Under yesterday's story on the disagreement between Governor Dennis Daugaard and the Associated School Boards of South Dakota on how much we need to spend on quality K-12 education, Watertown school board member Fred Deutsch notes that the ASBSD approved many more discussion-worthy resolutions and legislative priorities at its November meeting.
Deutsch and his ASBSD colleagues reaffirmed their support for the Common Core education standards. ASBSD adopted its Common Core resolution in 2010; their support unwavers in the face of vigorous yet futile Tea Party agitation. The education establishment has mobilized enough resources to defend its status quo education churn... as it will again a decade or so from now when we find Common Core will have moved the educational achievement needle about as far as No Child Left Behind did.
In addition to their call for restoring the per-student allocation to the pre-Daugaardian $4,805, ASBSD approved these new resolutions:
- ASBSD issues a general (read: not specific, not focused on a particular effective dollar amount) call for the Legislature to "commit financial resources to improve salaries" to retain good teachers.
- ASBSD supports a proposal to extend the school year by 60 classroom hours. Those extra hours should eat up any funding "gain" the schools get from ASBSD's proposal to restore the per-student allocation to the FY2011 level.
- ASBSD wants to require every grade level to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. ASBSD says such an exercise instills patriotism; I say violating the Constitution and giving in to bullies is anything but patriotic.
- Deutsch himself brought a resolution calling for more transparency and accountability from the South Dakota High School Activities Association. Hmmm... is SDHSAA helping launder money in the GOED/EB-5 scandal? They do hold a lot of events in Aberdeen....
- ASBSD wants to keep the budget flexibility law that allows them to move dollars from capital outlay to the general fund. That flex law is supposed to scale down over the next few years.
- As mentioned yesterday, ASBSD wants to change the funding formula from a guaranteed maximum annual state aid increase of 3% to a guaranteed minimum increase of 2%.
#1 and #6 require spending money. Chances of passing in Pierre are slim, but they are worth a fight. #2 will pass easily unless someone demands that we pay for the extra hours we are demanding of teachers, at which point the discussion will devolve into grudznickian assertions of sluggard teachers living the high life. #5 will confuse everyone. #4 will get legislators back on track with the opportunity to beat up on someone, rather like yelling at the refs at a basketball game. #3 will then pass with ease as legislators rally around the flag and make their sound-bites for re-election.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the Governor's take on budget priorities for our schools. Then let's see if education hits anyone's radar over the noise that GOED and EB-5 investigations should create.
Not sure where the funding for #1 and #6 will come from so I won't suggest that it's the states #1 priority in spending, but I do believe it warrants funding. Teacher pay in SD is insulting. #2 SHOULD have a rider to increase teacher pay the % that the year is extended. #3 is rubbish. #4 is likely needed, though I don't know enough of the specifics that spurred it. #5 is justified to let the schools use funds as they need, though the number of huge opt outs to fund what would normally be capital outlay costs concerns me.
No ! The ASBSD supports those issues .
RE: 1, 2, 4-6.The 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test results are out. Once again the usual suspects lead: Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan. Once again the US is fair-to-middling, mere average in some categories, below average in others. So what works. Certainly not what most US states (including South Dakota) are doing. Here's a snapshot about Shanghai's systemic mindset to education improvement. Education is not a sorting mechanism in which fewer are allowed to continue to further education.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25090034
Here's an analysis on the 2012 test results. The few surprises are the rapid rises among growing economies: Poland, Ireland, etc. The shock is that Vietnam, yes, that Vietnam, performed better than the US and among the leading education nations. It's long past the time to systemically change the attitude about education in South Dakota and the US. We are in a global economy -it's long past the time when we should educate like it.
with apologies: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/03/us-test-scores_n_4374075.html
@John if education were affordable educating everyone would be feasible, as it is you can't possibly suggest we encourage someone to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on education to get a $12/hour job.
Chris: what is not fiscally sustainable is dropping human capital outside the school house door. This attitude of disposable human capital directly relates to the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Nations with the highest educational achievements spend more on educating those who are the most challenging to educate. The harder they are to educate - the spending on achieving educational success rises. We throw away the human capital.
When a drill sergeant receives 30-raw 18-year olds, the mission to train them all to achieve the standards. Most do, when figuring in the recycles. Drill sergeants who attempt to rack and stack deservedly don't last. No, this is not about militarizing civilian education; rather its about coaching, teaching, and mentoring all on the team or in the classroom to achieve the standards.
@John you have a decidedly impossible view on education if you compare it to military training. A very very small percentage of military trainees are physically or mentally unable to handle it if they so choose to attempt it. There are a percentage of students that we have let fall between the cracks prior to college and at the age of 18 are fundamentally unable to compete in today's collegiate environment.