Many of you know that my mother taught for 44 years in our public schools and that I served on the local school board before you all sent me to the Senate. K-12 education remains a passion of mine, and I continue to fight for our teachers, parents, and students. My main initiative this year will be to rid our state of the Education Oversight Committee. If you’re not familiar with this agency, just ask a teacher or principal what effect they have on our classrooms; but be prepared for an earful. These are the people who gave us school report cards, for instance. They have wasted tens of millions of dollars over the years and inflicted nothing but misery on our schools. I am committed to ending their reign in South Carolina, and while it may take more than one year, I won’t stop until it’s gone. On a brighter note, I was proud to vote to override the veto of the governor that stripped us of $20 million for new school buses. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I’m glad that we were able to correct that mistake.