South Dakota Voices Response: Cassandra, thank you for joining the conversation and broaching the subject of what is essential.
Email comment from CS: " I am trying to find the 'poster', but when the public school system believes "sports and music" are ESSENTIAL to a public education, one has to wonder why public schooled kids cannot read. The SD Education group had that poster out to 'defeat' HB 1020..."
South Dakota Voices Response: Jill, thank you for joining the conversation. It is nice to hear your viewpoint. Have you checked the data on the school shooters. I believe almost all (if not all) were on behavior modifying drugs (the legal ones). Are you suggesting we should stop allowing kids to take those products to prevent violence and make it easier for the teachers to teach?
Email comment from J: "So school vouchers is your answer. Rich people getting free money. Its bullshit. There's so many restrictions on teachers. So much pressure. How about doing something about that? A students acts up and their hands are tied. More help for kids with special needs of all kinds is what is needed. Keep ignoring the problem. It will blow up in your face. Like it keeps doing with schools shootings. You people are are ignorant, greedy assholes. Go f*** yourself."
Ya. There are other options. It’s called teaching you seeds to read at home and don’t expect the government tit to make your kid smart. And I don’t mean taking your kid out of public school for some educational experiment at home . I mean sit down at night and on the weekend and read to your kid and have them read to you until your kid can read , recall and comprehend as expected for a kid back in the 60s when parents actually did that.
Larry, more parent involvement would be awesome! Are you suggesting we have parent coaching sessions and start reducing funding? What should we do about curriculum that is so poor parents have no idea how to help their kids? What about teachers who do not have a strong understanding of the subject matter they are teaching and are confusing kids?
How about we do normal parenting skills and assist children at home with parental discipline that requires improved academic excellence. How about we get off this institutionalization kick and start encouraging parental responsibility in childhood development in stead of pointing fingers and laying blame at the feet of an educational system that worked really well for generations that now fail to remember their own development and take the easy way out and blame government for their own sloth.
If you dont shore up public education you will suffer the consequences. Rich kids will have choice and poor kids will not. Educate all to make tax payers instead of tax recipients that never leave the town they grew up in.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The problem is taxpayers are paying about $1.6 billion per year (and the number keeps increasing) and the performance is very poor. Taxpayers keep getting asked to pay more and more but performance keeps dropping. What do you suggest we do to improve performance without increasing costs?
I have many thoughts and ideas but the adults always balk the changes needed.
If I had a magic wand, Id start with year around school. It would keep young kids from falling behind (which is #1 reason for dropping out later).
For example: The school year would be nine weeks on, 3 weeks off and 6 weeks off in the summer. If any student isn't passing at the end of the 9week period, they would go to school to get caught up.
I am not aware of any district in SD that has tried it. Other states use a year around calendar as do countries out scoring us.
However, test scores arent fair when comparing countries because many countries only test their college bound. They test them all around 3rd grade and then send them down a college path or a basic diploma.
Or 4, we could stop doing terrible reporting and understand that qualitative vs quantitative research methods have been entirely overlooked here try progressive rather than regressive leaders in the state for once. Mother of god, what is happening here?
Bill thank you for sharing your thoughts. The problem is taxpayers are spending about $1.6 billion per year and they expect to see results. Sadly the amount of money they have to spend goes up year after year and the students are becoming more and more unable to succeed once they graduate. That seems very unfair to the kids and the taxpayers.
How are you allowed to be such a bad reporter? Look, correlation is not causation. There a number of reasons for this you didn’t care to cover at all, and your options to remedy the situation were conveniently limited to insanity. This has to be a joke… I really hope nobody is taking your juvenile reporting as good information. You are a menace to our society.
South Dakota Voices Response: Teri, thank you for joining the conversation. At one point schools taught reading, writing, and math.
