My neighbor and NSU education professor Alan Neville uses his column in the Aberdeen American News this morning to urge passage of Governor Dennis Daugaard’s teacher pay raise plan:
On Tuesday, I listened with hopeful optimism to Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s State of the State address to the South Dakota Legislature. Never in my lifetime did I expect a conservative governor of South Dakota to propose a sales tax increase to fund teacher salaries.
I can tell you that I am 100 percent supporting Daugaard’s proposal to raise South Dakota’s teacher salaries to an average salary of $48,500. I urge all South Dakotans to support his proposal and to contact your area legislators and tell them how very important it is that we pass this legislation. Our children’s future may very well depend on this initiative [Alan Neville, “Time to Support Governor’s Teacher Pay Plan,” Aberdeen American News, 2016.01.15].
Like SDEA, Dr. Neville appears not to notice that Democratic legislators have an even better plan that raises teacher pay to $50,000 with a less regressive taxation scheme and no pressure for staff reductions.
Elisa Sand digs into the Governor’s recommended student-teacher ratios and finds most area schools would not be able to meet the pay raise goals without firing teachers:
Using enrollment and certified teacher numbers reported by school districts to the state Department of Education, the American News calculated the recommended number of teachers for local districts. A gradual increase in the student-to-teacher ratio was also applied for schools with enrollments between 200 and 600.
Results showed that 20 of the 23 public school districts had more teachers than the state recommends. The Aberdeen district was an exception. Using the ratio, it had 24 fewer teachers than recommended.
Of the districts that exceeded the recommended ratio, some were high by one or two teachers. The local school district with the widest gap is Eureka, which presently has a student-to-teacher ratio of nearly 7-to-1, making it nine higher than the state’s recommendation [Elisa Sand, “Daugaard’s Education Plan Includes E-Learning Expansion,” Aberdeen American News, 2016.01.15].
Neville argues that the crisis of our low-pay-induced teacher shortage should override our concerns about the regressive nature of the Governor’s funding mechanism. I would co-opt the crisis argument and say that the nature of this crisis should prevent us from trying to engineer a higher student-teacher ratio in our public schools. The problem is that we are running short of teachers. The solution is not to take an action that gets rid of more teachers. The solution is to pay every teacher we have a regionally competitive wage and maintain all of the opportunities those teachers currently offer our kids. The Democrats’ plan does that. The Governor’s plan does not.
The average classroom size in South Dakota is 13 students, similar to classroom sizes in Nebraska and Montana (which actually have smaller but pay teachers more).
Why must the governor take away from students in order to pay teachers more? Student to teacher ratio is critically related to how much students learn. This doesn’t make any sense at all.
Cory, not that this post has anything to do with recent topics, or maybe it does; but you’re cordially invited to Flandreau’s Racism Study Circles kickoff event this Sunday, Jan. 17, 4:00pm at the casino, free meal.
Neither the governor, nor the Democratic legislators have any cajones at all. They refuse to put the responsibility for funding the counties and the school districts where it belongs, on the property taxes which they froze several years ago. My rent on a studio apartment has raised $2280 on an annual basis from 20 years ago. I get no federal income tax break on my rent, while property owners do on their property taxes and the interest they pay on their mortgage. They build equity, while I build none. But that’s all right, keep sticking it to the renters, we deserve the disgust that South Dakota shows us.
http://www.plaintalk.net/local_news/opinion/article_d315ec0a-bbb9-11e5-a7d5-7b5565ef3bbd.html
Mr. Stricherz, I share your privilege of having been in a studio apartment myself for over 20 years, but I do not bemoan the equity. Put your monies into other areas that do build equity, or buy out the apartment building. It will terrify your neighbors.
One good point is that even if they cut property taxes, rents for studio apartments will not go down. They will not go down at all.
