I'm Pretty Sure I Told You So

This blog's January 2, 2015 post contained the following:

There will be talk but little action on anything relating to education funding.

Technically my predication might be wrong. The "blue ribbon" commission will likely talk about talking about education rather than actually doing anything about it. As a side note, I'll predict that the final report of the "blue ribbon" (I'm working really hard not to call it a Pabst) commission's findings will mirror Governor Daugaard's voter rejected HB 1234.

That same post contained the following prediction about the budget process:

At some point near the end of the session Republican leaders will bemoan a tight budget and without any sense of chagrin or irony congratulate themseleves on increasing all "rainy day trust funds" to record levels. 

Today's Yankton Press and Dakotan reports the following comment from Republican Representative Jean Hunhoff:

According to Jean Hunhoff, the projection is not going to be as great as everyone has thought.

“You remember when the governor put forth his budget in December?” Rep Hunhoff asked. “We were looking at fiscal year ‘15, which is this current year that we had about $26 million extra. We are seeing ... with some early returns that we will have a soft economy. And right now, we are down to having about $ 12 million (or surplus) instead of that $26 million. So, there are going to have to be some reductions there. As we look in the future for Fiscal Year ‘16, with the outlook right now, things aren’t looking so rosy.”

Of course one doesn't need to be Nostradamus, Cassandra, Tiresias, or Edgar Cayce to predict something that will happen during nearly every legislative session.

South Dakota Average Teacher Pay Lower Than It Was In 2000

The Associated School Boards of South Dakota blog (The ASBSD maintains a blog? Who know?) reports "plenty of concern over teacher shortage." The post repeats some testimony before last month's Legislative Planning Committee hearing, much of which had been previously tweeted.

The post does contain a few important new tidbits, however. First, average teacher pay in South Dakota has fallen since 1999-2000:

Low salaries for teachers were one of the main issues cited for the shrinking teacher pool. Monson noted since the 1999-2000 school year Wyoming raised teacher pay by 24 percent, North Dakota 15 percent and Nebraska seven percent.

During that same time period South Dakota decreased salaries by 0.6 percent. South Dakota also ranks last in the nation in average teacher pay.

Even if one accepts that South Dakota had far more teachers retire than its neighboring states did and, therefore, hired far more young teachers who are earning entry level paychecks, the fact that pay is lower now than it was last century should be enough for most legislators to see the need to dramatically increase education funding.

The post also reminds readers "a study released this spring by the S.D. Budget and Policy Project showed that a South Dakota teacher’s salary has the same buying power as it did in 1969." The cynic in me believes that date might move some of the more conservative legislators to action. As a general rule staunch conservatives rail against the 1960s as the source of all evil.

I remain skeptical, however, that the legislature will do anything. Legislators on the committee seem to have ruled out any new revenue sources and want to rely on failed gimmicks.

Sen. Bruce Rampelberg said he didn't believe a tax could be passed through legislature. Sen. Mike Vehle asked if pieces of the controversial House Bill 1234, which focused on merit pay for teachers and was repealed by voters in 2012, could be used to improve teacher pay.

“If you’re going to dramatically change the way we pay teachers, teachers have to be at the table from day one,” [Rapid City Superintendent Tim] Mitchell said. 

Mitchell is absolutely correct, but the odds of Governor Daugaard and the Republican legislative leadership inviting teachers to the table are slightly worse than the odds that Senator Ted Cruz and President Obama will exchange a bro hug after a comprehensive immigration reform bill passes congress and is signed into law.

Catching Up A Bit

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
--Robert Burns "To a Mouse"

I had hoped my ability to juggle debate season and blogging would improve during December. I was wrong. In fact, December gave me less time to read blogs than November did. Further, I had hoped to pick up blogging last week, but a nasty cold/flu bug knocked on my backside for most of the week. I do hope to have a regular blogging schedule for the legislative session.

I won't bemoan the fact that I missed the opportunity to discuss the Duck Dynasty stupidity or the new entrants in the South Dakota Senate race. Instead, I'll try to look forward a bit.

The legislative session will begin soon, and one can expect a heady mix of pablam and inane proposals. A prime example of the former, comes from HCR 1001 which concludes:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty-Ninth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South Dakota Legislature supports and appreciates all the collaboration that is already taking place among the state's school districts, and encourages further cooperative efforts to provide all the state's students with the best educational opportunities possible.

