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Lana Greenfield, Enemy of Public Education and Civil Rights, to Chair House Education

Rep. Lana Greenfield, House Education chair for 2019 Session.
Rep. Lana Greenfield, Miss Education

The Republican leadership has put Rep. Lana Greenfield (R-2/Doland) in charge of the House Education Committee. What could go wrong there?

Sure, it’s nice that the Republicans put an actual former teacher in charge of an education committee. (On the Senate side, the GOP picked businessman Alan Solano to chair Education. Sigh.) But former teacher Greenfield has shown in her public comments an active antipathy for her former colleagues and for the thoughtful understanding of Constitutional rights that her profession should be instilling in its charges:

  1. In the September 15, 2018, candidates forum in Aberdeen, Rep. Greenfield attacked the motives of her former colleagues who would dare contend that they deserve better pay. She said people in a “caring” profession don’t need raises or decent paychecks. To justify her antipathy to paying teachers what they are worth, she said she loved teaching for just 180 days and having the rest of her time to herself. Rep. Greenfield thus peddles the false and insulting notion that the teaching profession is merely part-time work… or at least exposes that she didn’t take teaching seriously enough to do all the extra work and training that good teachers do all year.
  2. Rep. Greenfield has peddled the guilt trip on teachers seeking raises since the beginning of her Legislative career. In an AAN interview in December 2014, then Rep.-Elect Greenfield said, “Most teachers that I know are worried about the outcomes of their profession rather than their income.”
  3. At the September 15, 2018, forum, Rep. Greenfield also dismissed spending any more money on K-12 or higher education and expressed naïve faith in the free market to magically step in and pay tuition for its future peons.
  4. At a February 3, 2018, crackerbarrel, Rep. Greenfield showed she’ll let a personal grudge override policy to support educators. Rep. Greenfield justified her support for an ultimately failed attempt to ban university faculty and staff from collective bargaining by alleging that a university professor once gave her daughter an F because she cited the Bible in a paper.
  5. During the 2016 Session, Rep. Greenfield used false arguments to justify her votes against Governor Daugaard’s half-penny sales tax for teacher pay raises.
  6. At a February 20, 2016, crackerbarrel, she called Governor Daugaard’s teacher-pay-raise plan “blatant corruption.”
  7. On September 15, Rep. Greenfield said there should be “no restrictions on the right to bear arms.” Rep. Greenfield demonstrates her failure to understand that no right is absolute. Evidently she prefers dangerously oversimplified campaign slogans to critical thinking.
  8. At a March 4, 2017, crackerbarrel, showed her gross misunderstanding of civil rights by equating religious discrimination in adoption to the state’s indoor smoking ban. By claiming that she “was discriminated against because I could not put up a sign on my door that said ‘yes, this is a smoking establishment’ or ‘no we don’t allow smoking here’,” Rep. Greenfield showed a deep ignorance of the nature of real discrimination, as well as the scope of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.

If you want your House Education chair to be a friend of education and the Constitution, my fellow South Dakotans, you’ve elected the wrong party to the Legislature. Get ready for not one good bill supporting public education to come out Chairwoman Greenfield’s committee.

15 Comments

  1. MJK 2019-01-03 09:04

    Just what we don’t need.

  2. SDBlue 2019-01-03 14:52

    This is going to be a miserable four years.

  3. Debbo 2019-01-03 15:48

    It’s such a strange thing that the GOP will put haters in charge of such basic needs as education, rather than experts who are boots on the ground knowledgeable about what’s needed. Will they make a hairdresser responsible for the US Navy next?

    But then I remember that the GOP elite, including the SDGOP elite, prefers ignorant voters who aren’t skilled at analyzing political rhetoric. In essence, they are anti-South Dakotan, anti-American, as evidenced by their allegiance to Kochs and Pootie, respectively, and/or overlapping.

  4. John 2019-01-03 17:48

    Debbo & friends, it is not surprising the GOP puts government haters in charge of government offices. Hating government is what the reflexive modern GOP is about. Lincoln, TR,, Ike, etc., are rolling in their graves. The nation won the Civil, World Wars, prevailed in the Cold War, emerged from the Depression, Civil Rights, and ecological disasters of burning rivers and 2-pack-a-day city air quality eras because the US had a big government.

    The bigger issue is why do our neighbors continually vote against their interests? One would think that a psychologist or theologian academic might study and crack the code on this irony.

  5. bearcreekbat 2019-01-03 18:15

    debbo, you ask “Will they make a hairdresser responsible for the US Navy next?”

    Juanita Jean Herownself would be a much better selection than Trump has been making for virtually any position.

  6. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-03 18:33

    As Debbo aptly notes, universal public education is the enemy of GOP dominance in South Dakota.

  7. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-03 18:35

    Bearcreekbat, the participants in this comment section would be better managers of House Education or the White House, because, to start with, we all care about the public good rather than just ourselves.

  8. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-03 18:37

    John, the only reason I can think of that people would consistently vote against their own interests is that they don’t understand their actual interests, or because they are prioritizing the wrong things. Our neighbors aren’t the first humans to make such mistakes. Educating our neighbors well will mitigate, though not completely eliminate, our cognitive fallibility.

  9. bearcreekbat 2019-01-03 20:00

    I can’t disagree Cory.

  10. Debbo 2019-01-03 20:16

    You’re right BCB. Juanita Jean for Secretary of Education!

    We need to be sure to tell the Democratic president in 2021.

  11. Teresa Markley 2019-01-04 20:40

    It is sad that a strong Educational system has never been a priority in this state. Every step forward equals 3 steps back. Honestly, to this point in time, it has worked out pretty well for South Dakota.
    Teachers will never jeopardize the well being of students… a wide range of students with many, many needs, over a paycheck. However, they will retire, younger educators will move to border states, fewer and fewer teacher candidates will apply for SD positions. Personally, I think SD Government is losing the battle they think they are winning. It is well underway. What families will want to raise their children in a state with a mediocre Educational System? None! Those that have the option of moving, will go. What does this predict for our investment in our greatest resource?
    Education has never been a priority in SD… It finally caught up with the Powers that Be.

  12. Debbo 2019-01-05 13:51

    Juanita Jean has indicated that she is thrilled to accept the appointment to lead the Department of Education.

    Betsy DeVoid of All Humanity cannot leave too soon.

  13. Porter Lansing 2019-01-05 14:12

    John asks why SD voters continually vote against their interests. IMO … most of the best and brightest have left the state for over fifty years. What’s left are the descendants of the leftovers. It’s a “shallow gene pool” of ignorance, easily distracted, following their emotions and led by FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh and any half baked Preacher with a pocketful of promises and forgiveness.
    Promoting new things and ideas and attracting new businesses would make ripples on that pool and are thus scorned by those charlatans holding the “people’s leash”.

  14. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-05 14:53

    “Descendants of leftovers”—I won’t delve into genetics (dysgenics?), but I can see a political version of the selection Porter proposes. The kinds of families that would raise committed, vocal liberals aren’t as common here. We drive more of them out each year with elections, lack of job opportunities, and cultural pressure. Our state marketing and formal recruiting efforts (lower taxes! less regulation!) focus on things that will draw more conservatives than liberals. In these conditions, the liberal base shrinks and is denied streams of potential replenishment.

  15. Porter Lansing 2019-01-05 14:59

    It’s a cycle of diminished opportunities to promote Republican status quo.

Comments are closed.