Email comment from TS: "Make teachers teach the basics again. Eliminate completely DEI from teacher's curriculum and eliminate teacher's who promote LGBT+. It's time for teacher's to educate children to be intelligent, contributing, members of society instead of grooming and confusing them."
Maybe allowing teachers to "teach" reading and math rather than all the mandated BS that States require them to present; plus stop "teaching for tests"...teach for proficiency instead.
Thanks for the comment. It sounds like many people agree with the need to allow creativity in curriculum, use of credentialed teachers, etc. Rather than a fixed path (that is broken), open the path.
In section 2 of your post, you say public schools might have “less” of those problem students. First the correct term should be “fewer” rather than “less.” The difference is that “fewer” means a quantity that is easily able to be counted. Students certainly are counted as opposed to “less” which might be applied to two different piles of sand, as an example. I’m pretty sure those “troubled kids” would probably remain in public schools while other students choose other options, which often have far less accountability that public schools must meet.
Finally loss of these funds would further erode public school funding, resulting in fewer teachers and a decrease in necessary purchases to keep up with technology and meeting the state requirements for curriculum.
Public tax dollars should be spent to fund public schools. Period.
Thank you Carol for sharing your thoughts. It is always nice to hear from you. The problem is taxpayers don't want to pay for billions of dollars per year for such poor performance and parents don't want their kids attend schools that are failing to educate kids. We just don't have any more money to allocate to schools, so we are looking for alternatives. What can we do to improve performance without spending more money?
If I plug my ears, put on noise canceling headphones. Go into a room and play the radio and TV AT THE HIGHEST SETTING —- I can still hear the school yelling “give me more money”. We desperately need school choice. School choice will drastically raise test scores by introducing competition into a poorly run bureaucratic school system
Is it competition though, when it is still funded by the taxpayers? And run by the DOE (to some degree...and possibly a higher degree if we have future legislators who change things up?)
I think starting with the South Dakota State Department of education should be a primary focus of taxpayers. If you go to their website, the South Dakota Department of education post on January 30 that “South Dakota is performing well compared to nation.” That tells me right away we’re in trouble, if you’re running a Department of Education, I think the metric should be a forecasted goal and expectations plan, not comparing SD students to other failures.
It seems pretty straightforward for the Department of education in South Dakota go investigate what sets top schools apart. Whether it’s the Warner school district K through 12, which performs gloriously at roughly $9000 a year per student or the Brandon school district which is also performs quite well. What is it that sets them apart, what can be learned and transferred to other school districts?
Accountability, like criticism should be viewed as a gift. The South Dakota Department of education needs to be accountable for their failures and have a plan forward.
To whom is the SD department of education accountable, to is it the board of Regents or is it division of finance and management?
You can compare to Singapore or Japan too, in my opinion having been there and have friends who live there, it’s an entirely different culture. The parents will make damn sure you learn and if you don’t, it’s gonna hurt.
I think the focus on fungibility within SD or Midwest has a better chance of copy and paste methodology versus a foreign culture.
One example, San Jose and Cupertino school districts in some areas have high concentration of foreigners, both mostly from Asia and India. At the public school teachers were running for cover because they were being held to account at parent teacher conferences and school board meetings by parents yelling at them. Yes, telling them they weren’t doing a good job I don’t see too much of that around here.
I have used Singapore math with U.S. children. It works beautifully. I especially like the spiraling technique — introduce early and repeat often. If a child doesn’t get it the first time, they will see it many more times. Also, it is nice that concepts are introduced in small manageable bites.
Yes, my Sing coworkers were damn good at maths (yes in Asia it’s Maths). Root cause analysis; we need to have a results based method of accountability for SD government at all levels. It pisses me off when government picks my pocket and I get worse results.
What a croc. The problem with education is not government or money but god awful political meddling and parental neglect. You folks come up with all these off the wall alternatives but never show that any of them solve a problem or actually improve fundamental academic test scores. And then you come along with the false equivalents that compare public elementary education with primary academic achievement. It is perfect example of a self evident truth. Something that says there is a problem is actually one itself. So much for adult critical thinking is this state.
