State Representative Patricia Stricherz (R-8/Winfred) sends some thoughts that occurred to her while participating in a Board of Regents public forum last Thursday in Madison. I provide her text in full below, but permit me to highlight and annotate a few of her comments.
Rep. Stricherz says a 2% funding increase for K-12 and higher education might be "ideal." A full percentage point lower than the maximum funding increase our school funding formula used to promise seems a pretty low standard for an "ideal." At the K-12 level, I would think the ideal would be a 16% increase to put the per-student allocation back where it would have been if the state had found the will to extend 3% increases the last couple years instead of the freeze in FY 2011 and the 8.6% cut in FY 2012. At the university level, the ideal would be more like boosting state support from the today's 39% level to the 57% we contributed 11 years ago.
Rep. Stricherz offers four questions school boards ought to ask themselves to ensure they are getting the most out of each education dollar. Among them is the suggestion that they determine which classes are "critical for all graduates." I'd say that if any school boards weren't already on top of that question, this year's budget cuts focused their attention. Our legislators should be seeking to restore a funding formula that allows schools to expand opportunities for students, not a "new norm" that requires spreading staff thin, canceling electives, and offering only the bare essentials.
Rep. Stricherz falls back on a line that echoes the "poor-us" apologetics I've heard from other Republicans: "The last thing any of us wanted to do was to make cuts to education." No, the last thing Stricherz and other budget-cutting Republicans wanted was to raise taxes to access the increased wealth in our state that could have obviated the "need" to make cuts to education. A 4.28% increase in GDP putting $1.6 billion more at South Dakotans' disposal is just the kind of "good financial data" Rep. Stricherz asks for. But her Republican colleagues refuse to put that wealth to work to serve K-12 and higher education in South Dakota.
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Full text from Rep. Patricia Stricherz (with minor style-and-form editing):
A town meeting on South Dakota Higher Education took place last night (Dec. 1, 2011) at the Madison public library. Those in attendance were Board of Regents Executive Director Jack Warner, Secretary Randy Schafer, DSU President Douglas Knowlton, SDSU President David L. Chicoine, District 8 Senator Russell Olsen and myself, Representative Patricia Stricherz, as well as a number of instructors and local citizens.
Executive Director Jack Warner gave the presentation and outlined the challenges that lay ahead for higher education institiutions, explained how higher education serves the public by attracting high-tech business and industry, which is job creation. Another area discussed was the declining state financial support, which dropped from 57% to 39% in 11 years.It was explained that higher education institution budget cuts could have an impact on students for years, which in turn could have an impact on communities and our state with higher unemployment rates and higher health care costs.
Perhaps the ideal solution would be a 2 percent increase for K-12 and higher education insititutions. While that doesn't sound like much, it certainly would be helpful as the cost of keeping the lights on also increases. But keep in mind that a short term budget fix is not a long term solution. Long-term solutions must be found within the state as well as within school districts, colleges and universities, themselves.
Some questions that school boards could be asking themselves are:
- What is the most effective way to organize schools?
- What is the most efficient way to schedule classes?
- What are the most effective ways of instruction in specific subjects?
- What classes are critical for all graduates?
Every K-12 school district and higher education institutions have their very own distinct problems and priorities, of course, and what works in one may not work in another. But being able to point to actual data to support a decision adds facts in an otherwise political discussion, increasing board members confidence that they are making the best decisions they can.
During these challenging economic times, it is more important than ever for school boards to show their constituents they are getting the most out of their tax dollars.
During the 86th Legislative session South Dakota lawmakers faced the challenge of balancing the state budget in a time of recession. The last thing any of us wanted to do was to make cuts to education, we all recognize the importance of education and understand the potential consequences cuts could have. We had to make some tough decisions to accomplish the goal of a balanced budget. Nothing makes budget cuts easy, especially when there's little, if any left to cut. The dilemma then was to find substantial cuts that would balance the state budget while meeting everyone's needs. A lot of the cuts that occurred last session were driven by a drop off in revenue, the end of Federal stimulus money. Despite the 10% across the board cuts that occurred, lawmakers moved to appropriate 24-million in one time money to education and Medicaid, relieving some of the stress to education and medical providers.
As the 87th Legislative session reconvenes in January, state lawmakers will need to be asking ourselves these questions:
- To what extent has the state defined the public purpose it expects higher education institutions help to accomplish?
- Are the purposes the state seeks to achieve through it's colleges and universities clearly articulated?
- Do institutional leaders and policymakers share a common understanding of those purposes?
- To what extent do the state's tuition and financial aid policies contribute to increase higher education participation and completion?
- What steps has the state taken to build the infrastructure and encourage higher education institutes to collaborate with one another, with K-12 schools, with business and industry in order to foster the goal of improved preparation as well as economic development?
Working together, the state, higher education institutions and K-12 schools can find solutions by finding and utilizing a variety of available resources in ways that would meet laws to create jobs, while improving educational quality and contributing to productivity enhancements in the future.
The question, "how much funding is enough?" has no easy answer. Educators and lawmakers must address key questions to sensibly answer this one question.
- What kind of higher education system do we want?
- What will it take, considering our circumstances, to obtain and sustain such a system?
- Are we making effective use of our current investments?
- What can we afford to invest in order to meet our goal?
Good financial data and analysis is clearly essential for answering such questions. Support for quality education takes a financial commitment by state and local governments.
As state lawmakers start the next session, these questions as well as others, will need to be addressed in an attempt to recover our struggling educational system.
