The Government Operations and Audit Committee’s new education subgroup wants to spend some money. At yesterday’s tele-meeting, the education headhunters said they want to hire some outside consultants to rip review education up and down and do it fast:
The third-party review would start January 27 and finish in June or July. The 2020 legislative session opens January 14 and concludes March 30. The subcommittee’s timetable means possible changes that need legislative approval could come in the 2021 session.
A cost-benefit analysis of the department’s current and proposed uses of federal grants also will be performed independent of the third-party review.
“It should be a good road map,” [Rep. Sue] Peterson said about the overall plan.
The four lawmakers met Monday by teleconference. Peterson said she’ll seek approval for the scope of work from the Legislature’s Executive Board Tuesday [Bob Mercer, “Legislators Want Outside Look at S.D. Department of Education,” KELO-TV, 2019.12.02].
Yes, nothing speaks of commitment to a comprehensive review of costs, teacher training, private schools, home schooling, tribal schools, and our constitutional mandate to promote the morality and intelligence of every citizen like a bid rushed through committee by four people and a study rushed through half a school year.
This GOAC education study smells like the initiative and referendum task force of 2017: legislators will gather some data, pretend to care, then ignore most of what they learn and use the study as an excuse to carry out their war against the thing they pretended to study. Expect public-school-hating Representative Peterson to look at whatever rush report her consultants produce and say, “Yup! I told you! We need more vouchers so tax dollars can pay for my Madrassas for Jesus!”
Another example of how South Dakota’s Legislative Branch operates. This isn’t going to end well for the children of South Dakota. The best we can hope for is that this is a waste of money and nothing comes out of it.
First, a teleconference? Really? Clearly a rushed effort intended to exclude everyone in the state who has expertise in education. These tin-foil hatted boobs can’t even show their faces in public. Yeah, maybe a top-to-bottom review isn’t a bad idea, but I think you want input of the perspectives of parents, teachers, administrators, DOE, university education departments and, most of all, students, yes, you know those little people who this is all meant to help. Their input into what needs to be studied in depth might make a bit of difference in whether the money is wasted or whether you deal with real issues.
Second, is this rushed and secretive study, where legislators don’t even meet together to take public input, discuss options and publicly deliberate an example of South Dakota “civics.” A pat on the back for demonstrating Putin-style leadership for all the school children to admire.
Third, I hope we can exclude from conducting this study any groups with a bias against public education. Rep. Peterson has a habit of filching bills and ideas from corporate-led groups like ALEC and the various righty think tanks those corporations fund, rather than engaging in reasoned analysis about issues. These same groups continually try to steal revenue from public school children to give it to the wealthy corporate elite. Let’s not waste money on a jihad against educators who do a great job educating students in the face of open hostility and starvation wages deemed suitable by the vastly overpaid legislative class.
Donald, I suspect seeking a “third-party” review is code for, “Let’s get someone who isn’t involved with or invested in public education in South Dakota to come tell us how really bad public education is in South Dakota.”
But in a way, I can’t complain. What experts could we tap in South Dakota to study our education system who aren’t somehow connected with the Janklow/Rounds/Daugaard regime or the Schopp/Melmer/Oster cabal that brings us GEAR UP and cozy consulting fees? I could argue that bringing in some Minneapolis team to review our books and schools and department procedures and statutes and tax situation would be the best way to get an objective opinion about our strengths and weaknesses. But I don’t trust these three Republicans (will Rep. Bordeaux have any sway against a DOE coup?) to bring in any unbiased or well-informed consultant. We need to watch this review carefully for anti-public school bias.
Unlike you, I can complain. The GEAR UP problem occurred outside of school district governance. School districts had nothing to do with that. If they would bring programs like that into the districts, they would find the system is there to address whatever issues with the financial management there were.
So, yes, they should study and investigate, but what they ought to be investigating is themselves. They need to research why all the ideas over 40 years of Republican rule in South Dakota require another round of research and investigation. Governors and Legislatures over the last 40 years have failed, and failed spectacularly. They should be investigating is how every 5-8 years the Legislature enacts stupid ideas to change education, fail to adequately fund it and, when those prove to be failures, they find some reason to shift the blame from themselves to local districts, teachers and administrators, and then enact another set of stupid ideas that are shown to be failures in another 5-8 years. And this has repeated for 40 years!!! When you expect the Legislature to come up with ideas to change education, you are expecting Santa Claus to provide you a brand new car.
Now, I would suggest that a far better idea is to use this money to get ideas FROM THE BOTTOM. Ask the students, parents, teachers and district administrators what they would like to see different. Public schools can be laboratories for innovation and change, but they need support to do that. Provide some money through an income tax. See which pilot projects work and which don’t before you go off half-cocked like all the Governors from Janklow on down have done.
There you have it. You don’t need a goddam RFP to do something. You need legislators that aren’t brain dead and controlled by outside interests.
Exactly what Don said in the 2nd to last paragraph. Well, the last one as well.