About SCEPC
In response to a proposal submitted by the University of South Carolina College of Education, the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education (CHE) in 1987 established the South Carolina Educational Policy Center (SCEPC) as a vehicle for focusing research on education policy issues pertaining to teaching, learning, school organization, and student performance in the public schools.
Although administratively housed within the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies (EDLP), the SCEPC served the needs and interests of faculty and students from all departments in the College of Education. A steering committee composed of two chair-appointed faculty members from each department convened in 1987 with the stipulation that members would serve two-year terms.
The SCEPC functioned as a separate entity guided by semi-annual steering committee meetings until 1990 when the committee formed a 12-member board of directors selected from business and education communities, from state government, and from foundations. The board first convened in 1991 with members appointed for three-year terms. The steering committee continued meeting twice a year, with the addition of an annual joint meeting with the board of directors.
Until 1995, the chair of EDLP had the overall administrative responsibility for the center, and either a director or an interim director from within EDLP supervised its daily operation. In the spring of 1995, upon the recommendation of an advisory committee to the dean of the College of Education, the SCEPC began functioning together with the college's Office of Research on an experimental basis as the Office of Research/Educational Policy Center (OR/EPC) to increase efficiency and reduce duplication of services. At that time, the OR/EPC became a department within the College of Education's Office of the Dean.
The EDLP faculty at their spring 1997 meeting voted to separate the Educational Policy Center from the Office of Research to preserve the identity of the SCEPC as a separate entity.
Through both federal and state contracts obtained during its 18-year history, the SCEPC has, indeed, been a vehicle for focusing research on education policy issues as originally intended by EDLP and the CHE. The Policy Center has conducted studies and evaluations related to school improvement, school administration, student assessment, school finance, class size, personnel practices, teacher leadership, teacher recruitment, teacher certification, remedial and compensatory education, and student learning. With an average annual income of $230,000.00, this contract work has enabled the Policy Center to provide grant relief to faculty members involved in the projects, to provide yearly graduate assistantships at both the masters and doctoral levels, to furnish its own offices, and to maintain its own daily operating budget. In 1993, the steering committee voted to set aside $5,000 of the SCEPC's contract money each academic year to support a research project by a member of the faculty or staff in the College of Education.