Excerpts From Recent South Dakota Editorials
Editors: Please note that The Associated Press welcomes editorial contributions from members for the weekly Editorial Roundup. Three editorials are selected every week. Contributions can be made by email at [email protected].
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Aberdeen American News, Aberdeen, July 2, 2015
Education funding needs more than big ideas
The one-room schoolhouse days are over.
Today, education — and teacher recruitment and retention — is big business. And it’s competitive.
If you don’t believe that, look to one of our area school districts.
At Mobridge-Pollock, a signing-bonus policy has been instituted.
Teachers and administrators who signed their 2015-16 contracts were eligible for a $2,000 signing bonus. Support staff was eligible for $750 bonuses.
The Mobridge-Pollock School District used federal impact aid money, which the district gets because some of its land (such as along the Missouri River) does not contribute to property taxes. That’s a creative solution to South Dakota’s ongoing teacher shortage.
But the real story might be this: Mobridge-Pollock is still looking for two math teachers for its high school — even with the bonus. And the bonus has not been enough to keep teachers in every case, Superintendent Tim Frederick said.
This underlines the constant funding battle South Dakota schools face. Even when schools have the money to offer, sometimes getting a full slate of great teachers is difficult.
Mobridge-Pollock’s bonus idea is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that would appeal to Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on education funding.
Last week, the task force met in Aberdeen to brainstorm with the public around one question: “What possibilities are there for meaningfully funding K-12 education for our kids and our communities?”
While we are firm supporters in creative thinking and great ideas such as signing bonuses, when appropriate, we also are suspicious of folks who say we can cut our way to success.
That’s not been a model that has shown any great promise in South Dakota.
School districts here for too long have gone without.
And while the task force might generate some great ideas, it will still likely be up to the South Dakota Legislature — traditionally not a friend of schools — to support those ideas.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. states’ education spending averaged $10,700 per pupil in 2013. In South Dakota, that number is $8,470, putting our state in the bottom 10 for spending.
Belt-tightening is a given, but at some point, our state lawmakers and Gov. Daugaard — the people who truly hold the purse strings — need to step up and make meaningful education funding a priority.
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Watertown Public Opinion, Watertown, June 29, 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court made a couple of controversial rulings last week that some people don’t like, some support and others either don’t care about or know what to think.
Welcome to the history of the United States of America, folks. It’s called change and change doesn’t always come easy.
The rulings last week supported continuing the Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — and that same-sex couples have a right to be legally married anywhere in the United States.
Those who don’t like Obamacare said when it was first proposed it was leading us down the road to socialism and the creation of granny death squads. We’re still a democracy and, to our knowledge, the government hasn’t pulled the plug on any grannys. We’re not sure why there was no great uproar over the fate of grandpas but there wasn’t. And, again, to our knowledge the government hasn’t pulled the plug on any of them either.
The same-sex marriage ruling is a lot more controversial. Some say homosexuality is against the laws of God and nature. And yet, it’s been around for thousands of years and likely will continue to be. Some say it’s a choice while others say that’s just the way people are born. The arguments, pro and con, will continue far into the future, but the Supreme Court says that doesn’t matter. If people of the same sex want to get married, then they can.
These rulings, especially the one on same-sex marriage, will be difficult for many people to accept. In fact, some justices of the peace have said they will resign rather than perform such unions. That’s a perfectly good choice for those individuals. But, those resignations won’t stop such marriages and, like it or not, they will be legally performed by someone.
The one thing that hasn’t changed over the years, however, is that change has been a constant in this country.
When it was first founded the only people who were able to vote were white males who owned property.
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No women, no non-whites and no white men who didn’t own land had a say in how things were run. That’s the way things were for a long time as our nation began.
But change is inevitable and those things changed, too. White, non-property owners were the first to get the right to vote and later non-whites and women were given the right to vote as well. Contrary to popular beliefs at the time in some circles, none of those changes brought about the destruction of the Republic.
There was also a time when slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws and supposedly separate but equal education and public facilities were perfectly legal. Those things eventually changed and, again, it didn’t bring about the destruction of the Republic.
For much of our history U.S. Senators were elected in smoke filled rooms and not by the direct vote of the people. That changed in the early part of the 20th century. It was only recently, that laws were changed to allow people of different races to marry, which was outlawed in some states.
Change has been a constant in our country and like it or not there come times when it is inevitable. This appears to be one of those times.
Oh, sure, we’ve still got our problems and plenty of them. But the changes made in the past helped move our country forward and the fears that accompanied the changes have often proven to be baseless.
Change is what made this country and the ability, whether we like it or not, to accept it and move forward despite our own personal beliefs or feelings is what makes it possible. That’s the way it’s been since the beginning.
You don’t have to like Obamacare or take advantage of what it offers if you choose not to. You don’t have to agree with same-sex marriage or participate in such a ceremony. But both are now the law of the land and part of the American landscape. Like it or not, we need to accept that fact.
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Yankton Daily Press and Dakotan, Yankton, June 30, 2015
Putting people before lawmakers
The U.S. Supreme Court, fresh off a string of decisions last week that will reverberate across this nation for a long time to come, issued a ruling this week that’s also worth noting, for its effect is to empower the people rather than lawmakers to make decisions that impact elections.
On Monday, the court ruled 5-4 that Arizona’s independent redistricting panel, which was created by that state’s voters, did have the right to redraw congressional districts. This was challenged by that state’s Legislature, which sued over the panel’s constitutional right to exercise this kind of authority, which is usually handled by governing bodies.
Arizonans approved the formation of such a board back in 2000. The panel would be made up of two Democrats, two Republicans and a fifth member agreed upon by the other four. The purpose of this board was to redraw districts fairly and apolitically, rather than have them geographically twisted and contorted to maximize one party’s influence over another. This practice is known as gerrymandering and has been a staple of partisan legislative skullduggery for two centuries.
In other words, the Supreme Court’s ruling does something that is badly needed in our political process: It removed a key component of running an election away from lawmakers who stand to gain the most from tipping the scales one way or another.
Yes, that’s a broad characterization that is probably unfair in some cases. But the temptation is always there, and it has been used far too often in many states to ensure that one party or another maintains control, or to minimize the influence of one block of voters who may be concentrated in specific areas.
The Supreme Court’s split on the subject seemed characteristically typical, but it was a fascinating division based on how the term “legislature” was defined by the Constitution. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — arguing in the majority — believed that “legislature” referred to the legislative power of the people to enact change through devices such as initiatives or referendums. The dissent — Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — argued that it was an elected legislative body, not the people put them there, that should have the final say on such matters.
We’ll put our faith in the people — in this case, those Arizonans who wanted an independent commission to fairly redraw district lines — more so than in the lawmakers, who displayed some arrogance in suing over the result of an election that took power away from them.
Frankly, there are aspects of our election process that need some fine tuning, and taking politicians out of the drafting of legislative boundaries, is a good step in that direction. The court got this one right.
