Rapid City Picks People Power over Powertech, Opposes Black Hills Uranium Mine

Speaking of mining, the Rapid City Council made my week by voting Monday night to pass a resolution expressing "grave concern" about Powertech's plan to squirt a millions of gallons of drinkable water into the ground to blast uranium to the surface.

The Council loses two points for letting the term "grave concern" take the place of straight-up opposition in the original esolution presented in the agenda. However, even the decision to go as far as to say that Powertech has left too many questions unanswered and that the Canadian companies uranium mine poses an "unacceptable risk" to the Madison aquifer gives cause for celebration to citizen activists and to folks who prefer non-fluorescent drinking water.

The resolution is a stunning rebuke to Powertech's main Black Hills stooge, Mark Hollenbeck, who simpered that his reputation is at stake (hmmm... one guy's reputation versus public health, agriculture, and tourism...) and then tried to talk the Council down with the patently false claim that "There’s no way physically possible that we can affect either your quality or quantity of water from what we do at Dewey."

The Rapid City Council had a choice between doing the bidding of a foreign corporation or listening to the concerns of local citizens. The council listened to and says it shares those concerns. The council put environmental caution over the promises of foreign speculators and extractors. That's pretty remarkable for South Dakota.

Rapid City's resolution likely won't stop Powertech's Chinese investors from pressing ahead with their plan to take America's uranium, drain our aquifers, and leave us with a warm glow. But the resolution does show that if South Dakotans organize and protest, they can win. Let's take that fighting spirit to the state environmental hearings on Powertech!

The only "no" vote on the ten-member council came from Steve Laurenti, who fumble-mummed around his fealty to rich exploiters:

"The problem I have, from a logical standpoint, is to oppose something or even to have grave concern, grave meaning that I have a fear for my life," Laurenti said. "I don't fear for my life over this issue at this point."

Laurenti said he doesn't necessarily support the mine, but more debate is needed and the council should wait to see what comes from the state permit hearings.

"The bottom line is, it's very difficult for me to have grave concern about something I don't have a lot of information on," Laurenti said. "I'll be honest with you, I would be dishonest with my constituents and with all of you tonight if I said I had grave concerns about this issue at this point."

My sources tell me that Laurenti had received a whole lot of information on Powertech's plan back at a council meeting back in December. According to one source, Laurenti immediately threw that notebook in the trash.

Stimulus Helping Rapid City Small Business

Failed stimulus? Is Kristi Noem calling Mark Ruddeforth of Rapid City's Horse Creek Inn a failure?

Mark Ruddeforth saved about $7,500 in initiation fees on a $343,000 U.S. Small Business Administration-backed loan for his Rapid City area business, Horse Creek Inn.

Receiving approval of the loan made Ruddeforth one of the first business owners in South Dakota to benefit from the recently passed Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, which extends and enhances certain provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Signed by President Barack Obama in late September, the act affected SBA commercial lending for the 504 loan by raising the maximum net worth requirement for a business to qualify from $8.5 million to $15 million; increasing the maximum loan amount from $2 million to $5 million; and charging the bulk of the loan initiation fees to the government, according to Fran White, SBA 504 loan officer for western South Dakota.

The act is expected to benefit a larger group of small businesses.

“I’m already working on four loans that I couldn’t have been working on three weeks ago,” said White, who works with Black Hills Community Economic Development in Rapid City [Holly Meyer, "Local Business Owner Benefits from Stimulus Loan Program," Rapid City Journal, 2010.10.13].

President signs the bill two weeks ago, and already it's saving South Dakota businesses money. Who says government can't act fast to help the economy?

Ah, but what good is a measly $7500 in savings?

“Every little bit helps,” Ruddeforth said. “That’s 3 percent of gross revenue that is back in your pocket that can go back into the business.”

The saved and borrowed money will help with renovations to the property, including cabins and the restaurant dining room. Ruddeforth also added two full-time positions to his already eight-person full-time and part-time staff [Meyer, 2010.10.13].

