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S.C. ranks last nationally in SAT scores BY JUDSON DRENNAN The Carolina Reporter South Carolina is still last nationally in SAT scores with little hope of change in the near future, according to Mary Anne Byrd, a spokeswoman for the S.C. De partment of Education. Byrd said although the state is im plementing aggressive programs to try to increase the performance of its high school seniors, it will be years before South Car olina can hope to move from the bottom of the list. “There’s no way of knowing when scores will improve,” Byrd said. “But we know that it’s going to be a long time before we see any kind of results.” South Carolina’s average SAT score in 1999 was 954, a three-point increase over the previous year, while the na tional average dropped one point to 1016. South Carolina’s increase brought the state’s average score back up to its 1996 level after the scores decreased for two consecutive years. A comprehensive re port on the state’s 1999 SAT scores is avail able on the S.C. Department of Educa tion’s Web page. While these numbers put South Car olina closer to the national average, the state might not be catching up quickly enough. In the past four years, South Car olina’s average SAT score increased eight points, while the national average increased 13 points. South Carolina is also falling behind its neighbors, North Carolina and Geor gia. In 1989, South Carolina’s scores were two points ahead of North Carolina’s and nine points below Geoigia’s. Now, South Carolina’s scores lag 32 points behind North Carolina’s and 15 points behind Geoigia’s. , Byrd said much of Georgia and North Carolina’s improvements were because of programs initiated in those states tar geting their low SAT scores. South Car olina had similar programs in the 1980s, but those efforts were discontinued. She said S.C. Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum has looked at those programs and developed new ones for better prepar ing S.C. high school seniors for the SAT. These include an implementing an SAT question of the day, starting programs to train teachers and adding SAT coaches in every high school. Byrd said these programs will not im mediately affect South Carolina’s SAT scores, but they should help increase the scores in several years. Byrd said the best way a student can increase his SAT score is to take classes that properly prepare him for the SAT. The College Board, which administers the SAT, recommends that students take at least 20 credits in six selected areas: Eng lish, mathematics, natural sciences, for eign languages, history, and arts and mu sic. The average SAT score for the 41 percent of S.C. students who met that rec ommendation was 1048. “That is why we tell students to take these advanced courses,” Byrd said. “Prop er preparation really pays off.” Nationally, 51 percent of students met the College Board’s recommendations. Their average score was 1096. Not all dis tricts in the state fell below the national average, according to the S.C. Department of Education. Eight S.C. school districts had average SAT scores exceeding the na tional average, including Lexington Dis trict 1 (1,043) and Lexington/Richland District 5 (1,049). The remaining 79 dis tricts were below average. Hf 36 percent fail high school exit' exams by Cara Pellatt The Carolina Reporter The State Board of Education an nounced Wfednesday that the percent age of lOth-graders passing the South Carolina High School Exit Examination decreased in 1999. Of the 39,184 lOth-graders who took the exam for the first time, 24,903, or 63.6 percent, passed. In 1998,64.9 percent of lOth-graders passed the exam. Slight progress could be seen on sec tions of the exams. The percentage of lOth-graders meeting the state standards on the read ing and writing sections of the exam rose in 1999. Tenth-graders passing the reading section increased 0.4 percent to 81.9 percent in 1999. Afhcan-American stu dents showed the most progress, with 1.1 percent more students passing. The percentage of Hispanic students passing decreased by 4.9 percent. The percentage of lOth-gradeis pass ing the math section rose 1 percentage point this year. Black students had the highest in crease of students passing the section, with 1.3 percent more meeting the stan dards. The percentage of Asian and Pacif ic Islander students meeting the stan dards decreased by 3.8 percent, and the percentage of Hispanic students pass ing decreased by 3.5 percent. Despite the increase in students pass ing the reading and math sections, slight ly fewer students met the standards for the writing section of the exam. The number decreased by 1 percent. Rob Harper, public information associate for the Board of Education, said the exit exams scores have been stagnant over the past five or six years, but the agency is working on im proving the number of students meet ing state standards. * “We’re putting in new curriculum requirements and strengthening the stan dards,” Harper said. The exit exams were put in place in the state in 1986. ■ In 1990, passing the exam be came a requirement for high school stu dents receiving a South Carolina High School Diploma. Harper said the exit exam is a test' to make sure students have the minimal skills they need to graduate. “By the time students get to the 10th grade, most of them have the minimal skills,” Harper