The Republicans running for District 5 House, incumbent Matt Roby and return-hopeful Byron Callies, both signaled in last night’s forum in Watertown that they want to focus on improving public schools, not diverting more public dollars to private-school vouchers:
“We are currently not funding public schools the way we should be,” Roby said. “And so before we start having the conversation about these other alternatives, we need to ensure that our funding is on a path to continue to grow at the minimum at the statutory rate.”
Callies agreed, noting that the state constitution mandates public education funding.
“Public education is in the constitution,” Callies said. “We are required to provide funding for that” [Steve Jurrens, “Watertown Candidate Forum Highlights Data Center Debate, School Funding, and Codington County Auditor Race,” Northeast Radio SD, 2026.10.06].
The constitutional provision to which Callies refers is Article 8, Section 1:
The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all; and to adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education [SD Const. Art 8 Sec 1].
That clause makes clear that our collective duty is to support schools that are open and free to every student, not religious establishments (every private school in South Dakota promotes Christianity) that can accept or reject students at will. Let’s hope Callies and Roby read that clause repeatedly to their fellow Republicans in Pierre every day of the 2027 Session.
I had to re-read. Talking sense for once.
Homeschoolers and private education advocates: You can only protect Little Johnny for so long, and your demand for vouchers hurts the community in general, the one Little Johnny needs to navigate and participate in.
So, just send him to public school so he can be a good example for all of those drug fueled public school kids and left wing trans teachers. /s
Good for them!! Now let us hope that the GOP caucus in Pierre will lean into leadership on education instead of trying to dismantle this most important social institution.
Neil Tapio (the Putin apologist) is also running for District 5 house. but refused to attend the forum because the moderator. Lee Schowenbeck made him cry or something. Dos Vidonya comrade crapio. I don’t know why you even try.
Sx123 thanks for saying Caitlyn Jenner is left wing. They should reissue her cereal too.
Well, it’s about time. I hope legislators will take a look at the school funding formula, as well as pump more dollars into the current formula. The original design was two-fold: provide money for school districts AND provide limits on property tax increases. The property tax limitation only works if the legislature guarantees adequate funding every year. If that adequate funding is not forthcoming there is either an erosion of programs at the district level or opt outs, which usually increase property taxes.
The problem with the funding formula is that it was not based on educational need. When the formula was developed they were more concerned with property taxes that were increasing largely uncontrolled. State-level officials never addressed the educational adequacy part of the question or how education may change over time. It was just assumed that the education provided in the mid-1990s was adequate, that the money provided through the formula was adequate, even though there was a lot of concern that both were not. If the foundation on which the formula is based was faulty then, how can it not be faulty today, after all the changes in education (computers and other technology) since the mid-1990s?
Blurring one line between church and state America’s founders extolled the virtue of education as local schools were run both by christian sects and by local municipalities under the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution. But, in the late 19th and early 20th Century the Ku Klux Klan and those on the losing side believed John Wilkes Booth was a patriot who took out the US President that started the American Civil War directed by a Marxist Illuminati. Then after World War I the Klan grew to some 4 million members, got involved in education and its leader, Hiram Evans complained that the control of school textbooks had been taken away by “un-American forces.”
The concept of a charter school began in 1971 as a progressive movement but especially in red states has since been hijacked by the far white wing of the Republican Party to advance the New Apostolic Reformation. Dominion theology supposes christians must control the seven “mountains” of government, education, media, arts and entertainment, religion, family, and business in order to establish a global christianic theocracy and prepare the world for Jesus’ return.
The Trump Organization is simply the latest obstacle to public education because it hates people of color and social equity, too. Add it all up: Rupert Murdoch, a a not-so-closeted racist himself, the Kochs, the John Birch Society, the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, the Council for National Policy, the National Rifle Association, Fox News, Tucker Carlson, their attacks on public education and their fear of the “Great Replacement.”
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/09/30/arizona-universal-school-vouchers-lessons-pro-publica
There is no accountability for homeschooling thanks to the Ice Queen, Kristi Noem. Yet the kids can play in public school sports. I’ve seen a few juniors and seniors lose playtime and scholarships when a homeschooler joins in high school and bypasses all the same rules they have to follow. It’s blatantly unfair.