Added two full-time positions. Added.

Ruddeforth also notes that this loan might not have happened without the stimulus, since commercial lenders are still balking at shaking loose funds. When the private sector can't keep the economy going, we step in as government to fill the gap.

Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Senator Tim Johnson supported this legislation. Senator John Thune did not. Neither did Rep. John Bohener or anyone else Kristi Noem would vote for for Speaker.

I told you, Kristi, and so did Stephanie: the stimulus is working.

Ellis: Lindberg Perfectly Qualified to Run Tea Party

...at least that's what it sounds like he's saying!

Barb Lindberg has staged a perfectly legal coup to officially take over the Rapid City Tea Party, a.k.a. Citizens for Liberty. Bob Ellis, along with others who thought the group was their own little club to dictate, is miffed to have been out-maneuvered by a woman he clearly considers his inferior. He appears to declare Citizens for Liberty no longer has any credibility—and how can it when it is not blessed with Bob's certainty and divine authority?

Ellis and his vanquished outflanked Citizens for Liberty board—and we can only use "board" colloquially, since the group had no written bylaws until Lindberg filed the official incorporation papers—have aired all their dirty laundry on Dakota Voice, with a link on the Citizens for Liberty Tea Party website (alas, Ellis still holds the Web keys, so Lindberg will have to start a new website for the official group... let's hope she includes a daily blog!). The "board" rebuttal is ugly, petty, self-righteous, Newspeaky, yet hilarious. In a 4,435-word essay (and Bob has chided me for writing lengthy rebuttals as a sign of ill conscience), they lambaste Lindberg's public speaking and time management skills. They air in-house e-mails.

And, in the funniest thing I've read all week, the beaten Ellis et al. summarize Lindberg's qualifications to run a Tea Party thus:

The CFL board tried for several months to work with Mrs. Lindberg on some of her rough edges, and while there were some improvements, she was becoming increasingly intransigent and heavy-handed at board meetings. In the end, she escalated to the point of paranoia and veiled threats to somehow remove two board members with whom she had the sharpest disagreements [Ed Randazzo, Dawn Pence, Zach Lautenschlager, Bob Ellis, "Facts Behind the Dismissal of Barb Lindberg from Citizens for Liberty," Dakota Voice, 2010.07.29].

Rough edges, intransigent, heavy-handed, paranoia, veiled threats... wow. Those characteristics perfectly describe of the Tea party mindset, the town hall tactics used last year to oppose health care reform, the tactic of bringing guns to public rallies, and the rhetoric of spilling blood to nourish the tree of liberty. It sounds like the Rapid City Tea Party has found its perfect leader.

Plus, Lindberg still wants to bring Glenn Beck to Rapid City. Keep the good times rolling, Barb!

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Bonus Baggers: Some environmentalists constituting a "Green Tea Party" in Florida delivered green tea bags to Senator George LeMieux to demand Senate action on climate change legislation. Ah, it's good to see teabagging can swing both ways!

Pants Fight! Street Cinema from Rapid City

West River neighbor Bill Fleming recommends the following video, in which I find mirthful metaphor for the partisan combat between Mr. Powers and myself. I hope the metaphor does not extend to the fate of the bearded combatant.



Mr. Fleming promotes this film as proud poppa: his offspring Bonny (cinematography) and Dylan (bearded dude) joined Kasey Reub (Son of Cancer Man) to film this minor local masterpiece. Beats most of what's on KELO!

I'd check for the logical sequel—Underpants Fight!—but I'm afraid of what Google might throw at me.

Potpourri: Local School Lunch, Gluttony, Tea Party Civil War

Too many browser tabs: time to clear the queue!

