Remember how our Senator Russell Olson voted to zero the budget increase state law had promised the K-12 system? Well, that promise-breaker is now law: Governor M. Michael Rounds signed Senate Bill 22 on Friday.
That's what voting Republican gets you in South Dakota: a Legislature and Governor who can't find money to keep their promises to students, but who can find comparable millions to hand to a multi-billion-dollar foreign oil corporation to thank them for building a pipeline acorss our roads and fields. In the SD-GOP's eyes, students are an expense, but dinosaur fuel is an investment.
Just heard that Iowa is in trouble because the teachers were offered contracts several years ago with big increases in them. Sounded great at the time, but now the state doesn't have the money to honor those contracts. Welcome to fiscal reality!!! State employees once again have their salaries frozen. Why should teachers be any different?
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to bash Republicans like you, but I will say this. Our state sleeps with big business and caters to the Canadian oil companies, while we place our greatest resource, children, in the back of the bus, hurting their opportunities for advanced learning. We score well on tests, but what could we do if we had the dollars committed to really push our students with innovative programs? We're not using our potential and could easily be a shining star in the US K-12 Education field. I tend to be progressive when it comes to education and I disagree with the Governor's decision to cut the mandated COLA increase.
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