Teacher Pay: Olson, Admin, and the Lawsuit

KELO reports that depositions are proceeding in the school funding lawsuit, and that testimony from one state official favors the schools instead of his bosses. Given an example of a district with serious funding problems, State Board of Education member and Britton-Hecla superintendent Don Kirkegaard said in his deposition that he as a parent would not send his own children to school there. (Leave it to a guy from Britton to tell it like it is!) Kirkegaard also notes the failure of the funding formula to adjust to actual operating expenses from year to year.

Will it really take a lawsuit for the schools (court date June 2008) to get the money schools need to do their jobs right, or might the Legislature defy expectations and do the right thing without a court order? But even if they work up some courage, where will we find the money?

Some have suggested we just need more economic development. Bring new businesses, new jobs to town, and all the school's problems are solved. We certainly need jobs to give families a reason to stick around, but job creation isn't the sole solution. If it were, the Howard School District, which has enjoyed job growth from the Knight & Carver wind turbine operation, wouldn't need to continue its property tax opt-out.

State Representative Ed Olson of Mitchell has made the papers this week talking about market solutions in school contracts themselves. The former educator says scrap the standard salary schedule based on education and years of service, adopt performance pay, and let school districts offer higher pay for high-demand fields like math and science. Such thinking reflects some ugly realities of the free market: schools like any firm have to compete for the best workers, and unfortunately, the best math and science experts can command higher salaries in private industry than the best English and history experts. Somehow the market ignores the fact that communication skills and an understanding of our nation's past successes and failures are as important to good citizenship as math and science skills. Enshrining certain academic fields as "worth more" than others poses some serious philosophical problems to school districts dedicated creating well-rounded citizens... but so does not being able to fill open positions with qualified teachers.

Folks love to suggest cost-savings on the administrative end. It's hard to see teachers get paid $34K while superintendents make twice or thrice that amount and not feel a little sense of inequity. Teachers face the very critical scrutiny of students, parents, and administrators (not to mention video cameras) almost every minute of the day; superintendents face heat of their own but enjoy some insulation from such daily (hourly, minutely) pressure. Maybe more South Dakota districts need to look at joint superintendentships or even part-time administrative positions. Our friends in Ventura, Iowa, cut their superintendent's contract by 40%. Their superintendent, Dan Versteeg (another South Dakota ex-pat) took a pay cut of about $30K, dropping down from $71K to the low $40K range. Ouch!

Ventura's elementary principal Brian Rodemeyer makes an interesting observation on what it takes to make things work under a part-time superintendent:

“One of the keys is the district has to have trust in the other administrators that the day-to-day operation of the school will be handled in a professional manner. I believe we have that at Ventura — trust and confidence in support staff and administrators.”

Hmm... trust your teachers to do the jobs they've been hired to do without someone nannying them or laying more board and state mandates on them all them time -- there's a novel concept.

But even cutting administrative contracts won't save the money needed to run the schools. Every bit helps, but a cut like the Ventura districts's saves enough money to hire one new teacher. The Madison Central School District's opt-out this year is $180K; that's $30K from the superintendent, business manager, HS principal, HS assistant principal, middle school principal, and elementary principal. Make those cuts and watch market forces come into play.

If solving the education funding problems in South Dakota were easy, solutions would have happened by now. The legislature has probably run up against the simplest market reality of all: education needs more money, but South Dakota doesn't want to spend it, not on education. At least that's the position our legislature (and our state Chamber of Commerce president) have taken.

A judge's ruling in favor of the schools next summer is the best hope for better education funding. It will force the state to act before education funding reaches a full-blown crisis.