1. Cool news from Flying Tomato: the Vermillion School District is looking to add locally grown food to its fall and spring lunch menus. Hooray! Vermillion's food service is run by Lunchtime Solutions, Inc., the same privateers that Madison contracts with for burgers and fries. The company has previously bought local foods in Mission Hill, Sioux City, and Springfield. Maybe they can look into feeding kids some garden surplus right here in Madison.
2. But don't eat too much: Pastor Shel points to this Ryan Andrews article to remind us that gluttony—not just overeating, but all overconsumption—is a sin.
3. Sounds like gluttony for power may be breaking up South Dakota's noisiest Tea Party. Gordon Howie handed presidency of the Citizens for Liberty over to septic-tank crusader Barb Lindberg so he could run for governor. Left with nothing better to do after his fourth-place primary finish, Howie noe wants his presidency back. Citizens for Liberty is thus embroiled in a power struggle hilarious for its contradictions and small potatoes. The group demands open government, but then club agitator Shad Olson criticizes Lindberg for speaking to the press. They demand adherence to the Constitution, then conduct board votes unsupported by any published by-laws. Conservative Michael Sanborn gives Citizens for Liberty the what-for they deserve.
   

Eden Prairie Best Small City; Sioux Falls 77th

A lesson in not tooting the horn too soon:

Over the July 4th weekend, Mayor Mike Huether teased readers of that Sioux Falls paper by mentioning that Money Magazine had contacted his office last month to talk about including the Queen City in its top cities list. O! to hearken back to those halcyon days of the 1990s when Money once named Sioux Falls the best place to live in the country. Might we be on the verge of recapturing our glory?

No. Surveying 752 cities of population 50K to 300K, Money crowns Eden Prairie, Minnesota, as the best little burg. Sioux Falls ranks 77^th. Rapid City doesn't make the top 100.

Here's how Sioux Falls and Rapid City stack up against the top 10 cities on the list and the average metrics for the top 100:

Source: Money Magazine Best Places to Live 2010

Note that Money fails to include city sales tax for Sioux Falls and Rapid City. But tax rates apparently don't matter much: Minnesota's relatively high income tax doesn't keep Eden Prairie from ranking #1... or Plymouth, Woodbury, Egan, or Apple Valley from making the top 20.

Fargo, Lincoln, and Cedar Rapids all beat Sioux Falls with cheaper median housing prices. Grand Forks, Bismarck, Dubuque, Ames, Missoula, Rochester, and Cheyenne all beat Sioux Falls for shorter commute time (which makes sense, given how dependent Sioux Falls is on workforce driving from Harrisburg, Dell Rapids, Madison, and elsewhere). Sioux Falls doesn't even make the top 25 for clean air, falling behind Ames, Bismarck, Lincoln, Fargo, and even refinery-happy Cheyenne (uh oh: I feel a Hyperion argument coming on).

Sioux Falls does come out on top for job growth over the decade, thanks to Lincoln County's 67% job boom. Sioux Falls is also the 20^th coldest city on the list (though Minnesota still beats the snowpants off us in this category, too).

Some nice places Sioux Falls beat overall:

• Fargo (#86) but not Bismarck (#74)
• Sioux City (as if there were any doubt)
  
• Duluth
  
• Green Bay and Milwaukee
  
• Madison, Wisconsin (#95)
• Kalamazoo
  
• 15 out of 17 cities in Ohio
• Boulder, Colorado (wait a minute—Boulder, you should call for a recount)
  
• Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Daytona Beach, and Boca Raton (seriously!)
  
• every place in Oregon!
  

Peruse the full report yourself... and eagerly anticipate Mayor Huether's appearance at his next press conference wearing a #77 Fighting Pheasants jersey.

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Related: South Dakota fails to make the list of the 2010 Digital Counties Survey Awards from the Center for Digital Government. Minnesota's Hennepin, Dakota, and Olmsted counties make the top-ten lists in their respective population groups. Half of South Dakota's counties don't even have websites.

Dakota Middle School Principal Drops Hammer on Food-Fighting Seventh Graders

The whole middle school concept is predicated around the idea of building kids' self-esteem. But when the kids act like animals, they deserve a good chewing out. Fortunately for the students and parents at Dakota Middle School in Rapid City, principal Brad Tucker appears to get that:

Five students were injured by thrown plates and one required medical attention in a student-organized food fight at Dakota Middle School Friday.

