Education in South Dakota
11/01/16 04:17
Our local newspaper, the Rapid City Journal reports that our Governor, Dennis Dugaard, is supporting the proposals of a Blue Ribbon Task Force that suggested a statewide 1-cent sales tax hike for education to fund higher pay for teachers. I’ve lived in South Dakota for more than 20 years now and I know how tax adverse many of our state leaders are, but the news sounds hopeful. Perhaps legislators will finally take a significant step to address the issue of teacher pay. I admit, however, that I am skeptical. This is Governor Dugaard’s fifth legislative session since he assumed the office in January of 2011. He’s had quite a bit of time to demonstrate support of education and so far teachers in South Dakota have come up short every session.
South Dakota consistently ranks the lowest in the nation in terms of teacher compensation. For the years we have lived in this state teacher pay has ranked 51st of the states (the District of Columbia is added to the 50 states in the rankings). Beyond the measure of financial compensation, polls such as WalletHub rank other factors such as stress, support, curriculum debates and other factors. Once again South Dakota comes out on the bottom of all of the states. It isn’t just that teachers in South Dakota rank at the bottom in terms of compensation and opportunity for advancement. Their academic and work environment is among the most stressful of jobs in the nation.
It is no wonder that there is a shortage of teachers in our state.
I’m no politician and I realize that it is a bit unfair for me to sit here rarely even visiting the state Capitol and criticize the work of our legislators and governor. I understand that we are the ones who have elected those officials. Still, I am very skeptical about the willingness of our governor and legislator to significantly address the lack of support for education in our state.
If South Dakota is going to be a leader in the nation, I would much prefer for us to lead in welcoming tourists, or sustainable agriculture. I am sad that instead we seem to be leading the nation in nonstop attacks against our K-12 teachers in our public schools. These attacks are simply unfair.
Yes, we have problems in public education. South Dakota, especially western South Dakota, leads the nation in childhood poverty. Nearly a quarter of the children in our schools are coming to school hungry. And hungry brains don’t work well. Instead of addressing entrenched poverty and seeking to solve the problems of neglected children, our legislators have chosen to blame the teachers. Punitive high stakes testing with the mistaken assumption that poor performance on tests is the result of poor teaching is combined in our state with legislators who keep adjusting the content of curricula without regard to academic research and knowledge of how children learn.
No wonder excellent teachers keep moving out of our state.
No wonder our children move out of state as soon as they obtain an education.
No wonder capable teachers take early retirement when they have much to give.
I understand that there are plenty of people who want to force failure on public education in order to make privatization a more attractive option. It is only natural that people will look at the combined totals of dollars that are invested in education and want to realize some of those dollars as personal profit.
I believe, however, that it is our obligation to teach all of our children instead of just some of them. I believe that the education of children living in poverty is just as critical to a balanced society as the education of children born into wealth.
I’m generally pretty hesitant about wading into politics in my blog, but it is time for we, the citizens of South Dakota to say to our legislators, “Enough!” The path that we have taken in the past two decades is crushing teachers and kids alike. It is failing not only our children, but the whole of society.
Dear Governor Dugaard and members of the South Dakota legislature: Stop evading the real issues. Lets deal with the problems of entrenched poverty, and discrimination in our state. For once, why not debate educational funding at the opening of the session instead of leaving education funding until all of the other expensive legislation has passed?
Instead of demonizing teachers, why not address the upstream problems over which teachers have no control? I realize it is easier to point the finger of blame at teachers than to buckle down and do your own work, but quite frankly, the problem isn’t with our teachers.
If one wants to blame, a good place to look is our state legislature. I’d like to see a day in every session that would require our legislators to listen to high schoolers debate the issues before the assembly. Perhaps our legislators could be taught the art of debate. Currently there is virtually no listening going on in our sessions. Grandstanding is not productive. Solutions do not come from lunches with highly paid lobbyists. South Dakota is particularly vulnerable to legislation that is written by out of state persons funded by deep pocket investors who want to try out their schemes in our state before moving on to other, more expensive states.
If we can’t get our legislators to actually write the bills upon which the act, how about requiring that they read them? If our legislators had to pass a reading comprehension test on the content of the bills upon which they vote, their scores would be considerably lower than the test scores they use to attack our teachers.