said. Haiper said about 95 percent of stu dents pass the exam by their 12th-grade year. The exam is first given to students in the spring of their lOth-grade year. Students not passing all the sections of the exam are given several opportuni ties to pass those sections. The exam allows schools to iden tify weaknesses and to address them be fore graduation. If students don’t pass the exam by the end of 12th grade, but meet the oth er requirements for graduation, they’re given a certificate saying they took the classes. EXAMS SEE PAGE 4 Court blocks Hilton Head deer killing by Gina DeMillo The Carolina Reporter Deer on Hilton Head Island were given a tem porary reprieve Friday by the South Carolina Court of Appeals. As part of the state’s first suburban deer-control project, about 200 deer would have been killed in the Gull Point and Baynard Cove areas of Sea Pines Plantation starting Wednesday, while others would have been injected with fertility-control drugs. The control project evolved from a two-year study that assessed the population of deer on the 5,200-acre residential area and determined the residents’ atti tudes toward the deer. Because deer hunting isn t allowed on Hilton Head and no natural predators exist, the popula tion has mushroomed and the deer have encroached on gardens, roadways and golf courses. In addition to damaging the landscapes, the plantation’s 500 deer contribute to deer-vehicle collisions at a rate of one • accident every nine days at Sea Pines, according to the Georgia study. Besides the danger to humans, the collisions are an expensive method to control the population and an inhumane way for the deer to die, according to Robert Whrren, professor of wildlife management at the University of Geoigia and di rector of the Sea Pines study. That rate is abnormally high, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. Charles Ruth, Deer Project supervisor for the department, said that if the Sea Pines ratio were projected across the state, it would mean 66,500 deer-vehicle incidents per year, which is more than 10 times the current rate. “What they have experienced and continue to experience at Sea Pines is a deer-vehicle collision rate that is greater than South Carolina in general,” Ruth said. Opponents of the killing said they don’t see the deer at Sea Pines as a problem. i nere s no overpopulation nere 10 oegin wun, t said Gordon Stamler, founder and president of the Sea Pines Association for Protection of Wildlife. More than a year ago, Stamler began battling the De partment of Natural Resources, which issued a kill permit as part of the population-control project. Though Circuit Court Judge James Williams ruled in favor of the department, the wildlife protection group requested the kill permit be blocked until after the appeals process. “If they’re allowed to go out and kill deer, our appeal becomes moot,” Stamler said. Opponents of the killing said encounters with deer can be con trolled by non-lethal means, such as reducing speed limits, erecting better signs for motorists and educating the public. If the Court of Appeals up holds the lower court ruling, the killing would be performed by a wildlife biologist sharpshooting from a platform mounted above a bait trap, using a silenced .22-caliber rifle, Warren said. A niie snot 10 me neau is an immeuiaie ueam } and more humane than death from a vehicle,” he said. After the sharpshooting is complete, the fer tility-control process would begin, with the drugs administered by a specialized dart. A follow-up study is planned to determine whether the fertility con trols are effective in keeping the population at a reduced number, compared to the area in which ad ditional controls were not used. Strom Thurmond monument will make debut in December A long look at Strom Thurmond The Strom Thurmond monument honors the longest-serving senator's lifetime of achievements. ■ - 1902 bom in Edge field Cointy V 1929— nam ed County Superintendent 1932 — elected to South Carolina Senate 1942— Landed in Normandy on D-Day vith 82nd Airborne Division 1948 Candidate for President as aDbdecrat 1964 — Swtchedfrom Democratic to Republican Party >1 11 g I —1923 BA. Degree from Clems on —1930 adnitted to the South Carolina Bar —1938 elected a ci re lit judge . —1947 Govemcr of South Carolina —1954 U.S. Senator —1983 appointed to President's Commission on Organized Crime —1993 Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ryan Mosier The Carolina Reporter His name appears across South Car olina on everything from schools to lakes, and he’s about to be honored again with a tribute on the Statehouse grounds in Columbia The Strom Thurmond Monument, two years and $850,000 in the making, will be unveiled and dedicated Dec. 4, the day before the senator’s 97th birth day. “It befits the most illustrious pub lic servant this century in South Car olina” said Sen. John Courson, R-Rich land, chairman of the monument commission. Rep. Jake Knotts, R-West Colum bia, also a commission member agreed.