Bob Ellis dismisses the Blue Ribbon K-12 panel’s plan to raise South Dakota’s teacher pay from 51st to 39th in the nation as another liberal plot to expand government. Ellis’s ire toward paying public school teachers more should not surprise us: as I noted in June when Ellis pre-emptively dismissed the Blue Ribbon public input process as an exercise in socialist groupthink, Ellis wants to destroy public education, an abomination instilling effective democratic, pluralistic, secular values that stand in the way of the Christian dominionist theocracy Ellis could have if everyone had to do homeschool. Note the anti-public-education land mines in Ellis’s latest screed:
Meanwhile, parents who care enough about their children’s education to actually take their children out of the mediocre public education system produce better results on a shoe-string budget. Yes, homeschooling parents spend money (on top of what they pay in taxes to support the public education system) out of their own pockets and time of their own schedule to educate their children at home–and usually with far better results. What they spend is far, far less than the per-pupil expenditure in the public school system [Bob Ellis, “Education Establishment Sets Sights on More of Your Money,” The Right Side, 2015.11.28].
I will grant that any education system where the teachers can spend all day with the same child or small group of children without drawing a paycheck will have an advantage over the public school system.
Ellis doesn’t need to play his “homeschool is better” hand to attack the Blue Ribbon recommendations. Issuing an argument that I believe one of my sharp commenters mentioned earlier this month, Ellis signals that conservative legislators could use concerns about corruption in the Department of Education to resist calls for running more money through its troughs:
And let’s be clear that this is what the money is for. In South Dakota, the education establishment is little more than a machine for figuring out how to best suck in your tax dollars at both the state and federal level. This loot then goes to enrich the donors and friends of the RINO establishment in South Dakota. The palms get greased with YOUR money coming and going. RINOs in state government secure the taxpayer loot for government bureaucrats and favored private groups, and those individuals in turn give some of that largess back to the RINO government officials to fill their election coffers [Ellis, 2015.11.28].
The looting and palm-greasing going on in the Department of Education’s and Mid-Central Educational Cooperative’s mismanagement of the federal GEAR UP grant is Exhibit #1 in Ellis’s argument. And if Bob Ellis stood up at a committee hearing and asked how the 29 Blue Ribbon recommendations assure us that the Department of Education won’t find a way to siphon some of $75 million in new K-12 funding into its cronies’ pockets for “professional development” and other lucrative contract services from its favored education cooperatives and consultants, well, the Blue Ribboneers leave us hanging.
Oh my—maybe the GEAR UP scandal isn’t us Democrats dancing on children’s graves to gin up another fake scandal like EB-5. Maybe the GEAR UP scandal is really a Republican ploy to undermine confidence in the Department of Education just in time to erode support for any plan to increase funding for K-12 education.
Nah, I can’t wear either shade of tinfoil. But I can see the potential for the GEAR UP scandal to figure in the teacher pay debate… and maybe it should. The Blue Ribbon final report presented data to refute the notion that there’s great waste in principal and superintendent salaries, but it said nothing about consultants and corruption. It even encourages the increased use of shared state services, which would be managed by a state Department of Education whose reliability and leadership is in serious doubt.
The Blue Ribbon plan is supposed to be about raising teacher pay. Not one report on the GEAR UP scandal has suggested that any practicing South Dakota teacher engaged in corruption. But Ellis’s complaint shows how that corruption may further prevent South Dakota teachers and students from receiving their due.
http://lawstreetmedia.com/news/do-homeschooled-kids-need-to-learn-something/
Studies about homeschooling are voluntary and done mostly with well to do families where achievement is higher.
Mike from Iowa is at least partly right. Many studies have cited the factor most likely to influence childrens’ success in school is the value and effort placed on education by the child’s parents or guardians. Any program where parental involvement and/or commitment is high is *likely* (not guaranteed) to test better than programs without this influencing factor; e.g., homeschooling, private education, charter education (whether public or private), magnet schools in public school districts, etc.
GEAR UP could be used as an excuse, but look for a slightly different approach to derail the Blue Ribbon panel’s recommendations.
First, the panel insists that *all* its recommendations must be adopted to be successful. There is no menu of options from which to choose
Second, look for the business community and other stakeholders, who must be “on board” to support any needed tax increases, to insist on measures to promote teacher accountability, such as an end to tenure and use of student outcomes in teacher evaluations. Look for cries of “we’re pouring more money into a defective system and not getting any changes.”