More importatnly, the resolution contends that cooperation is necessary because many schools lack resources:

WHEREAS, school districts across the state, and especially those in remote, rural areas, sometimes lack the staff and resources needed to provide students with the course offerings, co-curricular activities, or other educational services or opportunities that are necessary or would serve to enhance the students' learning and educational experiences; and

WHEREAS, by working together, school districts can overcome many of the challenges they face by sharing programs, equipment and other resources, and staff, including administrators, teachers, and counselors

I suppose one should be thankful the resolution doesn't contain a self-congratulatory note that the legislators commend themselves for resolving to return education funding to levels it had five years ago.  One wonders, however, if if the authors are saving their support for the opinion that pictures of puppies, kittens and angels should be considered cute for a separate piece of legislation.

Everything Should Be Pay As You Go

Yesterday's Yankton Press & Dakotan printed a letter from Dennis J. Muser of Pierre. Mr. Muser contends:

I think that the real question is WHO is responsible for the education of children? The simple answer in three words — PARENTS, PARENTS, PARENTS! The point being, if schools really do need more funding, it is way past time that parents start paying tuition to their public schools rather than relying on the coercive power of government to hit property owners, etc.

 Let's leave aside the little technicality that the South Dakota Constitution mandates "it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge . . ."

In fact, let's take this suggestion out to its logical conclusion. I'm sick of government using its coercive power to tax gasoline. Let's run everything on a pay as you go system.. Let's put a ticket machine at the end of each driveway and the entrance to every roadway so that drivers pay every time we drive. Drivers can grab a ticket when they enter a roadway and pay when they leave. It doesn't matter if they're driving from their home to the nearest Walmart or from Walla Walla, Washington to Washington DC. Everyone should pay every time he or she drives.

I suppose bicyclists could pay a lower rate because they cause less wear and tear on the road, but with a pay as you use system, they'd have some skin in the game. Right now, they're freeloaders using the public roadways without paying gas taxes that fund roads. They even have the gall to complain if someone driving a 4x4 pickup runs them over. Skin in the game isn't the same as skin on the road. That 4x4 driver pays more for those roads than the bicyclist; he should have the right to drive from center line to shoulder as he sees fit.

People could hire their own private security forces instead of relying on police and fire department. Every individual could hire his or her own health inspector to insure that all the food one consumes is safe. That situation alone might make everyone feel like a king or queen. Didn't they have food tasters in the Middle Ages? Safety and self-esteem in one fell swoop, who could ask for anthing else?

Heck, let's do away with all taxes and rely of tariffs the way the country did for most of the 18th and 19th Centuries. A standing army is only quasi-constitutional anyway.

Trying The Same Thing That Didn't Work, Only Harder

Wayne Lewis, a survivor of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression discusses the attitude that many during the Depression possessed:

“We always had hope that next year was gonna be better. We learned slowly, and what didn’t work, you tried it harder the next time. You didn’t try something different. You just tried harder, the same thing that didn’t work.”

That attitude seems remarkably similar to that of South Dakota's K-12 education community, a group that continually trusts the legislature and the governor to provide adequate funding. Every year, school boards and teachers get the same negative results. Each year, they continue to try the same methods that didn't work during the previous legislative session.

Most importantly, like the Dust Bowl farmers, the education community shows it knows how to work hard.; they work harder to use the same methods on the same legislators every year.

Quotation Of The Day: Snapshot Of America Edition

From the Huffington Post:

Friday nights in the Dallas suburb of Allen are about to become even more larger-than-life, as the Allen Independent School District prepares to open a new $60 million stadium for its high school football team. . . .

Allen Eagle Stadium's construction continued even as Texas lawmakers cut the state's education funding by $4 billion, reducing all school district tax rates by about one-third in 2006. By the 2011-2012 school year, Allen was facing a $4.5 million budget shortfall and was forced to cut 44 teaching positions and 40 support positions through attrition and voluntary buyouts.

While the simultaneous educational budget cuts and glamorous stadium construction yielded an incongruous couple, the school's operating budget stood separate from construction. So in October 2011, Allen voters agreed to increase property tax rates by $0.13 to offset state education cuts.

(HT: Rod Dreher)

South Dakota School Funding Gets Graded

A report of education funding in each state entitled Is Funding Fair finds wide disparities exist:

• The national average funding level, adjusted to account for student poverty, regional wage variation, economies of scale, and population density, is $10,774 per pupil, a $642 increase over the estimate in the 2010 report.

• The highest funded states are those in the northeastern region of the country, with the exception of Wyoming and Alaska. The lowest funded states predominate in the South and West.

I have only been able to skim the executive summary.  South Dakota earns a B in fairness and an F in state effort.

