Northern State University senior and math education major Naomi Paulson testified before the House Education committee yesterday. She told them that the reforms Governor Dennis Daugaard wants to foist upon South Dakota schools will likely drive her to seek work elsewhere:
That's two, Governor Daugaard. How many more will it take to convince you that you are wrong?
Even with the bonuses the Governor wants to offer new math teachers like her, Naomi Paulson will be guaranteed a better salary, than in any other state in the union. She will also enjoy better protection of her rights as a worker. (And while we're at it, Ms. Paulson will stand a good chance of living under a legislature more inclined to stay the heck out of her uterus.) Under Governor Daugaard's HB 1234, where is Paulson's incentive—where is any teacher's incentive—to stay and teach in South Dakota?
"When I can teach anywhere, why should I choose South Dakota?" It hurts me to hear such a question. But we need to hear it, and we need to answer it. Naomi Pualson makes clear that HB 1234 is not the answer.
Update 06:55 MST: Fellow educator and blogger LK says "Calling continuing contract tenure is like calling a McDonald's fry cook an Iron Chef." But he argues quite sharply that certain GOP mouthpiece bloggers demonstrate exactly why teachers need the due process protections of continuing contracts.
I see "your gal" Patricia Stricherz couldn't bring herself to vote against this bill.
Matt, where's the committee vote list? LRC is dragging its feet on updating HB 1234 online.
AP says 11-4 straight party line vote
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - A South Dakota House panel has approved Gov.
Dennis Daugaard's plan to give bonuses to the state's top
performing teachers.
The Education Committee voted 11-4 to send the measure to the
full House. All Republicans supported the plan, while all Democrats
opposed it.
Supporters say it will boost student achievement. Some teachers
say it will hurt the quality of education.
The Republican governor had proposed annual bonuses of $3,500
for math and science teachers. The revised plan gives new math and
science teachers $8,000 annual bonuses for their first five years
of teaching.
Daugaard wants to give $5,000 annual bonuses to the top 20
percent of teachers in each school district. The new plan allows
school districts to follow the governor's plan, create their own
system or not take part.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
...ah, just heard the SDPB report that all Republicans on the Education committee voted aye, all Dems nay. And Russ Olson's bogus "You can't just say you don't like it, you have to give us an alternative" argument is getting annoying. Making no change and sticking with the status quo is better than Daugaard/Olson/Stricherz's destructive ideas for education.
Yelling "give us alternatives" over and over, is a good way to ignore the alternatives.
He's slick, if not completely incompetent.
I would be willing to bet that if you want a future in the SDGOP, then you vote for this bill.
"Making no change and sticking with the status quo is better than Daugaard/Olson/Stricherz’s destructive ideas for education."
Cory, this bill is simply a continuation of the decades long policy that money is used to encourage the transformation of education into a workforce development centers for the global economy. Education has been destroyed will before this Obama inspired legislation.
Steve, I guess legislators will have to choose between boosting their future in the party or boosting teachers' and students' future in South Dakota.
Cory, just so you know, I am against this legislation but not for the same reasons you are.
Then clearly, Steve, you and I need to work together for now to kill this legislation so we can clear the decks for whatever alternative reforms we have in mind. We can have that debate, but we need to get HB 1234 out of the way.
Cory, I agree.
LK is out there in his reading. He is good at jumping to conclusions no one else comes to.
You have to wonder if this proposed law could lead to large Democrat gains in the House?
"LK is out there in his reading. He is good at jumping to conclusions no one else comes to."
I prefer to think of my reading as eclectic : ) Also, I make logical inferences. Jumping to conclusions has such a harsh ring to it. : )
Even though I would rather see all teachers pay, and everyone else's also, go up in South Dakota, I do realize that the best and brightest(effective) are the teachers that Minnesota is trying to take away and have on many occasions. So the plan apperantly is to keep the dime a dozen teachers at real low pay and entice the best to stay.
So they got the test scores looking good. But if we have one of the lowest percentages of college kids graduating, did they learn the value of a good education even though they have good test scores.
I was just in Houston and Rice University(compairable to Harvard) just realized that 25% of their incoming freshmen do not have college level writting skills and 42% had a low pass in that area. Most of their students were in the top 5% in their high school class. So if the best and the brightest in this nation are not really ready for a good college, we do not need to trust that if we are ok with national average that we are anywhere near good at all.