COLUMBIA, S.C. - Gov. Mark Sanford said Monday he is forming a state panel to review and find ways to improve education in South Carolina.

Sanford, who was in Washington, D.C. at a National Governors Association meeting, said the state's educational system needs the independent review that will be completed by the South Carolina Education Reform Council.

Columbia attorney Steve Matthews will serve as chairman of the council, which must make its recommendations by the end of the year.

"Given where we stand as a state with respect to graduation rates and a host of other national indicators, we simply can't afford to fall any further behind and expect to stay competitive in a global marketplace," Sanford said in a news release.

Sanford said the state needs to find reforms that are "going to get us on the road toward meeting the needs the current structure in many cases isn't meeting."

One of the key pieces of Sanford's legislative agenda is a bill that would give tax credits to parents whose children are taught in private, charter and parochial schools or at home.