Charmeka Bosket Childs is a business and government consultant with The Stephen Group, where she consults with state agencies in the area of Education and Health and Human Services. Charmeka formerly served at the South Carolina Department of Education as the Deputy Superintendent for School Effectiveness where she managed the human resource and budgetary resources of the Division of School Effectiveness. During her role, Charmeka created a policy making environment that encouraged the use of cost benefit analysis in policy formation. She guided office leadership in the implementation of academic standards development, educator evaluation, school transformation, public school choice, blended and online learning, educator professional development, and educator licensure. She also improved project management practices and developed and implemented succession planning, as well as overseeing budgetary and human resource planning.
From 2011 to 2012, Charmeka served at the Department of Education as the Deputy Superintendent for Policy and Research. There she served on the Superintendent’s staff to support his role as the Executive Secretary to the State Board of Education. She helped oversee the development, revision, and quality of the South Carolina academic standards and provided oversight and technical assistance to districts and schools seeking and implementing grants.
From 2007 to 2011, Charmeka served as the Director of Legislative and Political Analysis for the South Carolina Business and Industry in Columbia. There she was responsible for analyzing the economic impact of legislation under consideration by the South Carolina General Assembly on the state’s business climate.
From 2005 to 2007, Charmeka served in the Office of the Governor as Education Policy Advisory to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. In this capacity, Charmeka analyzed economic, systemic, and pedagogical implications of policy alternatives under consideration by the Governor of South Carolina. She also helped implement policy initiatives directed through the executive branch and conducted cost-benefit analysis pursuant to implementing the budgeting for results model in education policy formation for the state of South Carolina. She managed national and state projects involving key education agency directors for the state of South Carolina and co-wrote executive budget education policy sections for two consecutive fiscal years.
Charmeka was also a research analyst with the The McKenzie Group in Washington D.C., where she analyzed Dallas Fort Worth School District performance on the Texas Academic and Achievement Skills examination and researched marketing strategy for Educational Testing Services contract. In the past, she has also served as a school advisory council committee chairperson for Richland South Carolina’s School District Two.
Charmeka graduated from Duke Universities’ Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, where she received a Masters of Public Policy including coursework in economics, management, statistics, history, and policy analysis. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Duke University, Trinity College.