Fuzzy Math on Education?

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FF this video to 30:00

After watching this presentation on school funding, I came away even more confused. The comparison to funding on what is spent per student, and showing the average salaries of teachers while avoiding what we pay administrators actually muddies the waters even more. I’m not sure who is showing us the actual numbers – maybe both are wrong.

Maybe some of my readers can make sense of it, because it was all Greek to me.

In a quick search today I found that school principal pay in South Dakota ranks 25th in the nation. Administrators as a whole we rank around 39th (this is support and office staff). They danced around these numbers in the above presentation. I’m not sure why it is so difficult to just show what the SFSD is paying administrators, compare it to statewide statistics and national statistics. It’s similar to when I have tried to find the total SFSD debt. I ran in circles for about an hour and eventually gave up.

On a more positive note, this bill is currently going through the state legislature;

House Bill 1177 moves to the House floor of the South Dakota Legislature today.  

The bill would move school board elections to the November general election ballot.

Finally some common sense in Pierre. I fully support this, and I think municipal elections should also be held at the same time. The biggest beef I have had with school elections is that they seem to be organized around voter suppression. Often held by themselves with questionable super precinct locations and hand counted by district employees. I hope this bill passes.

While funding of education, my ever rising property taxes, the disparity in teacher pay to administrator pay and voter suppression are concerns I have, my biggest concern when it comes to the SFSD is the lack of openness and transparency, it is the core rot that leads to my mistrust of the district.

South Dakota State Legislature proves their complete and utter ignorance by killing Saba’s Bill promoting economic development

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Somethings just make you shake your friggin’ head;

Yet on the same day that the Senate State Affairs Committee votes 6–3 to force open South Dakota counties for more CAFO business, the House State Affairs Committee votes 9–4 to kill an opportunity to open South Dakota for far more diverse business.

As you read the story, you will see that North Dakota is kicking our butts almost 2 to 1 in non-oil exports. Why? Because they have an office in state government that promotes direct business with international clients (since 2004), and here is the other kicker, it isn’t funded by taxpayers.

This was certainly killed because of partisan politics. Saba, a Democrat, has already been successful bringing one of many trade delegations. Shouldn’t our state government be supporting his efforts? The stupidity in Pierre is so immense they should rename the town to Ft. Putz.

Survey on SD Legislature, SAD, but True

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I voted on this survey Friday afternoon on Dakotanewsnow.com and took this screenshot. I knew the ‘NO’ percentage would be high, but I about fell out of my chair. 92% -WOW! Obviously this is unscientific and not sure how many votes were cast, but still astonishing. The problem is people continue to vote for the ‘R’ instead of the candidate. I tell people, research your candidates. We keep electing the same clowns and wonder why surveys end up like this.

South Dakota State Legislator from Sioux Falls proposes a bill for mental health evaluations for his colleagues

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I spoke with the legislator last night about his proposal, and at this point he wants to remain anonymous, but promises me that he will have several sponsors for the bill.

The bill, if passed would implement a law that requires all current and new legislators to undergo a mental health evaluation and IQ test. They will also have to take a UA (drug test) and undergo an addiction screening.

I asked Legislator ‘X’ why he is proposing this.

“Well, do you need to ask? Every year we are faced with more ridiculous bills, in this year alone there has been bills introduced that would limit surrogacy, limit transgender treatment, allows people to avoid vaccinations for their children, and take taxes off of guns and ammo (instead of food).”

I reminded him of what Hunter S. Thompson once said about that, why would people want to hoard food for an apocalypse? You want to hoard guns, because the people with the guns will have the food.

After a brief chuckle from Rep. ‘X’ he continues, “Many times these laws are unconstitutional and that costs taxpayers money to fight them in court, which brings us to HB 1004 which would allow the legislative body to ’employ legal counsel other than the attorney general…to represent the Legislature in any court of this state or the United States.’ In other words more kooky right wing groups interfering in our court system.”

So what do these bills this have to do with the mental health evaluation?

“Because the legislators that are proposing this crap are batsh*t crazy!”, exclaimed Rep. ‘X’ “They are either crazy, stupid or on drugs, and this bill addressed them all.”

Well you cannot argue with that.

So what are the repercussions if they fail one or more of the tests?

“If they are newly elected, they will be ineligible to serve to begin with, if they are already serving, they will be removed. In both situations they will also have to pay for the testing.”

I asked him how many legislators he suspects that will leave us with and Rep. ‘X’ said this, “A handful, and they will probably all be Democrats.”

So what would happen after this mass exodus of crazy folks? He said the first thing that would happen is we would have to increase the funding to the state hospital ‘significantly’ and secondly we would have to have a second emergency election to fill those seats. Rep ‘X’ is not certain how that would work, but he said in order to make the legislature viable we would probably have to leave ‘Republicans off the ballot’ in the emergency election.

Some have argued with Rep ‘X’ that this proposal is crazy and goes against personal choice of the electorate. “Yes, it does go against ‘personal choice’ and this may be why they just might support it”, says Rep ‘X’. “Because if the state legislature in South Dakota is good one thing, it’s taking away your personal choices.”

A majority of both houses just may be ‘crazy’ enough to support it.

*This piece is satire and only meant to inflame the nutty right wingers in Pierre.