Naomi Klein has written a book called “The Shock Doctrine” that is being used in Republican land to direct rubes into the slaughter of their basic rights. In Illinois, a few rich guys bought the governor’s chair and now intend to buy the legislature to pass their ideas of how their utopia should be. Before Les can say Rahm, I will also say the mayor’s office of Chicago also as you can see what he did to Chicago schools. We see that in Wisconsin as well and also in South Dakota. Here is Illinois http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/politics/illinois-campaign-money-bruce-rauner.html?_r=0
So, to answer the question if scandal could provide the tipping point for the blue ribbon drinkers, that horse may have left the stable. Ellis and his crew already have noticed and are already stirring the pot to sell it to the rubes as a way to “cut” their property taxes so they won’t have to pay for a bunch of Natives…er poor white people to go to off reservation schools. Never underestimate the power of corruption in the hands of these republicans. It is all about the money and power. We can see here that the power they have is to shut down investigations as there is nothing to see here, move on, we do not have corruption, all is well. Sit down and shut up already, the governor is above this and so are all the rest. Put the aluminum hat around the leftovers and be thankful you have that.
I suppose the scandals could be used to argue against a bump in teacher salary, but it would a convoluted argument, and one that only works on the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party.
Ellis does a good job of pointing out a serious problem, but he really confuses and confabulates two different issues. Money that is distributed to local districts, especially that distributed through a legislated school aid formula or other similar mechanism, and which has pretty strict requirements on how it is used, is not the problem. The problem comes when that money is directed to the state to distribute through no-bid contracting or through coops that don’t have adequate controls. But the dumb crowd that follows Ellis probably would not have the IQ points to figure out the difference.
The more likely approach to derailing teacher raises is good old fashioned tried and true divide and conquer tactics where you make teachers out to be some sort of greedy, pampered class of union-supporting, brown rice eating public employees lording it over the downtrodden meat and freedom-fry eating real working folk (Ie., the typical Republican way to divide workers against each other).
But here’s the thing. Those teacher raises are going right back into the local and state economy, and those “real working folk” are going to get a chunk of that money as teachers spend it.
As far as homeschooling Cory, you are right. If my wife, a teacher, had just a few students she’d have a much easier time and the kids would learn more. This makes the case for smaller classrooms. Thanks Bob.
My question for Ellis is what is the plan for single mothers who have two kids and just as many jobs? How is this person supposed to home-school her kids? She probably doesn’t have the money to buy food much less supplies, so what should she do?
Public schools, in my opinion, provide intangibles that home schooling finds hard to duplicate like interaction between students. Mostly good but not always.
Ellis is good at whining about problems, like most right wingers, he has no answers.
I’m guessing a lot of the Republicans are looking for excuses to not pay teachers more and the GEAR UP scandal might just do that.
Mr. Pay, we speak of Medicaid Expansion and how it would stimulate our dead and moaning economic issues here in South Dakota, “But here’s the thing. Those teacher raises are going right back into the local and state economy, and those “real working folk” are going to get a chunk of that money as teachers spend it.” You just shot down Ellis and his bullpuckey with this money quote! spot on
Pardon me for being blunt Mr Ellis but I have not yet met a home schooled child that is not a social moron.
Michael W., end of “tenure” (better known as continuing contract)? Test-based teacher evaluations? Good grief, is Gov. Daugaard going to splice 2012’s HB 1234 onto the Blue Ribbon plan and say, “Take it or leave it”? Are we going to see merit pay return as well?
If that happens, my gut tells me we say no and go to war in November. The voters said they did not want HB 1234. Teachers already do enough to deserve the money; we just have to find a way to make sure it goes to them. HB 1234 is the wrong kind of accountability.
Two of the smartest kids I ever knew were home schooled. And two of the dumbest kids I ever knew were home schooled.
Well put, rwb. Your comment is anecdotal, but as Mike from Iowa points out, the studies that supposedly justify the claim that homeschoolers outperform public schoolers are hardly more reliable. This 2013 post from Patheos backs up Mike’s claim: the homeschool studies are voluntary and thus cover a sample that is “whiter, more religious, more married, better educated, and wealthier than national averages.” Those demographics, plus the parental involvement Michael Wyland notes, should correlate with better student achievement in any educational model.
Everyone in my immediate family is a product of public school. I work in public school. I think public school is necessary and effective. But my commitment to public school does not make me feel like I have to bash home school. I respect all parens who are willing to make the effort and sacrifice to educate their own kids as fully as I educate everyone else’s kids in my classroom. Home school done right can produce great results, just like public school. Home school advocates should be able to justify their own educational model without tearing down other models.