After public safety, public education is the most important responsibility of our society as a whole.
However, before we make recommendations for a cure, we need to fully understand the problem.
Bottom line statistics, such as those reported in the 2024 NEAP are useful, but only as a starting point. Without further detail, they are useless as a tool for improvement.
Questions like, who, what, where, why, and how would have to be answered before we can even begin to make changes.
Michael, you are correct, poor performance is tied to many things. For example, I know of an alternative school that had very good performance. The keys were an alternative curriculum, alternative teacher credentialing, and excellent teacher pay with substantial performance based bonuses. The school intentionally avoided accreditation, because it would have changed quality. Very little money went to buildings and administration.
I'd like to know where it is that teacher's curriculum includes DEI. I'd also like to know where the curriculum includes promoting LGBTQ. Whoever believes that is happening hasn't spent much time in a classroom.
There has been some issues recently with boys being allowed to use the girl's bathroom. As you might imagine, the parents were up in arms about this. It appears that the parents were pushed aside for legal reasons (the school system didn't want to lose their federal grants). Pushing parents aside in matters like this probably isn't wise.
South Dakota Voices Response: Cassandra, thank you for joining the conversation and broaching the subject of what is essential.
Email comment from CS: " I am trying to find the 'poster', but when the public school system believes "sports and music" are ESSENTIAL to a public education, one has to wonder why public schooled kids cannot read. The SD Education group had that poster out to 'defeat' HB 1020..."
Far too many don't seem to understand the meaning of "extracurricular activities ". Just look at some of the sports stadiums.
South Dakota Voices Response: Jill, thank you for joining the conversation. It is nice to hear your viewpoint. Have you checked the data on the school shooters. I believe almost all (if not all) were on behavior modifying drugs (the legal ones). Are you suggesting we should stop allowing kids to take those products to prevent violence and make it easier for the teachers to teach?
Email comment from J: "So school vouchers is your answer. Rich people getting free money. Its bullshit. There's so many restrictions on teachers. So much pressure. How about doing something about that? A students acts up and their hands are tied. More help for kids with special needs of all kinds is what is needed. Keep ignoring the problem. It will blow up in your face. Like it keeps doing with schools shootings. You people are are ignorant, greedy assholes. Go f*** yourself."
Ya. There are other options. It’s called teaching you seeds to read at home and don’t expect the government tit to make your kid smart. And I don’t mean taking your kid out of public school for some educational experiment at home . I mean sit down at night and on the weekend and read to your kid and have them read to you until your kid can read , recall and comprehend as expected for a kid back in the 60s when parents actually did that.
Larry, more parent involvement would be awesome! Are you suggesting we have parent coaching sessions and start reducing funding? What should we do about curriculum that is so poor parents have no idea how to help their kids? What about teachers who do not have a strong understanding of the subject matter they are teaching and are confusing kids?
How about we do normal parenting skills and assist children at home with parental discipline that requires improved academic excellence. How about we get off this institutionalization kick and start encouraging parental responsibility in childhood development in stead of pointing fingers and laying blame at the feet of an educational system that worked really well for generations that now fail to remember their own development and take the easy way out and blame government for their own sloth.
Low teacher pay is showing results. What do you expect?
If you dont shore up public education you will suffer the consequences. Rich kids will have choice and poor kids will not. Educate all to make tax payers instead of tax recipients that never leave the town they grew up in.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The problem is taxpayers are paying about $1.6 billion per year (and the number keeps increasing) and the performance is very poor. Taxpayers keep getting asked to pay more and more but performance keeps dropping. What do you suggest we do to improve performance without increasing costs?
I have many thoughts and ideas but the adults always balk the changes needed.
If I had a magic wand, Id start with year around school. It would keep young kids from falling behind (which is #1 reason for dropping out later).
