Marty Jackley takes my advice and spins Kristi Noem’s anti-task force sally as evidence that she doesn’t support education as much as he does:
TOGETHER, WE WILL:
- Work side-by-side with educators, administrators, parents, school boards, and students. My primary opponent has announced opposition to collaborative task forces such as the Blue Ribbon Task Force for Teachers and Students that was convened in 2015. A Jackley administration, however, will welcome these stakeholders to the table. These voices deserve to be heard, and volunteer task forces do not grow government—they bring expertise to government and make it more efficient [Marty Jackley for Governor, education initiative, released 2018.05.18].
Such is the opening plank of Jackley’s newly released education initiative, which represents a continuation of the Republican status quo, treating education mostly as a pipeline for jobs. Jackley nods to his fundagelical anti-public-school primary base by saying he supports this year’s vetoed Senate Bill 94, which would have handed out more Opportunity Scholarships to homeschoolers. But nodding to the post-primary audience, he emphasizes that his kids attend public school, advocates expanded education funding (but not if it means raising taxes), and doesn’t explicitly mention “choice” or “vouchers”.
Jackley even sneaks in what could be read as a call for public pre-K:
- Expand South Dakota’s K-12 system to include adequate early childhood educational opportunities for the most under-resourced communities by working with both public and private entities to support our youngest, most vulnerable learners. Putting learners on a path for success early in their journey reaps rewards for the individual as well as economic stability and sustainability for communities [Jackley, 2018.05.18].
Jackley here affirms arguments his Democratic opponent Billie Sutton has been making for early childhood education all along:
One of our state’s strongest needs is improving our workforce and economic condition. My day job is in investments, and early childhood education has proven to be a great investment with an estimated $7-$13 economic gain for every $1 invested. In a state where 76% of families have two parents working outside the home, quality preschool is also a real dollars and cents issue for families struggling to balance the financial demands of life and raising children.
Yet, over half of South Dakota’s three and four year-olds go without early learning [Billie Sutton for Governor, press release, 2018.02.20].
Sutton proposed Senate Bill 132 this year just to study early childhood education, to get information that the next Legislature and next Governor could use to provide exactly the beneficial early childhood education that they say is important. Jackley’s friends at the Family Heritage Alliance testified flimsily against it (as they do against nearly anything threatening to make little kids smarter), and Republicans on Senate Education killed it 4–2.
So, since the Republicans appear receptive to my advice, I’ll suggest to Jackley’s primary opponent, Kristi Noem, that she could spin Jackley’s advocacy for early childhood education as a sign that’s abandoning the Family Heritage Alliance position and advocating for pushing more precious little children into bad old public education.