Last updated on 2013.02.05
Republican Representatives Jacqueline Sly and Dan Dryden of Rapid City take to the Mitchell Daily Republic to flack for Referred Law 16, Governor Dennis Daugaard's really bad bucket of ideology to "reform" K-12 education. They mask their propaganda as seven "facts." These "facts" require some explanation.
Fact 1: The "Critical Needs Scholarship Program" will create 100 scholarships a year for students majoring in education for their junior and senior years who agree to teach in a critical needs teaching field. Critical needs will be determined based upon a survey of local school districts. The scholarships will equate to full tuition and fees at a state university, and recipients will be required to teach in a critical needs field for five years in South Dakota after graduation. The program begins in the 2013-14 school year [Rep. Jacqueline Sly and Rep. Dan Dryden, "Votes on Referred Law 16 should be based on the facts," Mitchell Daily Republic, October 11, 2012].
Sly and Dryden ignore the fact that the scholarships offered will not make up for the earning power new teachers will lose by tying themselves down for five years to South Dakota's lowest-in-the-nation teaching salaries instead of seeking employment in any neighboring state.
Fact 2: The "Math and Science Teacher Incentive Program" will reward the state's best middle school and high school math and science teachers — those who are evaluated as "distinguished" or "proficient" on the state evaluation system — with an annual bonus of $2,500. This program begins in the 2014-15 school year [Sly and Dryden, 2012].
Sly and Dryden fail to justify singling out math and science teachers for these bonuses over the English teachers who teach kids how to read their math and science books, or civics teachers who teach kids how to use their math and science skills as responsible citizens.
Fact 3: The "Top Teacher Rewards Program" allows local school districts to create their own plans to reward teachers based upon student achievement, teacher leadership, or local critical needs. Districts will receive approximately $1,000 per teacher to set up their local plans. Each district can opt out entirely if they choose.
A third option schools can use is the original proposal to give $5,000 bonuses to the top 20 percent of teachers. The program begins in the 2014-15 school year [Sly and Dryden, 2012].
Giving merit pay to the top 20% of teachers is not "a third option"; it is the default policy that RL 16 imposes on every school district in the state. Schools must apply for permission to opt out of this default policy. Schools get to pursue options only if they receive the approval of a bureaucratic panel in Pierre that answers to the Governor.
Fact 4: The law removes the state mandate that requires districts to grant continuing contract to teachers. (It is sometimes called "tenure.") This takes effect on July 1, 2016. Teachers who receive continuing contracts prior to that date will not lose continuing contract status. Local districts will still be allowed to extend continuing contract if they choose, but it will no longer be required by the state [Sly and Dryden, 2012].
The state is taking away from teachers a fundamental protection of due process rights. Indeed, school boards can decide on an individual basis to maintain these due process rights. But Sly, Dryden, and the state are abdicating their obligation to protect good teachers from being fired for bad reasons.
Fact 5: The law creates a new statewide evaluation system for teachers and principals, as one component of the state's new school accountability system. The state is replacing No Child Left Behind with a state-created system that will create student assessments and measure schools on a variety of factors [Sly and Dryden, 2012].
RL 16 takes away local school boards' and administrators' ability to evaluate teachers according to their best knowledge and practice. It replaces that local control with a toxic system in which 50% of a teacher's job rating hinges on standardized tests, which will water down excellence.
Fact 6: Several advisory committees are created to allow for more input from educators as these programs are implemented over the next three school years [Sly and Dryden, 2012].
Reps. Sly, Dryden, and others did not listen to the educators who, along with the general public, overwhelmingly told the Legislature last winter not to pass House Bill 1234, which is now on the ballot as RL 16. We can't trust the Legislature to accord any greater respect to the educators who try to make a stand for evidence-based, effective school policy on the mess of bureaucratic committees called to action by this bad law.
Fact 7: Once fully implemented, these proposals will be funded by the state at a level of $15 million a year, on top of regular formula funding for K-12 education. The money will go directly to the teachers, above and beyond their salary paid by the school district [Sly and Dryden, 2012].
Support for HB 1234 in the Legislature was so tenuous that Republican leaders had to remove all funding from it this year to ensure that it would get enough votes to pass. Sly and Dryden are promising money that they didn't have the guts to appropriate this year and which they cannot guarantee will be appropriated in any coming year. And besides, if we have $15 million to pour into education, we should spend it on policies that research has proven to work, not the ideological fantasies of Rep. Sly, Rep. Dryden, and Governor Daugaard.
