Not only would PRE-K education save families millions in daycare it would also better prepare young students for K-12. One of the complaints I have heard from kindergarten and even 1st grade teachers in Sioux Falls is they spend half their time teaching life skills (like wiping kids behinds) that the parents ‘should have’ thought these kids before enrolling them in regular school. All the other arguments aside, I had to laugh about the ‘socialist’ agenda argument.
In case you haven’t noticed our fore fathers based our Republic on a socialist platform. Besides regular public education (K-12) being a socialist program, the US Military is one of the biggest socialist programs we have. Add to that the interstate highway system, the VA, Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, Public Libraries and even locally snow removal and our parks system, the list goes on. We all pay taxes to promote the social welfare of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority, I know that is hard to swallow, but that’s socialism folks.
I had to laugh when recently I heard a local radio host say he was shocked about openly Socialist lawmakers in Washington like Bernie Sanders. Those lawmakers get it, we have been a socialist democracy since almost day one. This is not something NEW that would be ‘snuck’ in on Pre-K education. Let’s admit it, most lawmakers in Pierre hate public education, that’s why they try to starve it every year. They believe only the wealthy deserve to be educated. These same lawmakers also don’t want an educated work force, because they will demand higher pay. We are only shooting ourselves in the foot when we refuse to fund these programs, it hurts the state economically. Who knew that our ‘socialism’ actually benefits our ‘capitalism’.
Speaking of socialism, I wonder how many of our Republican friends in Pierre would like to get rid of federal farm aid, too?
Currently, there is a move in Pierre to allow kids to drop out of school at a younger age, while this same crowd doesn’t believe in pre-K publicly funded education. My only question is: When are our Republican friends in Pierre going to finally leave the 19th century?
Sadly, the GOP is becoming a holding area for lower case kkk and lower case whackos in general as well….
Oh, and how about this one, the same legislature that had the sense to not allow guns on campuses thinks its okay for one to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Please explain that one to me as well….
#JustPlayingGovernment
#SomePeopleNeverGrowUp
Socialism or Communism would be a more preferred form of city government in that the community has control. Strong Mayor Charter is Oligarchy (a small group of people having control). Citizens of Sioux Falls made themselves slaves of the city when they voted for Home Rule Charter in 1996.
The legislature hasn’t done anyone any favors this year.
No on industrial hemp (so far).
No on requiring insurance to cover autism treatment.
No on pre-K education research.
Yes on making it easier for high-school students to drop out.
10% bills are placeholders.
More unhelpful trasngender legislation.
Ugh.
Gee, let’s just pick the babies up at the hospital when they are born [if the Demoncrats will allow them to be born] and have the government take care of them until they die.
I am pretty sure our republic did not establish public education- that is something that each state did on its own. Only later did the federal government involve itself. While k-12 may be a “socialist” program as you suggest it was an acknowledgment that people need to be educated in order to be productive members of society- thus the only thing I think we as a society owe anyone. However this does not mean that we spend an unending amount of money on education. In fact you bitch when the local school district spends money on much needed buildings but then criticize when the state “starves” public education. Another shocker I find in your post is that employers will pay skilled workers higher pay only when they actually have skills. Minimum and living wages are not the answer if you don’t have any skills. Finally maybe all the money parents are now spending on day care could be spent on pre K education- thus not requiring further contribution by the already strapped tax payers
Mark, you do realize that preschool would be an option, just like home schooling or sending your kids to private school. In fact there are several private pre-schools in SF, including SF Catholic Schools and SF Lutheran School. I think public pre-school would be the same, but I highly doubt many working families would turn it down unless they have a parent at home that can take care of them.
MJ – I said several times before the bond vote that I agreed we needed new schools, I also expected to have a tax increase because of it. That is obvious. It was a dubious process and I think we could have gotten everything we wanted by borrowing half and paying the other half as we go saving taxpayers millions in interest payments and putting more of that money towards education instead of bond investors.
Matt, the legislature has been a mess for decades and it gets progressively worse. This is what you get with 40 years of one party rule, but for some reason SD voters continue to support it. It speaks volumes about our underfunded education system.
Are we talking about historically? Pre-K was created by a socialist, John Dewey. A socialist, in fact in many ways : The Socialist.
U.S. education was created under the kindergarten format used in Prussia when Bismark enforced socialist policies in an attempt to cut off the political power of the socialist movement in Germany.
So in short, Yeah any thing pre-k in public school is by definition socialism
Oh, and I would be fine with getting rid of federal farm aid, but only if it includes all crops large and small. Make it easier to receive private sources of funding and remove all price floors and ceilings.
Federal Farm aid is a tricky subject because it is so wrapped up in New Deal policy, tariffs, and kleptocratic big business style capitalism that it is hard to untangle. Letalone the political non-feasability of discussing what system might be preferential to our current one.
What I appreciate about blog is I learn from the comments. A blog subject introduces the topic that gets developed with commentary. It’s a newer media that envelops the public. Our leaders disappoint because they are self interest. What works in general? It’s an encompassment of ideas that becomes acceptable. Now, let’s get the Lloyds and Sanford’s out of the way so we can vote for what’s best for the populous. We, the people, own our city.
Mark, you forgot the part where the Republicans, you know the “Job Creators,” want to instead employ them for $4 a hour without benefits.
Noem’s family can get $3 million worth of farm aid over twenty years, but no money for kids…..#WeGotPrioritiesIGuess
13Wis would that be an option to pay for it as a taxpayer as well? Meaning could I take my share out of my tax dollars if I do not believe in it or have kids in it. I doubt that. Parents need to be responsible or not have kids.