“It will recognize the great statesman that he is,” he said. “It will be a historic day not only for the Thur mond family, but for the citizens of South Carolina” Thurmond joins James Byrnes, Wade Hampton and Ben Till man as former governors and states men honored with statues on the State Designed by sculptor William Behrends ofTryon, N.C., the monument will be lo cated between the Hampton and Gressette buildings on the south side of the Statehouse. It depicts a middle-age Thurmond standing tall in mid-stride. The 9-foot stat ue, cast in bronze atop an 8-foot granite base, weighs abotlt 32 tons. According to Courson, the monument shows the senior senator as an “athletic go-getter,” a pose many in the state as sociate with Thurmond’s lifetime of achievements. Bom in 1902, J. Strom Thumiond was graduated from Clemson University in 1923. Admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1930, he served as both a city and county attorney until elect ed to the South Carolina Senate in 1932. In 1938, Thurmond was elected a cir cuit judge, and with the out break of World W;ir II, he served in the Army’s filmed 82nd Aiibome Di vision, participat ing in the invasion of Normandy. In 1946, he was elected governor of South Carolina. He ran as a third party “Dixiecrat” candidate for presi dent in 1948, winning four states and 39 electoral votes. In 1954, he was the only person ever elected to the U.S. Senate by a write-in vote. In 1964, Thurmond switched from the Democratic Party to the Republi can Party, which he’s been involved in ever since. The monument commission was established in 1997 to plan the site and select a design for the monument hon oring the longest-serving U.S. senator in history. It’s composed of three sen ators, three representatives and three members appointed by the governor. The project began in December 1997 with a fund-raising reception at the Governor’s Mansion celebrating Thurmond’s birthday. “It’s only fitting that the dedication ceremony should also be a birthday cel ebration at the end of the century,” Courson said. According to Cour son, me project is modeled in | part after a similar effort un 1 dertaken about 10 years ago to r honor former President Jim my Carter on the Geoigia State house grounds. Cour son said the final price tag for the monument, which should come in un der budget, will be between $800,000 and $850,000. The funding came from about 3,000 private do nations, including contributions from both Democrats and Re publicans. Many of the donors’ names will ap pear on the base of the monument. According to Courson, Thur mond’s response to the monument has been excellent. “He has been in volved since the gen esis of the project,” Courson said. “He is very, very pleased and honored.” • 4," Briefs ■ City Council The Columbia City Council meets the first and third Wednesdays of each month at City Hall Council Chambers, third floor, 1737 Main Street. ■ County Council The Richland County Council meets the first and third Tuesdays of each month at the County Administration Building, 2020 Hampton Street. ■ Gerentology seminar As part of National Assisted Living Week and National Rehabilitation Week, Kath wood Place Assisted Living and Health South will present a seminar, “As Our Par ents Age...What Are Our Options?” from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 16 at Kathwood Place, 4520 Trenholm Rd. To register or for in formation, call 787-1234. ■ Columbia Chamber The Greater Columbia Chamber of Com merce will hold its annual meeting Sept. 24 at Seawell’s in Columbia. For information, call 733-1116. ■ Small-business class Midlands Technical College will offer “Make Your Small Business Profitable,” a workshop for small-business people. The workshop will be Monday at the Harbison campus. For information, call 732-9432. ■ Adopt-A-Street Keep America Beautiful of the Midlands is spearheading a street cleaning on Elmwood Avenue and Huger Street at 9 a.m. Satur day as part of the city’s new Adopt-A Street program. Materials are provided; wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Meet at the McDonald’s at 1024 Elmwood Ave. For information, call 733-1139. ■ Leslie Nielsen to perform at Koger Actor Leslie Nielsen will perform “Clarence Darrow: A One-Man Play” on Wednesday at the Koger Center. The per formance will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $27 and $30 and are available at the Carolina Coliseum box office, all Capital Tickets outlets or by calling 251 -2222. ■ Aeroplane Classic The Third Annual Palmetto Aeroplane Classic will be held Saturday at the Ker shaw County Airport. The event will fea ture more than 200 antique, classic and contemporary aircraft. In addition, open cockpit rides, concessions, entertainment, aviation flea market and exhibits, paper air plane contests, aviation seminars and more will be offered. For information, call (803) 432-3095. ■Che Carolina Reporter Publisher Judy VanSlyke Turk Reporters Shana Bowman David Cloninger Rebecca Cronican Gina DeMillo Judson Drennan Ashley Mathias Ryan Mosier Cara Pellatt Jeff Romig Jeff Stensland Managing Editor: Kristin Freestate Allison Aiken Jessica Barfield Ann Kennedy Israel Kloss Todd Money Kate Maxwell Noelle Orr Jacquelyn Poston Adrienne Thompson Faculty Advisers Scott Farrand Keith Kenney Pat McNeely Henry Price Jennifer Wood The Carolina Reporter senior semester students pro vide The Gamecock with week ly Metro & State coverage. For Metro & State news tips, please call (803) 777-3307 or (803) 777-3248. To fax tips, please call (803) 777-4103. Letters to the editor regarding Metro & State coverage should be directed to The Gamecock, RH 333, or gcked@sc.edu. The Carolina Reporter Online can be found on the World Wide Web at: www.jour.sc.edu/reporter/home.html II_ r