Here is yesterday's discussion of education. Burt Elliott mentioned HB 1273 that mandates 65% of all education spending go into the classroom. My ears pricked up at this as I knew I had read a George Will column on this idea some time ago, and by golly I was right. The Aberdeen School Board member who spoke opposed the bill. Al Novstrup indicated a preference against the bill as it takes away local control, but mentioned that South Dakota is 51st in teacher pay but 34th (or was it 35th?) in total education spending. So where is that extra money going? One legislator, I believe Paul Dennert, noted that rural school districts spend a lot on busing so this legislation could hurt them. I think the idea behind the law is sound. I am not going to take time to look up the numbers, but I have seen in multiple places that if you graphed spending per pupil in America over the last, say, 40 years, you would see a steep upward line, i.e., our spending per pupil has risen dramatically, even taking into account inflation. But if you look at the dollars spent in the classroom, the line is essentially flat. The lion's share of extra spending on education has gone to administration and bureaucracy, not to actually educating kids, unless you think hiring people to fill out paperwork for the federal government is closely related to educating children. This bill, whatever its flaws, attempts to address this problem.
Someone asked about merit pay for teachers. Burt Elliott stated that he couldn't think of a way to measure merit and any attempt to do so has failed within four years. Al Novstrup pointed out, quite accurately, that the Board of Regents has had merit pay for some time (I believe it's about 10 years, but perhaps Ken Blanchard, with longer institutional memory, can correct me). I think merit pay works quite well in higher education. Granted, k-12 education is not higher education, but Al Novstrup is likely correct that assessing teacher merit is not the arcane science opponents of merit pay suggest it is.
Finally, someone asked about SB 115, which I blogged about yesterday. The question is whether this bill, which creates "standards and classifications" for pre-school, is a precursor to state run, and possibly mandated, pre-school. Those in favor of this bill (namely Senators Hoerth and Hundstad, who both voted for this bill in the Senate last week), suggested that this bill just defines what pre-school means. They didn't vote for state spending on pre-school or anything of that matter. Al Novstrup mentioned that there is a logical connection between setting state standards and state funding, so it is logical to assume that those who support SB 115 are setting the stage for state run pre-school. As Novstrup points out, any spending on pre-school will come out of the k-12 budget. David Novstrup argued that parents are competent to take care of their four and five year olds and the time to stop state sponsored and/or mandatory pre-school is now by defeating SB 115.
David Novstrup's comments remind me of a story I read in the Seattle Times a few years back. I have dug around for the story, but can't find it. In this story, child "advocates" fretted about a class of untrained and uncertified people who are taking care of kids in Washington. As parents go off to work, too many of them leave their kids with "caregivers" who do not have specialized training that meets state standards. This puts these children at a serious risk. There is a name for these untrained non-professionals to whom we recklessly hand over our children: grandparents. Let me just say this, to the extent there is an issue with the upbringing of young children, the problem is seldom that children have spent inadequate time in a government facility being cared for by highly trained and state certified early childhood specialists. When we concede that child care is a professional activity that only those with specialized training can adequately perform, we've conceded a lot.
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