Republican legislators may be trying to stick their fascist fingers further into the whitewashing of South Dakota social studies education. Senator Jim Bolin (R-16/Canton) proposes Senate Bill 94, a measure to add the chairs of the Senate and House Education committees to the state Board of Education Standards. Those chairs—currently Sen. R. Blake Curd (R-12/Sioux Falls) and Rep. Lana Greenfield (R-2/Doland), both co-sponsors of SB 94—would not get votes; they would sit ex officio alongside the seven gubernatorially appointed board members.
Those two lucky legislators would get to observe and participate in the board’s discussions. Such observation could provide the Education committees with useful perspective on the deliberations and decisions of the board, which approves things like the K-12 social studies standards that Governor Noem dictatorially delayed as a campaign ploy to her national base last fall and which now sit in nervous ideological limbo. But they don’t need Senate Bill 94 to do that. Senator Curd, Representative Greenfield, and anyone else who wants to watch what the Board of Education Standards is doing can go to their public meetings (next meeting Monday, January 31, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., MacKay Building in Pierre!). They can submit public comment just like the rest of us.
But you know Republican legislators: they like to feel like they are better than the rest of us. They want to be part of The Club. Senate Bill 94 is an exercise in Republican ego and culture war influence, underscoring their effort to intimidate our education system into ideological compliance.
Looks like we are back to the little white kids asking if SD Tribal people still live in tepees, and where did we come from? Followed by did I meet the guy with 3 boats; Columbus?
Finally, telling me to go back to where I came from, as they stand within my homelands.
In a few short decades, white skinned people will be maggot like in a sea of dark skinned people. Just look at Pierre now with the inept inbred maggot colored republicans running to and fore getting their party’s business done before focusing on the state.
Dumb down history makes SD dumber… if that is possible.
I smell per diem and mileage reimbursement checks.
As a higher educator, I’m applying for jobs out of this state … I’m f***ing fed up and annoyed with this entire overreach in education. I’m serious, I cannot take this crap anymore and we have ZERO power because of last leg where we lost our Union power and the constant dismantling of our EDI. Another example I am our EDI chair at my school and we got a wrist slap because we took out an ad (sponsored by EDI) for the 38+2 and someone from the govt got wind of the ad and sent a stern email to our provost… I am fighting until I am gone… I. Am. done.
Look, legislators can monitor any public board as part of their oversight responsibilities, but legislators are lazy people, so mostly they don’t bother. There are exceptions. Frank Kloucek used to take his oversight responsibilities seriously. I would see him at some environmental board meetings. That was appropriate since he was on the Ag & Natural Resources Committtee.
Monitoring citizen boards is fine, but what Bolin proposes is that legislators interfere in the executive function of citizen boards. Most citizen boards are established to be non-partisan or bi-partisan. I notice Bolin’s proposal would install two partisan participants to lord it over the other appointed members. Not only that, those partisan members would have the power of the purse over the others. That’s not a good idea. Maybe Bolin needs to resign his seat to take a civics course and learn about the separation of powers.
They need to ban the bible and all its alleged teachings that magats don’t bother with, anyway. And oversight in South Duhkota is the dumbest joke ever.
Mr. Kloucek, as everyone knows, had then and has now nothing better to do except nosh on kolaches. Mr. Schriever is righter-than-right here.
I don’t recall that the majority party would intrude on citizen boards appointed by the Republican governor in South Dakota before. This is intrusion. I suspect that it’s another attempt to limit Noem’s influence on her signature issues to run nationally. Beware, Kristi. The primary campaign to clip your wings is well under way. They don’t like your distractions.
Bring back The Lew. He’ll tell you what to do. And don’t be paranoid because they really are out to get you!
Make no mistake, this bill exists because Jim Bolin didn’t get his way with the social studies standards and wants to have a stronger thumb on the scale.
Having two members of the legislature on the Board of Regents as voting members is a terrible idea.
Come on, South Dakota’s little children don’t need to hear the facts, it might distress them. Even a film I just saw on the Japanese Americans who were rounded up and put in camps during WWII might distress them. At their grade school the little Nisei stood at attention looking at the flag with their hand over their hearts and said “with liberty and justice for all”.
Jim Bolin, now there is a whitewing nut. He needs to go.
RST
You definitely hit that nail on the head.
Did you even read the law bill Mr. Kloucek? Oh, what am I saying, of course you didn’t. Put down the kolaches you have clenched in your sweaty fists, spit out the 3 you have jammed in your cheeks like some sort of spectacled gerbil, and back away from the law bill slowly…slowly.
Frank Kloucek, despite the moronic crap the thing calling hisself grudznutz places on this forum (the only forum in the universe which allows it), I recall you as a singular character in the legislature; one who understood the value of legal personal possession of firearms and of toleration of ingestion of benign substances.
Grudznutz preszents itself as a somewhat tolerant human being, then reverses in the face of actual tolerance. I’ve been dealing with this dissolute apparition for a decade, and I have yet to find a benefit to anything in its existence.
It is going to be interesting to see how the white majority of today is treated when it becomes the white minority in only a few decades as someone mentioned above. The picture might not look so good if the majority of today running everything in Pierre does not start treating minorities with respect today.