Mark, I don’t have kids and never intend to. Why should I have a portion of my taxes go towards public education? Because an educated society benefits us all. If we only had parents of school aged kids pay for public education, there wouldn’t be public education. Heck, half the parents in the district can’t even afford to buy their kids lunch.
“Parents need to be responsible or not have kids.”
WOW! I never thought of that concept. If you can’t feed them, don’t breed them! I have often argued that we should provide FREE birth control (of there choosing) to any American citizen who wants it, ages 15 and up! We would save billions in welfare, SNAP, Medicade and public education. But the right wingers think BC is a form of abortion, because, well they are crazy.
The county is responsible for welfare. They do the best they can with their meager budget. The city has no welfare responsibility and they do not fund for the jail despite the fact their budget is 3 times more. The only thing the city does is round up vagrants and put them in jail at county expense. Huether’s play palaces are built. Take away a third from the city and let the county use it to assist the poor.
No, the U.S. has not been a socialist democracy since day one. It was founded as a constitutional representative republic & all states that joined thereafter were required to have a constitution with that same form of government. If the U.S. is now a socialist democracy, then the roots of that remarkably
coincide with start of compulsory public schools (some started as early as 1852), which enforces the indoctrination argument.
Let’s introduce some basic facts/evidence into this discussion.
1. The public educational system as we know did not become widespread until the 1930’s.
https://www.americanboard.org/blog/11-facts-about-the-history-of-education-in-america/
2. Four eras of education in the U.S. (Compulsory education enacted in all states over the period 1852 to 1913):
https://cblpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/EdHistory_0.pdf
Now interjecting some evidence that pre-school really doesn’t help:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2009/05/20/quelling-the-preschool-enthusiasm/
And then there’s the whole indoctrination issue which is very hard to deny:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/liberal-bias-starts-long-before-college/
Plus the lack of teaching children to think critically, be skeptical, think things through instead of relying on the indoctrination, feelings or “isms.” For example, this professor has a rule in his class that if you start a statement with “I feel” you must cluck like a chicken.
https://newbostonpost.com/2017/11/09/undoing-the-dis-education-of-millennials/
Since the early 1900’s the Carnegie, Rockerfeller, et al. Foundations have been deliberately using U.S. public education to indoctrinate & dumb down students into essentially malleable robots. Here’s a quote from the article below:
“In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.”
– Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Business Advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr., 1913
http://www.thrivemovement.com/follow-money-education
So Mark, are you extending this logic to our current K-12 system as well?
Rockerfeller & Carnegie Foundations just after WWI came up with a plan to ensure that the U.S. does not revert to the concept of “individualism” and to the constitutional representative republic it was before that war. They planned to do so by influencing education in the U.S to disparage our history & to praise the principles of “collectivism,” i.e., essentially the principles of socialism – where the “collective” is more important than the individual.
This clip starts at 28:15 & explains the above in a few minutes time. I WOULD ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO WATCH THE ENTIRE VIDEO. It’s a real Holy Smokes revelation:
https://youtu.be/YUYCBfmIcHM?t=1695
Genius – you ask, ” When are our Republican friends in Pierre going to finally leave the 19th century?”
The answer is when they can get us all back to the 18th century.
Mark Peterson – You said, “Gee, let’s just pick the babies up at the hospital when they are born [if the Demoncrats will allow them to be born] and have the government take care of them until they die.”
I assume that was meant to be sarcastic, My response is not.
When I was a kid, private employers paid well enough and provided enough benefits on top of that pay (health care, pensions) that only ONE parent needed to have a job – leaving the other to teach kids. Now-a-days, private employers pay so little that for most people, both parents need to be employed just to be able to feed the kids.
You want somebody to blame for the growth of government? Take a good hard look at the “free market” private employer segment of our society. THEY have created conditions that virtually REQUIRE government financing of family assistance to subsidize their own private bottom line(s) – and to keep their heads.
matt johnson – https://www.nas.org/articles/u_s_founding_fathers_on_education_in_their_own_words
“Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.”
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
Thomas Jefferson
“If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav’d. This will be their great Security.”
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779
“It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.”
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America
“It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.”
James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791
“[F]or avoiding the extremes of despotism or anarchy . . . the only ground of hope must be on the morals of the people. I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. [T]herefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”
Gouverneur Morris, Penman and Signer of the Constitution.
All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.
George Washington
“A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district–all studied and appreciated as they merit–are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.”
Benjamin Franklin
“If truth be not diffused, error will be.”
Daniel Webster
Peter Piscke. The definition of socialism is the ownership of the MEANS OF PRODUCTION by the state. Pretty much NONE of the things mentioned on this thread are examples of actual socialism. They ARE examples of government providing means and methods that “promote the general welfare” of the country and its people – which IS a constitutional MANDATE regardless of the economic system at use.
Oh, and BTW – the constitution makes NO MENTION of a capitalist economic system (or any other). NOT ONE WORD. the implication being – they had no preference – just do what ever it takes.
Mark Peterson – you state; “13Wis would that be an option to pay for it as a taxpayer as well? Meaning could I take my share out of my tax dollars if I do not believe in it or have kids in it. I doubt that. Parents need to be responsible or not have kids.”
This is a great example of an attitude that passes for “conservatism” in today’s lexicon. However, what really is an example of is not conservatism but pure self-interest. I.E., disdain for humanity.