Education and Politics: Super Swings the Big Stick

William O'Dea, Belle Fourche schools superintendent and president of the SD School Superintendents Association, posted a withering critique of Pierre's relative inaction on education this year. Among his comments:

School Boards, educators and parents need to hold accountable those responsible for this neglect. This can be done by exercising one of our great freedoms, voting. We do not need legislators who spend their time on lions, deer, guns and moral issues (better left to the individual) while our neighboring state to the north pledges an additional 300 million dollars to education. Our state government continues to give agriculture a break in taxes while forcing home owners and commercial businesses to carry the load. Until we get a three-legged stool, to fund the needs of our state, schools will continue in a downward spiral.

We rightfully brag about good test scores and great teachers, but we must take note. Scores are moving closer to the national average and no-one in South Dakota wants our children to be “average.” Our teachers are moving to neighboring states while colleges find fewer students training to be teachers. Without a drastic change in the mind set in Pierre, these trends will continue. Soon we will realize the fruits of our inaction. That fruit being test scores at or below the national average, a lack of highly qualified teachers and schools lacking adequate programs to meet the needs of their students [William O'Dea, "Legislature and Governor Hit a Grand Slam, or How K-12 Education in South Dakota Gets Slammed Again," SDSSA, 2008.03.19].

(I wonder how long it will take the K-12 server filters to block that content!)

Professor Schaff (with whom I'll be sharing airtime on SDPB tomorrow noon!) airs his agreement with Supt. O'Dea's contention that the state needs to spend more on education, but says O'Dea's rhetoric does more harm than good:

O'Dea's email drips with contempt for what he calls "the majority" in Pierre. This is a thinly veiled attack on the Republican majority in the legislature. As I have said before, if one hopes to achieve legislative success in Pierre, alienating the Republican caucus is not a smart move. A Republican legislator told me this past year that they have meetings with certain groups of the education lobby, the education lobby spends their time attacking and belittling Republicans, and then the education lobby wonders why the legislature doesn't enact their agenda [Jon Schaff, "How Not to Win Friends and Influence People," South Dakota Politics, 2008.03.27].

So republican legislators don't enact the education lobby's agenda because of perceived partisan attacks? Sounds like putting politics over good policy to me.

Gentle readers, you know my own inclination to rhetorical excess, so I'm perhaps not the best person to ask whether O'Dea's comments are in order or not. But Governor Rounds certainly doesn't pull any punches in his criticism of superintendents; why aren't superintendents entitled to give as good as they get?

When the Legislature and Governor lavish funds on higher education and state government and treat K-12 like an afterthought, O'Dea's rhetorical heat is understandable and perhaps necessary. And in terms of partisanship, it's not O'Dea's fault that the legislative and executive branches he criticizes have been dominated by Republicans for 30+ years. Maybe in this election year, we need everyone to get out the big stick and say what they're really thinking. Get it out, argue it out, and let the voters decide whether the Rounds-Republican status quo is good enough for their kids.