Enough ranting for one day. I am not the only South Dakotan who is frustrated. And I confess that I have been mostly silent in my frustration. And silence can be complicity in a democracy. I know the governor and legislators don’t begin their days by reading my blog. If I want to communicate with them, I need to choose a different format.
Perhaps the place for me to start is to express my appreciation and admiration for the teachers who put their lives on the line every day in our schools.
South Dakota consistently ranks the lowest in the nation in terms of teacher compensation. For the years we have lived in this state teacher pay has ranked 51st of the states (the District of Columbia is added to the 50 states in the rankings). Beyond the measure of financial compensation, polls such as WalletHub rank other factors such as stress, support, curriculum debates and other factors. Once again South Dakota comes out on the bottom of all of the states. It isn’t just that teachers in South Dakota rank at the bottom in terms of compensation and opportunity for advancement. Their academic and work environment is among the most stressful of jobs in the nation.
It is no wonder that there is a shortage of teachers in our state.
I’m no politician and I realize that it is a bit unfair for me to sit here rarely even visiting the state Capitol and criticize the work of our legislators and governor. I understand that we are the ones who have elected those officials. Still, I am very skeptical about the willingness of our governor and legislator to significantly address the lack of support for education in our state.
If South Dakota is going to be a leader in the nation, I would much prefer for us to lead in welcoming tourists, or sustainable agriculture. I am sad that instead we seem to be leading the nation in nonstop attacks against our K-12 teachers in our public schools. These attacks are simply unfair.
Yes, we have problems in public education. South Dakota, especially western South Dakota, leads the nation in childhood poverty. Nearly a quarter of the children in our schools are coming to school hungry. And hungry brains don’t work well. Instead of addressing entrenched poverty and seeking to solve the problems of neglected children, our legislators have chosen to blame the teachers. Punitive high stakes testing with the mistaken assumption that poor performance on tests is the result of poor teaching is combined in our state with legislators who keep adjusting the content of curricula without regard to academic research and knowledge of how children learn.
No wonder excellent teachers keep moving out of our state.
No wonder our children move out of state as soon as they obtain an education.
No wonder capable teachers take early retirement when they have much to give.
I understand that there are plenty of people who want to force failure on public education in order to make privatization a more attractive option. It is only natural that people will look at the combined totals of dollars that are invested in education and want to realize some of those dollars as personal profit.
I believe, however, that it is our obligation to teach all of our children instead of just some of them. I believe that the education of children living in poverty is just as critical to a balanced society as the education of children born into wealth.
I’m generally pretty hesitant about wading into politics in my blog, but it is time for we, the citizens of South Dakota to say to our legislators, “Enough!” The path that we have taken in the past two decades is crushing teachers and kids alike. It is failing not only our children, but the whole of society.
Dear Governor Dugaard and members of the South Dakota legislature: Stop evading the real issues. Lets deal with the problems of entrenched poverty, and discrimination in our state. For once, why not debate educational funding at the opening of the session instead of leaving education funding until all of the other expensive legislation has passed?
Instead of demonizing teachers, why not address the upstream problems over which teachers have no control? I realize it is easier to point the finger of blame at teachers than to buckle down and do your own work, but quite frankly, the problem isn’t with our teachers.
If one wants to blame, a good place to look is our state legislature. I’d like to see a day in every session that would require our legislators to listen to high schoolers debate the issues before the assembly. Perhaps our legislators could be taught the art of debate. Currently there is virtually no listening going on in our sessions. Grandstanding is not productive. Solutions do not come from lunches with highly paid lobbyists. South Dakota is particularly vulnerable to legislation that is written by out of state persons funded by deep pocket investors who want to try out their schemes in our state before moving on to other, more expensive states.
If we can’t get our legislators to actually write the bills upon which the act, how about requiring that they read them? If our legislators had to pass a reading comprehension test on the content of the bills upon which they vote, their scores would be considerably lower than the test scores they use to attack our teachers.
Enough ranting for one day. I am not the only South Dakotan who is frustrated. And I confess that I have been mostly silent in my frustration. And silence can be complicity in a democracy. I know the governor and legislators don’t begin their days by reading my blog. If I want to communicate with them, I need to choose a different format.
Perhaps the place for me to start is to express my appreciation and admiration for the teachers who put their lives on the line every day in our schools.