Grudznick, you dipwad. You miss the point. By shifting the responsibility for funding county and school district government from property ownership where it belongs constitutionally, in SD to sales tax, your good government in Pierre is saddling me with an increase in taxes that is not rightfully mine. If I spend a grand a month, that is an extra ten bucks coming out of my pocket that should be coming out of the pocket of property owners. Then to make matters even more insulting, the governor wants to just get us tied with the cheapest state and give more property tax relief to property owners.
No, I think I got your point, Mr. Stricherz. It was you who missed mine. But that’s OK.
Oh, I get your point, alright, Grudznick. You somehow think it is fair to keep shifting the responsibility for paying for teachers, schools, county roads and jails, bridges away from those who own property to those who don’t. I can assure you that the 10 bucks a month or 120 a year won’t break me, but there are a lot of families out there who rent, that this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I have read your tripe on here long enough to realize what a cheapo you are, but if Cory is willing to put up with you, I guess anyone who reads this blog will have to as well.
thats the way lanny
Mr. Stricherz, I think the legislatures are looking at increasing the tax on soup and veggies to give most of it to teachers and then reduce the taxes on property with the rest. That’s what I thought I read. I don’t know if they are planning to increase the tax on soup and veggies and cars and underwear to give money to bridges and roads but I am against that, sir. They raised taxes last year for that and should not do it again. The people will rebel!
As usual Grudz, you forgot to read the fine print. That increase was for state and federal highways and bridges, not counties. Counties have only one way of raising money and that is through property taxes.
Oh.
Well good for them, then. When the 0.5% sales tax increase come down upon us all and $40,000,000 goes to reduce property taxes, the counties that have the gonads can raise their property taxes back up and raise a total of $40,000,000 more for themselves.
South Dakota has among the most over-staffed schools per student in the US. Please cut the staffs. Please. Then one has more funds available for teachers.
I think you all miss it. We have too many schools. There is no economies of scale(efficiencies) when it comes to education in our state, only in the larger districts. Take a look at a map of school districts ,especially east river, too many. Districts are outdated. They were drawn up years ago. Population centers have changed. We change size and shape of legislative districts to fit the population, why not change school districts. Spink county. 4 schools. One has 600 non colony kids, the other 3 ,640 kids about 120 to 140 colony kids. 3 bldgs, 3 sets of administration . Just look at how many 9 man football teams we have. Pretty soon the northeast conference will all be 9 manexcept roncalli. Set the districts up to fit a good ratio in the area of 1 to 14 to 1 to 18
Every body just home school.
Transporting students in this state is an issue. Raise the tax to a penny sales tax and take tax off of food is what I’d like to see happen. We have small schools. We are rural. You can combine districts and shift consolidations by having an AD attend three centers for example. But, you still have the issue of bussing students or paying parents mileage to bring them in. It’s the law. In addition you complicate the classroom size with special education regulations. These students require a different set of staff than general education; but regulates how schools deliver services. Transportation also involves transporting athletes, music students to events, all kinds of sporting events and all kinds of other curriculum driven activities such as Oral Interpretation; and the like. It is very complicated, actually. It’s simpler if everyone lives in one place like the major cities of Sioux Falls and Rapid City. But, even they need to transport students.
I have looked over both the Blue Ribbon Panel’s and the Democratic plans. I am not a fan of raising taxes for the sake of raising taxes. If taxes have to be raised, there has to be a purpose, some kind of control or oversight and it has to benefit everyone.
I agree teacher pay has to be increased. A ½ cent increase to that end seems reasonable provided it is accompanied by:
• Some type of auditing process to make sure the extra funds goes to teacher pay and not to some slush fund.
• The State commits other resources to education like a central database for electronic text books and a process for distance learning.
• There has to be some kind of credit for parents who choose to homeschool.
• A review of the entire process to make sure that what the State is doing is actually having the effect desired.
I’m not completely opposed the Democratic plan, in fact I find it quite interesting. My main concern is placing the burden of teacher pay on only the wealthy. All families, wealthy and not so much have a stake in teacher pay and everyone needs to own up to their responsibility. If only wealthy kids went to school, then yes this makes sense. I also have a concern about tying taxes on food to education.