Valerie Strauss puts the report in perspective with a bit more nuance:

Legislators can extend the school day, force new tests on students and link the scores to a teacher’s job, but a new analysis about disparities in school funding raises the uncomfortable question of just how effective any reforms can really be when issues of equity are ignored.

Governor  Daugaard may believe that South Dakota is being fair, so he can push through politically inspired reforms like HB 1234.  Strauss, however, continues:

Adequate funding, of course, is not the definitive answer to public education’s problems, but it is certainly a necessary if not dispositive prerequisite.

South Dakota's governor and legislature seem to be doing a great job of illustrating the difference between fairness and justice.  South Dakota is fairly distributing the results of it's inadequate effort but that doesn't mean the effort justly provides students the resources they are due.

On Education Issues It's RomBama Or OBamNey

The lede from this Fiscal Times article sums it up.

On the surface at least, President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney see eye to eye on a number of key education issues:

Both politicians place great store in standardized testing to evaluate teacher performance and student progress, and both generally back former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program. Both favor charter schools as an alternative to failing public schools and merit pay to attract better teachers. And both have had their run-ins with teachers unions.

The rest of the article discusses their more substantive differences on student loans.

At the K-12 level, however, the only difference seems to be that Obama wants to spend more money.  Does that fact mean Pearson will support Obama?

SD Education Leaders And School Funding

The SD Rushmore Political Action Committee trumpets that "Education Leaders Have Positive Outlook On Gov. Daugaard's Budget Proposal."  The post links to this article that contains the damning faint praise such as

“This budget puts South Dakota schools back on track to regular increases using the current formula in statute,” said Linda Whitney, Sanborn Central Superintendent of Schools. “After a tough year last year, we appreciate the Governor's commitment to a return to the funding formula.”

Let's parse that a bit.  Whitney doesn't say she's happy with the funding; she's just happy there won't be cuts and that the Governor intends to "return to the funding formula."

The article also contains these paragraphs:

Jason Selchert, President of South Dakota United Schools’ Association and Gayville-Volin superintendent of schools, affirmed his organization’s optimism for the FY13 budget.

“SDUSA is a group of 111 school districts and we support the premise of the budget. Our schools are committed to working with Governor Daugaard and the legislature to have a positive discussion about the future of education in South Dakota. This budget signals an interest from the Governor in having those discussions, and we hope the Governor and legislature will continue to work with schools in the future.”

Again, Selchert doesn't support the actual numbers; he supports "the premise of the budget" and expresses "hope the Governor and legislature will continue to work with schools in the future.”  Hope and support are not necessarily synonyms

Allow me to offer a visual of what the administrators are saying..

With all due respect the fine administrators of Gayville-Volin and Sanborn Central along with the 111 schools of the South Dakota United Schools Association, I'm certain that they represent fewer than half of the students in the state.  Without the stats in front of me, I'm guessing they represent approximately a third.  I'm certain that a consensus is not built on faint praise from leaders representing a third of the state's students.

The post continues,

why is South Dakota being sold on a TAX INCREASE whose supposed purpose is to fill budget gaps in education. Its not right that we are being asked to pay more in taxes to solve a problem that the Governor has already addressed.

Let's be clear, I'm not sure I'm going to vote for the sales tax increase.  I'm not convinced that the legislature and Governor won't alter the funding formula so that only the sales tax revenue provided by the initiated measure funds schools.

More importantly, the sales tax is the most regressive tax imaginable, especially when food is not exempted.

I don't care if one opposes or supports the sales tax initiative, but I do care when one misrepresents the situation.

 

Texas Cuts University Physics Programs

I have said that STEM ought not be the only thing, but the STEM disciplines are an important part of education.  In Texas, Rick Perry's Higher Education Coordinating Board apparently disagrees about physics.  According to The Texas Tribune, "Budget Woes, Calls for Efficiency Imperil Physics":

[T]he Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the agency that approves and disapproves degree programs, implemented a more stringent annual review system for eliminating those with low enrollment. Programs that fail to graduate an average of five students per year over five years face being cut (current students would be allowed to graduate, but new enrollment would be halted).

As a result of an arbitrary number,

Nearly 60 percent of the state’s undergraduate physics programs failed to meet the initial bar. According to the American Physical Society, a professional society of physicists, if the same 25-students-in-5- years standard were applied nationally, 526 of about 760 programs would be shuttered.