I think the point is that the bill was not well crafted, and was more or less rammed through without enough study or input. That is not the best way to deal with complex legislation such as HB 1234, especially in the area of education which touches just about everyone in the state.
Some of the concepts in the bill might be worth pursuing, while others should just be jettisoned. Generally a Governor who is serious about such matters develops legislation after having lots of study and input by in-state stakeholders. This bill is jerry-rigged from model legislation taken from ALEC or some outfit that wants to sell something (teacher evaluation protocol?) to the state.
Important, complex and controversial legislation generally gets a lot of study before introduction. This one didn't. An interim study or a Governor-sponsored study committee would have involved taking expert testimony on the pros and cons of various concepts in the bill. Taking the time to understand mechanics of teacher evaluation protocols beforehand would have made more sense than setting up the study after the fact. Right now it's just a pig in a poke, and it leads to mistrust.
This is the educators' version of the Midwest Nuclear Waste Compact in 1984.
If we call it merit pay / bonus pay for teachers its sure to fail. Headline "Governor plans to pay teachers $15 million extra in merit pay" "Governor says SD teachers under paid- plans $15 million bonus pay program"
Cory are you in favor of Obama's 15 member bureaucratic panel allowing or not allowing life saving medical procedures for patients but against Governor Daugaard's bureaucratic panel giving money to teachers?
Charlie - Don't play the dumb card. You know there is no "death panel" and that the panel you just described does not function that way. The panel's mission is not to micromanage treatment, but to set policies on a much broader view of treatment for all care instances and to prevent unneeded cost overruns. Now, an alleged conservative like you should appreciate limiting unneeded cost overruns.
charlie's in favor of nothing.
Cory, Thank you for the excellent rebuttal to Reps. Sly and Dryden "Fact Sheet."
Don, I would say you've summed up the situation quite well. I would also add the "strong arming" of the Gov's Office with the billboard veto an act of politics many citizens find distasteful.
It's my belief that HB 1234 was also used as a distraction to take the focus off the fundamental issue of adequately funding our schools. As Supt. Hollbeck of Harrisburg so aptly stated in his testimony, "Our schools aren't broken, they're broke."
Thank you, Sue! You're right: RL 16 is all about strongarm tactics and distraction from necessary policy.
I read Charlie's comment too quickly. I was ready to hammer him for getting off topic by repeating Paul Ryan's and Pat Boone's baloney. There is no such panel that performs such predations on health care. And yes, I do support the Affordable Care Act as a temporary measure until we get the guts to enact universal non-profit single-payer health coverage.
But I do see the logical connection Charlie makes between ObamaCare and RL16. It demonstrates the gross inconsistency on the Republican side. They kick and scream when Democrats create a mere advisory panel which has no power to "restrict benefits or eligibility, increase premiums or taxes, or 'ration' health care." But they bend over backwards to defend real infringements on local control when their Governor wants to wield his power over people he doesn't like (i.e., us teachers).
You voted for HB 1234, Charlie: you know full well that the Local Teacher Reward Plan Oversight Board, five out of seven of whom serve at the pleasure of the Governor, controls whether or not schools get to follow their own plans or whether they have to use your preferred default plan for merit pay. The locals have no control here. Do you still support that top-down control?
Cory you are absolutely right. When the governor gets to appoint the super majority to a panel that hands out our money there will be a problem. One needs only to look at what happened after the reorganization of some of the states agencies in the early70s to figure that out.
Case in point. Our GF&P commission is appointed by the Governor. They serve at the discretion of the governor and pretty much do what he ask them to do. A few years ago John Cooper, the then GF&Ps secretary, was told by our convict governor "Wild Bill Janklow" to give an elk license to a person that didn't deserve one saying that he the governor had that right. Then Cooper went along with this person and also hunted elk and proceeded to break not only state law but the Mann Act as well.
Cooper has said that at the time he thought there was something wrong with what he was doing but did it anyway because Janklow told him it was alright. Now we know it was not.
Cooper not only kept his job as the secretary but was then appointed to the commission to serve the next two governors. Tell me what's right about that.
When one man has that much power it is bound to have bad consequences in the end. Lets put a stop to it now when we have the opportunity to do so.
Just like the teachers of our state the GF&Ps has really great men and women that are doing the work in the field. The problem is at the top of the pile of dung, the secretary and the commission. When you want to fix something in government you have to restructure from the top down not from the bottom up. If you leave the same people "that the governor appoints" the problem will only get worse not better.
The Blindman