I have looked over the Daugaard and SDDP plans then realized why South Dakota’s weather is so crappy.
Home schooling is a choice made by the parent. Public schooling is provided to all children by the state with no charge. Should a parent choose to home school, they make that choice with full knowledge of the financial responsibility they must assume. The home schooling parent receives and deserves NO public funding!
Yes transportation does cost money. Some district’s school houses are only separated by a few miles. Redfield and Tulare are only separated by 7 miles yet kids 25 miles east and west go to both. There are countless other situations like this in eastern sd, west of the river distance is more of an obstacle and probably can’t be overcome. By being more efficient with kid placement we might not be as short of teachers as we believe. Putting students in front of video screens is not the answer, for the motivated kids it works, for the rest it is a band aid. Just to say more pay will cure all the ills is not looking at the entirety of the problem. Look at young people who come out of college, they want more than to live in our small towns. What do we provide them for a lifestyle in towns like, Doland, Wolsey, Wessington Springs, Tulare, Hitchcock, and countless others. We need politicians to look at the reality of our state, just mandating teachers get more money is not necessarily the answer.
So Governor Daugaard is going to raise taxes 12.5%, how can we be assured this will be earmarked for teachers salaries and not shuttled to the general fund? When it is ‘sent’ to the local districts how can we be assured it goes to teachers salaries?
It is obvious that we have a problem. A class full of teenagers in a South Dakota public school could figure out a solution. Unfortunately South Dakota adults are not capable …
(LedZ, thanks for the invite! Can I learn more about that project online?)
JSR is right, simply raising taxes and paying teachers more alone is not going to solve the problem. In fact the State Government alone can’t fix it. Communities will have to step up as well.
I find MC and JSR make some good points. You aren’t going to solve all the issues with K-12 education with any one solution. My opinion has always been that SD leaders had to commit to solve long standing issues over a period of time.
Now here’s the problem: I’ve held that position for over 20 years, and nothing’s been done. To his credit, Daugaard has decided to at least partly solve the teacher pay issue and some other issues more quickly. So, I can celebrate that bold effort, even if I think it’s not complete.
Really, you can’t consolidate school districts and close small schools without an incredible amount of political and emotional turmoil. Closing schools is tremendously emotional, even in a bigger district like Rapid City. I remember a couple people calling me up and crying about closing one elementary school, and that was the parents. Looking a kid in the eye and telling her you are going to vote to close her school was horrible, absolutely the worst thing I ever had to do, because kids and their parents absolutely love their public school. And for folks in small districts, it is not just closing a school; it’s seen as a threat to their town.
So, I can agree that we need to consolidate in some areas of the state. But, doing that is much, much tougher for all concerned than you might think.
Haven’t the states looked at education ills for years and haven’t done squat for teacher pay-especially in South Dakota? I doubt anyone has ever said getting teacher pay up close to regional standards was going to solve education’s problems. It will probably go a long way towards showing more respect and appreciation for the tough job of teaching your children. That seems to me to be a darn good place to start. Teachers deserve respect and appreciation,not excuses and poor pay.
Yes larry especially crappy right now yet i trudged thru the woods yesterday to keep the heart beating yet wearing out the limbs. Especially disconcerting knowing friends are wintering in portland With The Rest Of Gen Y. However The Hills Are The Finest Clime In The World From May To November. Imo
MC, this plan has nothing to do with homeschool. We don’t have a shortage of homeschoolers or homeschool teachers. We face no crisis in recruiting homeschoolers. The state has no constitutional obligation to recruit homeschoolers. Homeschool vouchers/credits/welfare/what-have-you has no place in this bill.
Cory, You’re right of course, there is no shortage of parents homeschooling their children Asking parents who choose to home-school their children to pay a higher taxes so teachers in another school district can get a pay raise seems wrong.