I may not be a STEM person, but I'm fairly certain that physics is a needed for most science and engineering careers.  Cutting physics at the university level sends a strong message about one's views of the role of the university.  Texas physics professor Carlos Handy sums up the situation quite well:

“Physics is a true canary in the mine, so to speak, of judging America’s capabilities in terms of science, . . . If you let physics go, it’s symptomatic of the fact that something has eroded in the intellectual capacity of academic institutions.”

It's a safe bet that the South Dakota legislature will once again cut K-12 and university education funding.  As they consider these cuts, I hope, probably foolishly, legislators stop to consider the harm that further cuts will do to the core capacities of educational institutions.

Still More Musings About Reforming Education With Values And Plan Planks, Sort Of

In a comment to the previous post Cory asks,

So to win, do we need to shout more loudly, or do we need to find judges with different paradigms?

If I may be permitted another debate analogy, we need both an extra-topical and an effectually topical plan that both wins on the facts and changes mindsets.

Let me offer two quick observations.  First, I apologize for the debate jargon sprinkled throughout the post. I'll try to keep it to a minimum. Second, I'm not sure I know how to accomplish any of what follows, but every task needs a to do list of some sort.

I have three points at the value level.  First, teachers need to stop with the "save the children" talk.  There's an organization that has trademarked that terminology already.  It has a website.  The other people who "love" children are parents and babysitters.  Neither gets paid very well for "saving" or "loving" children.  Further, it's hard to claim that education is worth paying professionals to do if those professionals use the same phrases as a tweener who will be raving about Lady Gaga 5 seconds after she explains how much she "loves" taking care of someone else's child.

Second, educators have to embrace the fact that they are the machines and robots of the educational industry. Most people are willing to pay for farm machinery and factory robots.  When those same people hear that 80% of a school's budget goes to salary and benefits, they assume their tax dollars are overpaying a bunch of babysitters.

Third, administrators need to learn some technological history to get better bang for the buck.  They go for the new or flashy when they should be trying to determine which technology will win. Further, they need to do more to determine how people will use the tech or react to it. 

For example, Betamax may have been a better product, but it lost to VHS.  Most people use microwave ovens as overpriced popcorn poppers that produces rather awful popcorn that might be bad for one's health. In the past couple of years, schools initiated laptop projects at a time when tablets seem set to become the dominant technology.  Right now, I'm willing to bet that the best bet would be to issue Kindles or Nooks.

More importantly, people a little older than I am may use technology, but they are uncomfortable with it,  They are also the ones who have the biggest financial resources, and they vote.  If they think money is being wasted on expensive toys, schools are in trouble.

Now for the extra-topical plan planks.

During every legislative session, someone should introduce a bill making four years of college free for South Dakota residents at South Dakota schools.  The idea that education needs to be a lifelong event needs to get ingrained.  I know it will never pass but having the argument every year will make.

Find or create a South Dakota equivalent to Politifact.  The big lies are too easy to tell and too easy to believe.  Right now, bloggers and reports who call out those who tell the "whoppers" are marginalized as "liberals" which in South Dakota is a dirty word.

The time may have come to eliminate local school boards and replace them with something like county school boards that hire a county superintendent.  I would hope that some of the small school vs large school problem would go a way.

Finally, I'd offer this "kritik-like" plan plank.  This South Dakota Supreme Court decision states,

We agree with the plaintiffs that the language of South Dakota’s Constitution means that all children are entitled to a free, adequate, and quality public education. The constitutional language and intent of the framers guarantee the children of South Dakota a constitutional right to an education that provides them with the opportunity to prepare for their future roles as citizens, participants in the political system, and competitors both economically and intellectually. The constitutional mandate does not contemplate a system that fails to educate all children or leaves pockets of inadequate conditions and achievement as a result of insufficient funding. As General Beadle so eloquently stated, “The genius of the poorest must have equal chance with the opportunity of the rich.” (italics in original)

The ruling seems to lack a definition of "adequate."  It also doesn't seem to define "prepare" or explain what's necessary to fulfill one's role as a citizen or economic competitor.  Given the vague nature of the state's constitution and the opinion, it seems that every South Dakota legislature's budget should have an "educational impact statement" or the equivalent that explains how the funding is "adequate" to prepare students for "their future roles as citizens, participants in the political system, and competitors both economically and intellectually."  I'm not sure if this requirement needs to be issued by a court or by the legislature, but the conversation must be moved from money first to preparation first.


I am now open for cross examination and points of clarification.

A Different Debate Analogy For The South Dakota Supreme Court Decision

At the Madville Times, Cory compares the South Dakota Supreme Court decision upholding the state's education funding formula to a high school debate round.  He writes,

In high school debate terms, we could say the plaintiffs won the Lincoln-Douglas battle but lost the policy war on Harms and perhaps Inherency (which is still a voting issue).

