EOC releases Report on Educational Performance of Military-Connected Students

COLUMBIA, SC – Data from the EOC’s 2025 Educational Performance of Military-Connected Children in SC report shows that military connected students in South Carolina public schools academically outperform their non-military connected peers.
Act 289 of the Military Family Quality of Life Enhancement Act directs the EOC to annually release a comprehensive report on the performance of elementary, middle and high school military connected students in South Carolina.
“What we have seen since doing this report, is that students who are in the system as military connected typically outperform their non-military connected peers,” EOC Executive Director Dana Yow said during May’s Academic Standards and Assessments subcommittee meeting.
The SC Student Information System uses eight designations to identify military students. Fifty-three percent of military connected students were designated as having non-deployed active-duty parents during the 2023-24 school year. Data also show that the majority of South Carolina’s military connected students are in middle school.
Concerning academic performance, the 2025 report found that military connected students in elementary, middle and high school generally outperformed their non-military connected peers.
Military connected students were more likely to score Meets or Exceeds on both SC READY Math and SC READY ELA than their non-military connected peers – with 51% of military connected students scoring Meets or Exceeds in math while 42% of non-military students scored Meets or Exceeds. Military connected students in kindergarten were also more likely to score Demonstrating Readiness on the Kindergarten Readiness Exam than non-military connected students.
The report recommended that SC school districts place more emphasis on collecting military connected student data during school enrollment procedures, then populating that data into the Student Information System. This recommendation was made based on evidence that some school districts were not adequately reporting their military connected students.
“Often military connected students are transient. So, we want to know who they are to keep their specific needs on the radar,” Yow said on the importance of capturing data to provide resources – such as help transitioning to a new school – for military connected students.