District 4 House candidate Fred Deutsch announced earlier this month that he is one of three school board members appointed to the South Dakota Education Reform Advisory Council. That committee is one of six work groups created by Governor Dennis Daugaard's deservedly much-maligned HB 1234. Josh Verges supremely summarizes SDERAC's purpose:
Tell the Legislature how they screwed up in HB1234 and further examine education reform issues including teacher compensation; recruiting, retaining and training teachers; and other ideas for improving student achievement [Josh Verges, "Wanted: 93 People for Education Boards, Work Groups, and Advisory Councils," Not District Dialogue, 2012.03.05].
One might think that Deutsch, a loyal Republican, was selected for this committee (and that I was not, despite my clear qualifications as a teacher rep) specifically because he would not put anything on the record suggesting that his patron appointers, Sen. Bob Gray and District 4 neighbor Rep. Val Rausch, screwed up in foisting evidenceless state mandates on our K-12 schools. But recall what Deutsch said on this blog in February while the debate on HB 1234 raged in Pierre:
As good intentioned as the bill is (to raise academic achievement) we have real concerns it will undermine the foundations of our collaborate success and lead to the opposite of what's desired. I have no doubt some schools could benefit from HB1234, but not [Watertown]. It would make creating environments of academic success more difficult [Fred Deutsch, blog comment, Madville Times, 2012.02.24].
...and elsewhere...
My feeling is instead of increase academic achievement, which is what we're all trying to accomplish, it's [HB 1234] going to cause signi ficant disruption and lead to just the opposite [Fred Deutsch, quoted in The Antidote, 2012.02.21]
Rev. Rep. Steve Hickey wants to believe that chiropractors like Deutsch can straighten out the Legislature. I'll settle for Deutsch straightening out the Governor and his minions on HB 1234.
p.s.: Deutsch is the only person I can find publicly named as a member of SDERAC. I know one other board member who won't yet publicly confirm membership. The rest are mysteries. We have the names of the appointees to three of the six HB 1234 committees; where's the SDERAC roster?
pay to play?