I have not read the decision as carefully as Cory has but it strikes me that a different debate analogy is in order.  Also, public forum debate needs to be included in the analogy.

I don't see much "inherency."  Instead the value debate looks like a critique of the system.  It seems that the plaintiffs lost because they ran a critical case with potential harms in front of a stock issues panel that said "no link, no brink, no harm."

To begin the public forum debate analogy, South Dakota judges may not need to follow the elections.  Living in a one-party state affords them that luxury.  That being said, however, it's pretty clear that the "grand crossfire" sections of all debate being held in the greater public forum are being won by those who hold a very minimal view of the word "adequate." 

The sad part of the comparison is that high school public forum grand crossfires frequently become incomprehensible shouting matches.  In the broader general public, the grand crossfire is also being won by those who shout the loudest, not those with the better argument.

South Dakota Needs More Liberals

The prolific and indefatigable Cory Heidelberger has added the writing of a South Dakota Magazine column to his regular posting at The Madville Times.  I'm happy for Cory, but when I next see him, I will, of course, FACETIOUSLY accuse him of selling out like some great indie band that recorded a pop album just to get mainstream acclaim.

Cory's intro post explains why he is a proud denizen of the political left.  He also asks but does not answer "Is there a 'left wing' in our state?"  I will now take the role of the smart aleck student who answers what is surely a rhetorical question: "There is nothing resembling an organized political Left in South Dakota!"

Senator Tim Johnson is the lone Democrat to hold a major office.  The state senate features only five Democrats; the party holds fewer than one-third of the seats in the state house.  Off the top of my head, I can think of only two members of the state legislature that I would consider "liberals" or "leftists" as those terms are currently used: Representative Frank Kloucek and Senator Angie Buhl.

I want an organized liberal opposition in South Dakota not because I'm part of the left but because I enjoy occupying the center.  Right now, the absence of a viable left produces little but bad policy options like a sales tax increase to fund education and Medicaid.

South Dakota may need to increase taxes to fund education, but the sales tax is a regressive tax.  South Dakota multiplies that regressivity by not exempting groceries.  In fact, The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy lists South Dakota as one the nation's 10 most regressive states.  Should this tax pass, the state will become more regressive not less.

If there were a liberal opposition with a chance of gaining a majority in either the state senate or house, it's possible that the conservative Republican majority would have to move to the center.  Now, they move the state's political center to the right.  The result of that political movement is that the people least able to pay will may be forced to spend more on necessities.

South Dakota Leads And Follows In The Wrong Way

A new report shows that South Dakota made deep cuts to its budget despite having a greater percentage of its budget available in reserve funds than most other states.

The Center on Policy and Budget Priorities has analyzed 2011-2012 state budgets and determined that the cuts are deep and long lasting.

Of the 47 states with newly enacted budgets, 38 or more states are making deep, identifiable cuts in K-12 education, higher education, health care, or other key areas in their budgets for fiscal year 2012.

Further, CPBP has determined "the vast majority of states (37 of 44 states for which data are available) plan to spend less on services in 2012 than they spent in 2008 – in some cases, much less."

In the "this is not exactly news department," the study found

At least 23 states have made identifiable cuts in support for public schools. In many cases, these cuts undermine school finance systems that are intended to reduce disparities between high-wealth and low-wealth school districts, so the largest impacts may be felt in communities that are least able to compensate for the loss of funds from their own resources.

The report reminds South Dakotan that "South Dakota cut K-12 education by 6.4 percent, next year, an amount equal to $416 per student, and 8.8 percent in 2013."

Further, ". . . 25 states have made large, identifiable cuts in funding for state colleges and universities, with direct impacts on students."  Again, CPBP reminds us that South Dakota joined that trend.

South Dakota cut higher education (and most other agencies) by 10 percent. The Board of Regents voted to raise tuition by 6.9 percent, or $490 per student, on average. The tuition increase covers only part of the loss of state funding, and each university has to determine how it will make up for the remaining loss of funds.

Of course, everyone in South Dakota remembers that "South Dakota cut Medicaid funding by 6.6 percent. This includes an average provider rate cut of 7 percent, which may cause some doctors to stop taking new patients or to drop existing patients."  Whereas, a majority of states cut education, the report shows that fewer that half of the states cut health care.  According to CPBP, "[a]t least 20 states have made deep, identifiable cuts in health care that will reduce access to care for low-income children, seniors, families and people with disabilities."