When I talk about consolidating, I’m not talking about consolidating entire schools, rather support services with city/county/state entities. For example building and ground maintenance or IT support services.
64+ counties and their bureaucracies are neither conservative nor sustainable.
the key word MC “choose.” As was mentioned before these parents choose to homeschool their kids. That’s fine.
But why should my kids get penalized because of that choice? As in taking money away from schools. Nobody is denying these parents from going to a public school.
MC, the idea that parents who home school their kids shouldn’t be asked to pay higher taxes to maintain public school teachers overlooks the benefits that every member of our community gets when the children of our community are educated.
We are all better off with an educated public, so we all benefit when our taxes are used for schools even if we never have any kids in public schools. Education lowers crime rates and produces employed citizens who will pay future taxes that will be much more than the cost of any individual child’s education.
Don’t home schooled kids have access to extra curricular activities provided at public schools? Sports,college classes,field trips,etc?
JSR also points to another issue. Paying teachers more, by itself, isn’t going to solve all the problems. Many of these communities are tight knit, and some don’t take well to outsiders. These communities need to develop social on-ramps, to help new people, new businesses assimilate in to their communities. This isn’t going to be easy.
MC, as I understand it the problem we are trying to solve is the teacher shortage. And as best I can tell virtually everyone recognizes that the cause of the shortage is that we do not offer competitive salaries. Educated teachers are bright enough to go where they are paid the best, especially when they have families to support and student loans to repay.
I can’t see how community “social on-ramps” are related to the pay issue. If a teacher can make $8,000 to $10,000 more by teaching in one of our sister states, economic realty will draw them out of South Dakota.
Increasing teacher pay will only go so far. Who would want to live in a small town they are not welcomed?
Are postal employees who often make more than the local yokels not welcome in Bum Steer, South Dakota?
How does the governors plan handle sped teachers. Some schools offer limited sped services while others offer in depth services. Sped services are usually provided at a low ratio. Does the plan only apply to teachers paid out of general fund dollars?
I live in a small town MC. Don’t think there would be any problems. Your making up potential problems.
Don’t quite get what you’re trying to say
Cops live on the public dole often at levels that make their rank and file susceptible to abuse of their families, alcohol, drugs, food, power, detainees and even drive them to occasionally murder their wives.
Education thread and what does this have to do with law enforcement?
Move to McIntosh with a spouse who enjoys theatre and mall and tell us how much those wages need to be.. MC is right to the extent of, who wants to live in Bum Steer SD.
Donald is right. For those who only speak to money as the cure for a teacher shortage, I say you’ve never managed employees.
Get a less regressive funding source if you are going to have universal support.
Arming teachers and educating cops is an intersection at public employment. How is equal pay for equal risk not an argument for unionization?
Lar, how is that different from teachers who live even more on the public dole?
Next year’s $0.01 sales tax increase will be dedicated to raising cop salaries. I’m just sayin…
Doland HS is twenty miles west of Clark, twenty east of Redfield. That would mean that people currently driving some distance would have to drive, at most, 25 miles, not bad. Doland’s also got 90 kids in their K-12 with another 70 in colonies. And it’s not just Doland. Surely there’s plenty of room for regrowth in the SE of the state as well.
Side note- Redfield has half the students in the county, but we’re about the same size of doland (who has maybe 10% of the population) Similar stories for Mellette (half as many people as us) and Hitchcock/Tulare (even fewer). This has made our property tax rates be much higher than theirs.
There’s more flaws with our state’s education beside just not paying teachers what they’re worth. Fixing them will help us pay teachers something more appropriate.
I agree that raising teacher pay will not fix every problem in public education. But it will address the fundamental sin South Dakota commits in cheating its teachers out of pay for two months of the work they do.
I am open to the discussion of consolidation, but should we force that solution through legislative action or should we let the market solve by setting a competitive wage and then letting Doland and every other community decide whether they prefer to bear that cost rather than simply joining up with a larger school?