A South Dakota Moderate

Now that the deadline for introducing new bills has come and gone, the details of the 5 bills making the rounds this year that deal with increasing teacher salary are discussed in this morning’s Argus and are linked to below.
HB1214 - Creates minimum salary for teachers in districts that get state funds. $28,000 minimum in [...]

School funding will be a big topic for discussion as the lawsuit against the state goes forward and during the upcoming legislative session. So when I saw this headline and accompanying story, I felt that it fit perfectly within that discussion.
Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From Language Programs
Faced with ongoing budget crises, underfunded [...]

Apparently that is what some think our legislature should do this session in regards to education. KELO has a story about some tenative plans for the upcoming session which includes a comment from Democratic Senator Sandy Jerstad whom would actually like to look at funding our education system.
Democratic Senator Sandy Jerstad is hopeful the [...]

From almost day one Governor Rounds has stood fast on his belief that there isn’t any major problems with the way our schools are funded. We are last in teacher pay, last in per student spending, and there are more than 70 school districts participating in the lawsuit against the state and others including Rounds [...]

The Associated Schools Boards of South Dakota has released a paper which dispels many of the myths being forwarded by many in Pierre when it comes to education funding.
Historically, South Dakota has funded education on a what-is-available basis – which mirrors a pre-No Child Left Behind mentality to public education where school districts used funds [...]

One Time…
Looking over the slides provided on the state website, one thing comes to mind. I doubt very seriously that the districts suing the state will have much hope for calling off their lawsuit anytime soon.
On the heals of the totally useless State Aid Study Task Force, Governor Rounds outlined his plans for the [...]

The supposed reason why our legislators failed to provide long term funding for our schools was that they were waiting for the report, 18 months in the making, from the State Aid Study Task Force. Well the wait is over and the 70 page report is now finished. What does this “magic report” that we [...]

The candidates for governor (at least the 2 that were invited) held a debate at the State Fair recently and one of the topics discussed dealt with the budget reserves held by the school districts in the state.
According to Gov. Rounds, the schools had $138 million sitting in their general funds and he took issue [...]

Governor Rounds made a speech Thursday at the Republican State Convention in which he as usual highlighted his accomplishments from his past 4 years in office and made no mention of what he plans to accomplish in his next 4 years if elected. That in itself is not necesarily news but one of his talking [...]

Governor Mike Rounds has responded (requires subscription) to the lawsuit brought forward by 59 schools districts attempting to force the state to increase funding and his response can only be classified as typical.
I think this is a very, very unfortunate approach that they’ve taken,” Rounds said, referring to the 59 school districts that filed the [...]

59 of the 166 school districts in South Dakota have submitted an 80 page lawsuit against the state, Gov. Rounds, The Department of Education, The Secretary of Education and the State Treasurer.
The lawsuit brought forward by the Coalition of Schools and several individuals which has been in the works for over a year, claims that [...]

I guess I wasn’t the only one curious about Governor Rounds’ plans for revamping teacher pay discussed in todays Argus.
Democratic candidate for governor Jack Billion released a statement today asking Governor Rounds to elaborate on his merit pay plans.
If Governor Mike Rounds plans to force school districts to abandon their current teacher salary structures and [...]