South Dakota, however, was one of only "a handful of states [that] held onto substantial reserve funds they have drawn on to avoid some cuts to public services. Specifically, six states that faced shortfalls for fiscal year 2012 entered their budget deliberations this past spring with rainy day funds equaling about 5 percent of fiscal year 2011 spending."   South Dakota has reserves equal to 11% of the 2012 budget according to the report.

In short, South Dakota's governor and legislature cut deeper than they had to.  Further, as Bernie Hunhoff reminds readers in a Yankton Press & Dakotan letter, these leaders are attempting to give corporations a tax break.  Hunhoff writes,

Another wrong-headed policy is the notion that we should rebate some of the contractor’s excise tax (which otherwise goes to the general fund for schools and health care) to big corporations who plan projects of $5 million and above, at the discretion of the governor’s office. It would replace a current program that was revealed to be a boondoggle before being terminated by the legislature in 2010 because it cost too much.

The governor’s staff told the Press & Dakotan that 80 percent or more of the new rebates will go to wind and ethanol programs. They say that now because wind and ethanol has popular support, but nothing in the state law guarantees that and it’s unlikely to occur. TransCanada Pipeline, a major competitor to wind and ethanol, has been one of the beneficiaries in the past.

This newest tax give-away program might cost even more than the one we killed in 2010, and it comes at a time when the general fund is already strapped from the recession.

Hunhoff even offers a main street solution:

. . . let’s end the contractor’s excise altogether and then the state’s coffers will grow even more.

Let’s end the tax for farmers who build a machine shed or barn. Let’s end it for the family-owned car dealership under construction north of Yankton.     Let’s end it for the two women who tore down an old building on Howard’s main street and built a new coffee shop and eatery. Let’s rebate it for the entrepreneurs who restored the old bank building on Vermillion’s Main Street into a fine steakhouse.

Let’s end it for every businessman and farmer. But let’s not let government pick winners and losers. If big projects get a rebate, Main Street should qualify for the same. Everyone should be treated alike when it comes to taxation.

We all know that raising well-educated and healthy children is the best investment a government can make in economic development and the future. We’ve cut those priorities in recent years, and no community knows it better than Yankton, where we’re now seeking charitable contributions for extra-curriculars.

So if the administration wants to write rebate checks to big companies, it should find an appropriate funding source. Don’t take even more resources away from schools and our poorest families.

I don't know what the impact Hunhoff's proposal would have, but I doubt we'll get to debate its pros and cons, the CPBP report reminds us that South Dakota's legislative leaders and governor seem to want to lead only when it will hurt the average citizen and award corporations

The Glass Is Not Only Half Empty; It's Also Cracked And Leaking

Bob Mercer put a sinking feeling in my stomach when he posted "State budget trouble is worse than expected."  Mercer reports,

. . . tax receipts through May were $3.6 million lower than the Legislature expected. Sales and use tax revenue is almost precisely on the mark in the Legislature’s estimate. But contractor excise tax revenue is $57.5 million through the 11 months of the 2011 fiscal year. That is below the $59.2 million mark for the similar period a year ago and well below the Legislature’s $63 million target for this point.

In short, Mercer's reporting hints that Daugaard and his cronies will say that less money than is expected is available, so education will have take another hit during the 2012 legislative session.

This Answer Sheet post by Jack Jennings asserts,

As tough as things were financially for school districts last year, prospects are even bleaker in the coming school year, according to data from a nationally representative sample of school districts released today by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy.

In addition to being squeezed by state and district belt-tightening, most districts will no longer have the cushion they had last year from federal stimulus funds that pumped millions of dollars into state and local education budgets.

Jennings makes my stomach churn a bit more when he provides the following statistics.

While 70 percent of school districts nationwide experienced funding cuts in the 2010-11 school year, that percentage is expected to rise to 84 percent in the coming 2011-12 school year — and 63 percent of these districts expect cuts to exceed 5 percent of their existing budgets.

I gulped a handful of Tums and added a few Rolaids after reading this nugget.

School systems are experiencing a triple whammy. Federal resources are drying up at the same time that state budgets are being cut and revenues from local property taxes are shrinking due to falling housing prices and foreclosures.