For example: The school year would be nine weeks on, 3 weeks off and 6 weeks off in the summer. If any student isn't passing at the end of the 9week period, they would go to school to get caught up.
Thanks for asking
Some school districts have tried this approach. Did it improve performance?
I am not aware of any district in SD that has tried it. Other states use a year around calendar as do countries out scoring us.
However, test scores arent fair when comparing countries because many countries only test their college bound. They test them all around 3rd grade and then send them down a college path or a basic diploma.
Or 4, we could stop doing terrible reporting and understand that qualitative vs quantitative research methods have been entirely overlooked here try progressive rather than regressive leaders in the state for once. Mother of god, what is happening here?
Bill thank you for sharing your thoughts. The problem is taxpayers are spending about $1.6 billion per year and they expect to see results. Sadly the amount of money they have to spend goes up year after year and the students are becoming more and more unable to succeed once they graduate. That seems very unfair to the kids and the taxpayers.
How are you allowed to be such a bad reporter? Look, correlation is not causation. There a number of reasons for this you didn’t care to cover at all, and your options to remedy the situation were conveniently limited to insanity. This has to be a joke… I really hope nobody is taking your juvenile reporting as good information. You are a menace to our society.
You must be a government employee. No one could be as retarded as you and not starve to death.
It’s funny that you say this unironically, boot-licker.
Parasite
South Dakota Voices Response: Debbie, thank you for joining us. Could you provide some detail so we can understand your viewpoint.
Email comment from DW: "If Thomas Jefferson read this he would be appalled."
South Dakota Voices Response: Teri, thank you for joining the conversation. At one point schools taught reading, writing, and math.
Email comment from TS: "Make teachers teach the basics again. Eliminate completely DEI from teacher's curriculum and eliminate teacher's who promote LGBT+. It's time for teacher's to educate children to be intelligent, contributing, members of society instead of grooming and confusing them."
Maybe allowing teachers to "teach" reading and math rather than all the mandated BS that States require them to present; plus stop "teaching for tests"...teach for proficiency instead.
Thanks for the comment. It sounds like many people agree with the need to allow creativity in curriculum, use of credentialed teachers, etc. Rather than a fixed path (that is broken), open the path.
Hear Hear!
A couple of comments:
In section 2 of your post, you say public schools might have “less” of those problem students. First the correct term should be “fewer” rather than “less.” The difference is that “fewer” means a quantity that is easily able to be counted. Students certainly are counted as opposed to “less” which might be applied to two different piles of sand, as an example. I’m pretty sure those “troubled kids” would probably remain in public schools while other students choose other options, which often have far less accountability that public schools must meet.
Finally loss of these funds would further erode public school funding, resulting in fewer teachers and a decrease in necessary purchases to keep up with technology and meeting the state requirements for curriculum.
Public tax dollars should be spent to fund public schools. Period.
Thank you Carol for sharing your thoughts. It is always nice to hear from you. The problem is taxpayers don't want to pay for billions of dollars per year for such poor performance and parents don't want their kids attend schools that are failing to educate kids. We just don't have any more money to allocate to schools, so we are looking for alternatives. What can we do to improve performance without spending more money?
If I plug my ears, put on noise canceling headphones. Go into a room and play the radio and TV AT THE HIGHEST SETTING —- I can still hear the school yelling “give me more money”. We desperately need school choice. School choice will drastically raise test scores by introducing competition into a poorly run bureaucratic school system
School choice is OK if it is choice of public schools. Anything that pays parents to keep their kids at home is a scam.
Is it competition though, when it is still funded by the taxpayers? And run by the DOE (to some degree...and possibly a higher degree if we have future legislators who change things up?)
I think starting with the South Dakota State Department of education should be a primary focus of taxpayers. If you go to their website, the South Dakota Department of education post on January 30 that “South Dakota is performing well compared to nation.” That tells me right away we’re in trouble, if you’re running a Department of Education, I think the metric should be a forecasted goal and expectations plan, not comparing SD students to other failures.