Representative Patricia Stricherz
P.O. Box 91
Madison, SD 57042
605-201-6372
First of all education needs a new funding vehicle that is if you call today's use of the state general fund and local property taxes a vehicle. Property taxes is actually 19th century horse and buggy time. As with the BEEF proposal that I have proposed before, a 1% or less(built in maximum)levy on all gross receipts/income in this state would fund all education. If you as a teenager flip haumburgers, you contribute up to 1%. If you earn income from investments, rental property, etc. you pay up to 1%. If you work for a living, you contribute up to 1% or less. If you are self-employed, 1% or less of your gross receipts goes to education. There would be no exemptions, no deductions, no exceptions, period. The trade-off would be that higher education and k-12 would be fully funded by this revenue stream. The state general fund would no longer have to pay in nor would local property taxes for the general fund levy. Capital outlay levy, special ed. levy, and any bond redemption levy would stay in place. If the state general fund no longer has to fund k-12 and higher ed because of BEEF, the sales tax rate could be lowered or free up revenue for such things as medicaid. The proposed 1 cent sales tax increase would certainly not be needed.
k-12 and higher ed is front end loaded with salary costs. If you really think you can keep cutting education, all you are saying in real terms is this," good teachers should get pay less and less." That or you don't pay the light bill, you choose.
Charlie, your Winfred neighbor Rep. Stricherz could use a challenger next year....
I don't know about you but I can read between the lines.
For K-12: Forced consolidation, online instruction, elimination of electives, bigger class sizes and lower teacher salaries will let the state spend less on education.
For higher ed it's a bit harder to predict what is being thought of: Higher tuition and fees, more online classes, no raises for state employees, more cuts to extension and an expansion of programs offered in Sioux Falls.
I would hope this time the Dept of Education can figure out how to accurately count students unlike last year's debacle.
Yes! Better make sure our school boards take up those issues at their next meeting. Maybe we could pass a law to tell them to do that. Sounds eminently reasonable… And empty.
What possesses education critics to think that school boards and the Regents don't deal with efficiency and effectiveness every day?! Would anyone who spent any time with their local superintendent or school board members or parents NOT be aware of the constantly evolving movements toward efficiency (and often away from effectiveness) at their local school or college? Any legislator who attended a school board budget meeting or talked to their local superintendent or had a child in school would KNOW that their schools are dropping “unnecessary†(and necessary) courses, that their class sizes are increasing to intolerable levels, that the small schools are depending more and more on a computer screen instead of a real live teacher to deliver content, that they long ago gave up on anything but catering to the lowest common denominator in content and teaching to the test, that our own in-state teacher graduates’ first choice is anyplace but South Dakota because of the higher starting pay, and that they are reduced to bake sales and donations from rich guys to finance the most vulnerable extracurricular activities. Any legislator who kept tabs on the number of schools that have closed in the last few years would KNOW that when the time is right, those local school boards make the right decision for their children.
Any legislator who had spent any time at their local college would KNOW the names and positions of the college professors and the grant dollars associated with them that their local college had lost because South Dakota refuses to acknowledge that they are competing with the rest of the world in attracting talent. They would KNOW the unique mission of each university and tech school has been hammered out and re-evaluated time and time again.
This looks like a plea from a legislator to get her out of a tough situation. She got elected along with the rest of her caucus railing against inefficient government and promising pie in the sky. Now she’s close enough to the action to understand that maybe that’s not possible without giving up our last place in taxpayer effort. But don’t make her vote to raise the money to fix it. Please, please, Mr. Voter, do the job for us to we don’t have to admit we were just a little inaccurate last November when we asked for your vote.
Just finished reading (probably for the third or fourth time in as many years) a great little book called Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris.
She writes so well, I derive bliss simply from following the phrases, so much that I just ordered three more of her books from amazon dot com.
Anyhow, in this book, written a couple of decades ago, Norris bemoans the lack of education funding in South Dakota, and laments our ingrained fiscal conservatism that can sometimes grow to a fault ...
... so this problem ain't new.
One of the reasons I chose this state -- back in 2003-2004 as I looked to buy a house for the first time in my life -- one of the reasons I picked South Dakota was the relatively low taxation, and in particular, the lack of a state income tax. My income derives from out-of-state, and it will be what it will be, whether I choose to live in Lead or Luxembourg, Sioux Falls or Singapore, Pierre or Prague. Naturally I seek to get the most for my hard-earned kwatlus.
Yes, Cory, we do need to figure out what sort of education system we want, how to prioritize it in relation to our other needs, how much to pay our teachers (a real problem here), and all the rest.
Everyone wants more and more money, but everyone seems to have less and less of it these days. Where does it all go? To Wall Street investors? To sensationalists like Glenn Beck? To politicians? To George Soros? Where?
Certainly not to me, and certainly not to you.
Unfortunately, I don't see the attitudes in this state getting any more "progressive" in the near term. In fact, evidence points to a trend toward even deeper fiscal entrenchment.
We're a bunch of tightwads, and our wads are getting tighter. But what's the alternative? Fiscal ruin? We all have to eat, and food prices are skyrocketing.
See what happened in Colorado with their vote on tax increases to fund education: Nyet! said the people. See what happened when they put a millionaires' income tax to a referendum in Washington state: Nein! said the people.
One can only imagine that were a similar proposal put to the people here (and evidently one will be, in the form of a penny sales tax increase on the ballot for November 2012), we will hear a chorus of Heck no!
Not that I like this fact about the South Dakota attitude, not that I don't like it ... I'm just calling things as I see 'em, and hoping that the fiscal irresponsibility in other parts of the world don't bring us all to starvation.
more: http://www.truth-out.org/failure-corporate-school-reform-toward-new-common-school-movement/1322671494