I've often been called a pessimist.  I prefer to think of myself as a realist, but no matter what one calls oneself, it's pretty clear that South Dakota schools can expect more funding cuts in 2012

The Tea Party Thinks I'm A Fascist Who Indoctrinates Children

Writing for The Washington Monthly, Steve Benen reports that Rick Santorum, Republican candidate for President, claims that public schools should be called "government run schools" and over the weekend implied that public education is not unlike Mussolini's Brown Shirts.  According to Benen, Chuck Norris calls schools "indoctrination camps."  Michelle Bachman claims "home schooling is the 'essence' of freedom and liberty. 'It's about knowing our children better than the state knows our children,' she said."

When I was in high school, my father often told me, "It never occurs to a boy of 16 that he'll be as dumb as his old man someday."  Other versions of the truism set the age of this epiphany at either age 26 or 32.  I'm on the wrong side of 50, so I must have been a slow learner, but I'm certainly willing to admit that he was far more intelligent than I gave him credit for when I was younger.

My father also frequently told me, "You may have to know it for a test, but you don't have to believe it."  I suggest that Norris, Santorum, and Bachman all listen to my father.  If you're worried about kids being indoctrinated, then tell them your version of the truth.  Remind them that they may have to learn facts but they don't have to believe any of them.  In short, be a parent.

Also, know what you believe.  Norris asks, "What happens when the political and public educational pendulum swings from concern for the tyranny of sectarianism in Jefferson's day to secularism in ours?"  As I said earlier, I may be a slow learner, but Chuck's question seems to indicate that he's worried that public schools are hostile toward religion.  As a religious person, Chuck should remember Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  If you believe it, live the belief.  My father taught me that too.

Chuck and Michelle and Herman Cain, who believes "there should be no government involvement in education at any level," and their political acolytes also usually claim that public schools are totally ineffective and that students need to be tested and that teachers need to be fired if students don't pass those tests.

As I said before, I'm a slow learner, but I'm a bit confused.  Teachers are either really terrible at their job and don't teach students, or they are such a threat that they will indoctrinate students to such a degree that students will become secular terrorists who hate their parents and become Fascists.  Maybe I've been indoctrinated so I'm missing something, but it seems that both of those things can't be possible.  I might be getting cynical here, but these claims seem like a case on not letting an inconsistent story getting in the way of cutting school funding.

It seems that Chuck, Michelle, and Herman have indoctrinated Governor Denny Daugaard pretty well.

New Melody Same Tired Lyrics

A friend emailed me this Michael Dirda review of John Armstrong's In Search of Civilization. Dirda's review contained two inspiring paragraphs.

To be civilized, Armstrong argues — with a nod toward Matthew Arnold’s influential essay “Culture and Anarchy” — each of us should strive to become our best self. This requires us to be attentive to ends rather than means. Cellphones, he observes, may allow us “to communicate more often, to take more photographs, to locate restaurants; but these resources do not automatically help us reach the ‘ends’ they ideally serve: good conversation, deep relationships, convivial evenings, the appreciation of beauty.” Whatever “the cross-currents of fashion,” we need to bear in mind those goals in life that truly matter.

Thus Armstrong doesn’t deride cellphones or any other aspect of technology, but he does emphasize that “civilization is material prosperity plus something else. The character of that something else is to do with inner life: the prosperity of the soul.” What matters is that an increase in material comfort be accompanied by a corresponding expansion in spiritual growth, by the nurturing and diffusion of “wisdom, kindness and taste.” To many, Armstrong admits, these three words will sound old-fashioned and elitist. But they shouldn’t. The real task of art and intelligence is “to shape and direct our longings, to show us what is noble and important.” Rather than happiness, per se, civilization should promote what Armstrong calls “flourishing,” a sense of personal “satisfaction grounded in character and action."

For a few hours I foolishly allowed myself to bask in the idea that educators actually help students become civilized.  We help students see technology as a tool and recognize that “civilization is material prosperity plus something else" and that one needs an "inner life: the prosperity of the soul." Literature and history help everyone attain this prosperity when students are exposed to the "'wisdom, kindness and taste'" of great thinkers from the classical to modern eras.

As Dirda notes, many will find Armstrong old-fashioned and out of fashion.  By 5 pm, I encountered such a person.  Following a tweet by @KealeySDPB, I was able to hear Kealey Bultena's interview with South Dakota's Secretary of the Department of Education Melody Schopp.  It takes Schopp approximately 20 seconds to reduce education to "an economic focus" and about 40 seconds to tell the audience that schools need to focus on STEM.  In what may go down as a gaff, an honest statement that shouldn't have been said, Schopp says that the budget crisis "is what it is" and will probably be "this way for a long time."

Let's be clear; schools need to prepare students for a job; therefore, we need to help students master higher level math and science.  That fact doesn't mean that students don't need critical thinking skills, writing skills, and abstract thinking while on the job.