It seems pretty straightforward for the Department of education in South Dakota go investigate what sets top schools apart. Whether it’s the Warner school district K through 12, which performs gloriously at roughly $9000 a year per student or the Brandon school district which is also performs quite well. What is it that sets them apart, what can be learned and transferred to other school districts?
Accountability, like criticism should be viewed as a gift. The South Dakota Department of education needs to be accountable for their failures and have a plan forward.
To whom is the SD department of education accountable, to is it the board of Regents or is it division of finance and management?
“Thank God for Mississippi” is no way to run an educational system
Would it make sense to compare these school districts to a gold standard system, like Singapore, and see how they stack up?
You can compare to Singapore or Japan too, in my opinion having been there and have friends who live there, it’s an entirely different culture. The parents will make damn sure you learn and if you don’t, it’s gonna hurt.
I think the focus on fungibility within SD or Midwest has a better chance of copy and paste methodology versus a foreign culture.
One example, San Jose and Cupertino school districts in some areas have high concentration of foreigners, both mostly from Asia and India. At the public school teachers were running for cover because they were being held to account at parent teacher conferences and school board meetings by parents yelling at them. Yes, telling them they weren’t doing a good job I don’t see too much of that around here.
I have used Singapore math with U.S. children. It works beautifully. I especially like the spiraling technique — introduce early and repeat often. If a child doesn’t get it the first time, they will see it many more times. Also, it is nice that concepts are introduced in small manageable bites.
I use Singapore Math in the elementary grades for my home educated kids. Simple. Cheap. Effective.
Yes, my Sing coworkers were damn good at maths (yes in Asia it’s Maths). Root cause analysis; we need to have a results based method of accountability for SD government at all levels. It pisses me off when government picks my pocket and I get worse results.
What a croc. The problem with education is not government or money but god awful political meddling and parental neglect. You folks come up with all these off the wall alternatives but never show that any of them solve a problem or actually improve fundamental academic test scores. And then you come along with the false equivalents that compare public elementary education with primary academic achievement. It is perfect example of a self evident truth. Something that says there is a problem is actually one itself. So much for adult critical thinking is this state.
After public safety, public education is the most important responsibility of our society as a whole.
However, before we make recommendations for a cure, we need to fully understand the problem.
Bottom line statistics, such as those reported in the 2024 NEAP are useful, but only as a starting point. Without further detail, they are useless as a tool for improvement.
Questions like, who, what, where, why, and how would have to be answered before we can even begin to make changes.
Michael, you are correct, poor performance is tied to many things. For example, I know of an alternative school that had very good performance. The keys were an alternative curriculum, alternative teacher credentialing, and excellent teacher pay with substantial performance based bonuses. The school intentionally avoided accreditation, because it would have changed quality. Very little money went to buildings and administration.
Change is obviously in order, but I know from very painful experience that change isn't possible without buy-in from leadership.
That doesn't just mean that they just say, "Go ahead. Give it a try."
It means that the Governor, the Senate, and the House roll up their sleeves and get involved.
It also means that parents, families, and communities get involved.
Waiting for the educational establishment to make change is the same as doing nothing.
Doom and gloom, divide and conquer, all from a state that at one time was nicknamed the "Sunshine State"
I'd like to know where it is that teacher's curriculum includes DEI. I'd also like to know where the curriculum includes promoting LGBTQ. Whoever believes that is happening hasn't spent much time in a classroom.
There has been some issues recently with boys being allowed to use the girl's bathroom. As you might imagine, the parents were up in arms about this. It appears that the parents were pushed aside for legal reasons (the school system didn't want to lose their federal grants). Pushing parents aside in matters like this probably isn't wise.
Was a boy really "allowed" to use the girl's bathroom? There's so much misinformation these days. I'd need proof before I get upset.