The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Teachers and Students released its 34-page, 29-recommendation final report on November 11, 2015. Governor Dennis Daugaard’s initial reaction to his task force’s report was markedly reserved. The Governor says he agrees with the Blue Ribboneers that “South Dakota needs to increase teacher salaries to remain regionally competitive and to avoid a teacher shortage,” but his December 8 budget address included no funding for the Blue Ribbon plan and only a 0.3% increase for K-12 funding. Governor Daugaard says he will offer a teacher-pay plan next month.
Another gubernatorial task force, the Native American Student Achievement Advisory Council, released its eighteen-page, four-recommendation final report on November 25, 2015. The report cited GEAR UP as a “Successful Local Program,” even though the formal 2015 evaluation of the program found no evidence that GEAR UP has been achieving its stated goals, and even though former GEAR UP director Stacy Phelps resigned from this advisory panel in early October, at the same time that he resigned from the State Board of Education to avoid distracting the state from investigating the GEAR UP scandal.
Two weeks later, Governor Daugaard’s budget address included $2.2 million in emergency FY2016 funding to “be used to improve the educational outcomes for Native American students based on the recommendations of the Native American Student Achievement Advisory Council.” Governor Daugaard found this funding amidst $60 million in one-time revenue, 45% of which comes from spending down state reserves.
This $2.2. million appears to fund the only one of NASAAC’s four recommendations to cite an explicit dollar figure, to “Establish three pilot innovation schools with the goal of redesigning the educational experience to improve the achievement levels and graduation rates of the state’s at-risk Native American students.”
Stacy Phelps and other figures in the GEAR UP scandal wanted to establish such a pilot innovation school in the form of a year-round residential school in the Black Hills. Phelps and AIII failed to obtain federal funding for that plan, but since then, AIII has taken over tribal schools at Lower Brule, Wounded Knee, and Takini.
I wonder which three schools will get the emergency pilot innovation school funding Governor Daugaard so quickly approved on NASAAC’s recommendation.
We should be happy that Governor Daugaard is willing to act swiftly on any proposal to invest in education, especially for Indian youth. And it may take more time and effort for the Governor to come up with $75 million in new funding versus $2.2 million in one-time funding (although Lance Russell and Stan Adelstein have each offered plans, and I have offered three… and wait—don’t these pilot Indian innovation schools need ongoing funding?). But it seems odd that Governor Daugaard looks at one of his task forces’ reports and says, “it depends,” then looks at another that includes the words “GEAR UP” and “successful” and says, “Here’s your money!”
Isn’t Daugaard just posturing for Thune and Noem to make them more palatable for American Indian voters?
Daugaard is clearly reacting to the largest circulation Indian County newspaper in South Dakota that gives Kristi the boot.
http://www.indianz.com/News/2015/018636.asp
Is Daugaard investing in Native American education out of guilt for his cronies having accepted exorbitant consultant fees that took money away from Native American education? A better response to the highway robbery would be to have the “consultants” pay back every single cent for which they didn’t submit an appropriate invoice. By appropriate invoice, I mean a log of hours worked and goals accomplished.
LK, I haven’t detected any sense of guilt over GEAR UP. Guilt would involve acknowledging there was corruption. Guilt would mean going after all of the consultants, not just one or two fall guys.
isn’t heather the frmr congress member who regents hired to president sdsm&t, also a frmr consultant who had to repay $450k or something?
her job is now to boost the effort of DOE to deep-bore-hole nuclear waste in her new rural state of residence (though possibly still a NM resident?) and also to make every photo op for the Mines’ substantial and famous(?) student sporting activities to increase enrollment.
isn’t KRISTIE the frmr non-professional race car driver who is in a contested race for congress now in a battle against the federal govt (IHS) creating an election winning issue of federal incompetence brought to light by recent IHS deficiencies in Rosebud? Like daugaard, she wants to know how much those over-paid administrators make, and she read a 5 year old report by a real senator documenting theft of 6000 street narcotic pills. oh, I guess daugaard isn’t really looking into wages of GEAR UP administrators in his party who have misappropriated federal money connected to the murders in Platte. but he’s got jackley looking into it:)