Even though job preparation is important, work occupies 40 hours a week.  During the rest of the week, people eat, sleep, raise children, hopefully perform their civic duties, or engage in recreational activities.  I seriously doubt anyone with a "flourishing" life claims that the best part of the week is the 40 hours at work.  I also seriously doubt STEM will help anyone become wise, kind, or cultivated enough to flourish because STEM by its very nature focuses on ends rather than means.  It also focuses on the material not the "plus something else."  STEM isn't concerned with civilization, it's concerned with technology, a byproduct of civilization.

Finally, Schopp's admission that the budget crisis will be here a long time means that South Dakota will keep trying the same old economic development plans that rarely work.  People who want to disparage intellectuals used define an intellectual a person who thought ideas are more important than people. This sort of accusation is often made against philosophers or literature professors.  If the accusation is true, intellectuals are not nice people.

On the other hand, STEM is not even a person; it's a theory that has become a dangerous end unto itself. Wendell Berry reminds us

STEM’s definition of humanity includes no suggestion of reverence or neighborliness or stewardship. Instead, people are encouraged to think of themselves as individuals, self-interested and greedy by nature, violent by economic predestination, and members of nothing except their careers. The lives of these “autonomous” individuals will be “successful” insofar as they subserve the purposes of the corporate-political powers, who will regard them merely as consumers, votes, and units of “human capital.”

Berry also offers a bit of light at the end of the tunnel or at least a path of resistance that may preserve civilization and the values that many South Dakotans claim they hold.

. . . .you will have to refuse certain assumptions that the proponents of STEM and the predestinarians of the global economy wish you to take for granted.

You will have to avoid thinking of yourselves as employable minds equipped with a few digits useful for pushing buttons. You will have to recover for yourselves the old understanding that you are whole beings inextricably and mysteriously compounded of minds and bodies.

You will have to understand that the logic of success is radically different from the logic of vocation. The logic of what our society means by “success” supposedly leads you ever upward to any higher-paying job that can be done sitting down. The logic of vocation holds that there is an indispensable justice, to yourself and to others, in doing well the work that you are “called” or prepared by your talents to do.

SD Superintendent Salaries (Link)

I was checking traffic sources for this blog.  It doesn't take too long.  Anyway, I noticed that someone had gotten here looking for YSD Superintendent Joe Gertsema's salary.  In an effort to be a full service blogger, here's a link for the salaries of every school superintendent in South Dakota. (HT Madvilletimes)

The Political and The Personal

Over at Badlands Blue, Travis discusses a meeting he took with Pat Powers and concludes "while it is easy to get nasty on-line and make comments about people, when we meet them face to face, its usually easy to find some common ground."  It's good to be reminded of civility.

This morning, however, I am in a decidedly uncivil mood.  The Yankton Press and Dakotan details the local carnage caused by the draconian Daugaard budget.  Daugaard sold himself as a civil and an amiable person; I sure that a little web surfing will find a trite cliche that he has uttered about how difficult these decisions have been for him and how he wishes no one ill.  In short, he would assert we all must believe these decisions are not personal and that he shares the pain.  After all, a civil and amiable person would not unnecessarily cause harm.

If that's the case, these decisions are political.  It's all about the ideas.  If I may be permitted the cliche, ideas have consequences, and political ideas are more consequential then others.  That's because turning political ideas into a political reality requires forays into the personal. Politics requires garnering support and getting support requires compromise.  Political compromise often becomes a zero sum game; those whom the winners agree with get funds to provide their programs or exemptions from paying taxes that others have to pay.  Because political resources are finite, rewarding friends frequently necessitates punishing political enemies. Hence, the campaigns and the pleas for votes and the coalitions are personal as well and political.

During this past legislative session, Republicans dominated the legislature.  Many of those legislators view teachers as a Democratic monolith. Had Daugaard and his Republican legislature believed that teachers voted Republican, the budget would have been constructed differently. A different budget would mean that twenty-two people who got caught in the crosshairs of the political and the personal would still have jobs. For them, the political is inseparable from the personal.

The Price of Teacher Layoffs

The NYT reports that "As Sweeping Layoffs Loom, Schools Gird for Turmoil."  Although the report focuses on states that have a much stronger seniority system than South Dakota, the conclusion will likely apply in South Dakota as well:  “layoffs can be extremely disruptive and hurt student achievement,” said Michael Casserly, the council’s executive director. “And conditions are ripe for disruptions to be dramatic this year.”