I taught myself to code, I became a
02:51computer programmer my first day out of college.
02:54I made $35,000 a year.
02:58Well, one of my high school boyfriends from Stratford, he was a welder.
03:03That guy at 18 was making $80,000 a year.
03:06He owns two homes today in Somerville.
03:10Like, he's done really well.
03:11And if you have a nuclear welding certificate in South Carolina, you're making $110,000 a
03:16year.
03:17It's incredible.
03:18And I don't want us importing these jobs from North Carolina or Georgia.
03:21I want them created right here at home for our people.
03:25Your sons, your daughters, here.
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