...and while you're at it, call the Gang of Four, too!
Real reporter David Montgomery reports that HB 1234, Governor Dennis Daugaard's train-wreck package of education reforms, is scheduled for a Thursday hearing before the Senate Education Committee. Montgomery says that the "Gang of Six" or "supercommittee," a unaccountable caucus of faithful Republican legislators, is working intensely on amendments to HB 1234. Those six Republicans:
- Rep. Thomas Brunner (R-29/Nisland)
- Rep. Dan Dryden (R-34/Rapid City)
- Rep. Jacqueline Sly (R-33/Rapid City)
- Sen. Phyllis Heineman (R-13/Sioux Falls)
- Sen. Mark Johnston (R-12/Sioux Falls)
- Sen. Deb Peters (R-9/Hartford)
If you want to save education from the ideological impositions of merit pay, rookie bonuses, and termination of continuing contract due process, click on those six contact links above, and light up those legislators' phones and inboxes. Ask them just what exactly they think is the problem with South Dakota's K-12 education system... aside from the obvious problem that we cut its ongoing funding by 8.6% last year.
Montgomery also names an unelected working group of four superintendents "soliciting feedback and presenting recommendations and information to lawmakers and the Daugaard administration":
- Tim Mitchell, Rapid City
- Don Kirkegaard, Meade County
- Dan Leikvold, Lead-Deadwood
- Tim Graf, Milbank
Soliciting feedback? Well, you know what to do, folks. Perhaps start by sending those superintendents this online petition (which over 630 of you have signed so far! Thank you!) to give them an idea of the popular disgust with HB 1234 so far. Then offer your thoughts on how Pierre should let the experts—i.e., teachers and administrators—handle teaching the kids.
Vote no!
Vote NO on HB 1234. This bill has no reason to be "kept alive". It will ruin SD education and doesn't meet the Governor's goals.
Cory, you did not really write this did you?
The Governor and Legislature appoint a super committee (favorite tactic of Obama) and you criticize it?
You selective intellectual standards is amazing.
Troy, when did I ever say the debt supercommittee was a good idea? You need to stop conflating my actual positions with your overgeneralized dismissal of everything liberal.
Troy,
Does this super committee have Democrats on it? Does the committee announce when it meets and are the discussions open to the press? Was the committee established by an act of the entire legislature? If the answers are no, certainly Cory nor any reasonable South Dakotan will endorse the idea of a "super committee". Sounds more like "Gestapo "planning than education reform.
Tell the RINOs that Obama is for merit pay:
President Barack Obama on Tuesday embraced a new approach to education that would reward good teachers, remove limits on charter schools and lengthen both the school day and the school year.
These proposals, which constitute the heart of Obama's vision of 21st century education reform, were sure to generate loud criticism, particularly from teachers' union.
Educators oppose charter schools because they divert tax dollars away from traditional public schools. Merit-based systems for teachers have been anathema to the teachers' unions, a powerful force in Obama's Democratic Party, for many years.
Obama acknowledged that some of his proposals would be unpopular with both parties.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-03-10-obama-teachers_N.htm
Doesn't matter if Obama, Romney, Bush, Clinton, or the Pope were for merit pay and HB1234, it's still terrible legislation. I and many others don't have the time or patience to cover the political backside of anyone whether "D" or "R" who favors the approaches in HB1234.
Here's a new article on teacher evaluations from the New York Times. This quote seemed to sum it up the best:
States “are racing ahead based on promises made to Washington or local political imperatives that prioritize an unwavering commitment to unproven approaches,†said Grover J. Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “There’s a lot we don’t know about how to evaluate teachers reliably and how to use that information to improve instruction and learning.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/education/states-address-problems-with-teacher-evaluations.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23
Come on Charlie, how can we stand still while South Dakota Democrats blame South Dakota Republicans for implementing Obama's policies while the SDGOP puts out fundraising letters saying they need money to stop Obama in 2012?
Unlike Cory, I welcome amendments that would make HB1234 into something that would actually do some good. We might see some incentives for teachers to get more training: the "Master Teachers" concept. We might see an option for local control of money of bonuses instead of a state mandate. HB1234 will pass in one form or another. Let us hope that the senate can modify it for the better.
The biggest problem I see with any mandate from Washington for longer school days and a lengthening of the school year is that Washington is already spending money that is doesn't have. The Feds are going to have to make serious cuts in all programs including education. You can't just ask people to work a few hundred more hours a year without compensating them. Someone still has to pay.
Interesting makeup of the super committee. Kind of like a doughnut. Representation on each end (geographically speaking, not ideologically) but nothing in the middle.
Michael, if someone could come up with an amendment that offers proven solutions for a proven problem in our K-12 system, I'd be all for it.
Cory, we will just have to have a little faith in our legislators and some patience to see how it shakes out. The best case scenario will probably still have aspects we don't care for. The house version was not acceptable, but the senate might be able to do better.
Michael, faith is exactly the problem here. The supporters of HB 1234 are acting on pure faith that somehow, merit pay will work differently in South Dakota, despite mounds of evidence that it hasn't worked well anywhere else. And session is too darn short now to have patience. If good things are to happen, we have to make them happen.
I can't be against the senate version until it goes through committee and the amendments passed.
"The Colorado Senate Education Committee approved SB 57, a bill to encourage Indian languages in public schools, unanimously on Wednesday.
The bill authorizes schools to hire tribal elders even if they don't have a state teaching license.They must be paired with a licensed teacher in order to teach their languages."
Quit cutting these posers slack, Michael. The Senate version is what stands before the Senate now. Until we see amendments, there are no amendments. Raise heck!
The last time I checked, these "posers" you talk of are our properly elected lawmakers.
Right. And they aren't doing their jobs properly when they shut off public discussion of their bad policies, when they vote for policies they admit later they don't like (Rep. Nick Moser of Yankton), and when they vote for policies they think should die just to extend the conversation and hope for amendments (Rep. Steve Hickey of Sioux Falls). We are here to remind them of how to do their jobs. We are an integral part of the process.
Most of this education "deform" is straight out of the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council playbook, maybe taken directly from their model legislation but tweaked a bit. It's pretty similar to what the corporate-funded education crowd has being shoving down the throats of people all over the country. This article explains some of what's going on:
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/campus_connection/campus-connection-uw-profs-shed-light-on-alec-s-threat/article_9a783bf0-598e-11e1-bd49-0019bb2963f4.html
This is a year old "study" by ALEC, typical of ALEC research on education issues. They are usually cut and pasted every year with just slight changes, so you can pick up one year and pretty much get the same study. They use very coarse data sets, crunch them through various data manipulations and try to tease out some manufactured conclusions that fit nicely with their particular ideology, which is anti-public education and anti-teacher.
http://www.alec.org/docs/2010-report-card_finalcopycondensed.pdf