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SB 165 and 85 Hack Small-School Money

Wait a minute: I thought Scott Munsterman campaigned as a friend of the small schools. Now Rep. Munsterman (R-7/Brookings) is the sole House sponsor of Senate Bill 165, which would reduce the small school adjustment in the state funding formula by ten percent.

I see the Minnehaha County Democrats are meeting Tuesday night, Feb. 1, at 7 p.m. at the county administration building. Perhaps in the midst of their discussion of Governor Daugaard's imperilment of education in general with his budget cuts, my big-city friends can include some discussion of how to spare their small-town neighbors from the ire of their Senators Heineman and Peters.

Joining Munsterman in beating up small schools: Senators Pam Heineman (R-13/Sioux Falls), Elizabeth Kraus (R-33/Rapid City), and Deb Peters (R-9/Hartford). Peters is a well-known advocate of punishing small schools for their success, especially since small schools keep out-competing her home district of West Central in attracting open enrollees.

These four Republicans join several other big-town legislators in sponsoring SB 85, which would calculate aid for smaller schools on the basis only of resident enrolled students. Schools would get no extra money to cover the expense of educating students who take advantage of South Dakota's open enrollment laws to choose a school they think better meets their needs. This bill piles on with SB 77, which could deny schools the ability to provide transportation for open enrollees.

Oh well, so much for the Republican commitment to school choice and competition.

p.s.: None of the four legislators named above appears as a sponsor on the bipartisan HB 1205, which orders the Department of Education to spend the $26,292,261 in federal education stimulus dollars on education, the way the money was intended, not as a budget-balancer in other non-education areas as the state executive plans.

One Comment

  1. snapper 2011.01.31

    Corey,

    This is a little off topic but I just wanted to say that I may be more conservative than you but your blog has quickley become a better blog that the DWC. Since Powers left that thing has crumbled into a poor pathetic image of its former self. I don't know what they are doing with the style and layout and it's hard to read. It also has rarely anything original and offers little opinion like it used to.

    Keep up the good work! I'm a new reader.

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