Principal Brad Tucker told seventh-grade students Monday afternoon that he was angry and embarrassed by the incident and several students will be arrested and suspended.

“In my 27 years, I’ve never been so angry at a group of students; it makes me sick to my stomach.”

“ … You guys have a great responsibility here not to keep your mouths shut, but to take care of each other. Silverware was flying; somebody could have been impaled or lost an eye.”

The entire class has lost privileges, he added, including no end-of school dance and possibly no eighth-grade graduation. A letter will be sent to parents about the incident.

...Tucker told the students the only way to dig out is to “behave their way out of it” and they would have to grow up.

“In my 20-some years as a school administrator, I have never been as embarrassed by a group of students,” he said [Kayla Gahagan, "Five Students Injured in Raucous Food Fight at Dakota Middle School," Rapid City Journal, 2010.03.01].

I've caught grief in my classroom for being rough on kids, but when kids commit shameful and humiliating acts, shame and humiliation is exactly the right response from teachers and administrators. (Taking away the cell phones they used to organize the food fight might not be a bad idea, either.)

Rapid City Hansen-Larsen Park: Best Biking in America?

I know some folks think a good bicycle transportation network is just a luxury. But good bike trails can make for some darn good press for your town. Look at the attention Rapid City is getting for its newest bike trails, the Hansen-Larsen Memorial Park. One magazine calls the new trail system the best bike park in the country. The National Park and Rec. Assoc. named the Black Hills Fat Tire Festival held there the "best commercial recreation and tourism special event" of 2009. (Yeah, that's a mouthful, but if I were the Chamber of Commerce, I'd take best in the nation in anything anytime).

Says Rapid City parks and Rec director Jerry Cole:

There isn't anything within Rapid City like this. There isn't anything within 99 percent of the cities in the United States like this. This is unique....

This has the potential to change Rapid City for the betterment of the community and the visitors that will come here [quoted by Emilie Rusch, "New Park Drawing National Praise," Rapid City Journal, 2009.11.30].

But also note, City of Madison, this amazing trail system was built with zero tax dollars and no eminent domain. All it took was a community, including some smart donors, who recognize the cultural and economic value of good recreational infrastructure.

RC Chamber and SHS Disinvite Public; Right-Wingers Get Easy Blog Fodder

Bob Ellis is inflamed because someone in either Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's office or the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce or both dropped the PR ball and issued an open invitiation to a public meeting, then recanted and declared the Congresswoman would be speaking only to the RC Young Professionals Group. Then Pat Powers GOES APE with seven posts in one day saying the same thing.

Now we know what this is about. Bob Ellis wants a chance for his Tea Party friends to play out their faux-patriotic fantasies and storm some room with Stephanie Herseth Sandlin or Tim Johnson in it. They want to hyperventilate and pretend they're taking America back (from whom? other Americans?).

It is worth noting that SHS and Senator Tim Johnson held a series of public meetings on health care at the end of June and beginning of July. PP was apparently blinded by the glow of his Caps Lock key to notice the article in his local paper about a lunch and discussion SHS had with 120 of Pat's fellow Brookings residents on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, it is also worth noting that, like broken clocks, even Bob Ellis and Pat Powers manage to be correct on occasion. If the Madison Chamber of Commerce had issued an invitation for everyone to come hear Senator John Thune speak, then rescinded that invitation and said the meeting was for Chamber members only, I'd have blown some blog spitballs, too. (I'd have been blowing bigger spitballs at the Chamber of Commerce for charging $20 for lunch... and for charging Chamber members less than the rest of us to get in! Darned elitists!)

With Congress taking action on so many important issues, it's all the more important that our Congressional delegation use the August recess to get around the state and interact with as many constituents as possible. All three of our members of Congress can make a reasonable case that, even without town hall meetings, they are still making plenty of effort to communicate with South Dakotans. But the Rapid City public disinvitation makes SHS look bad, and Ellis and Powers are entitled to blow their spitballs.

Then again, Thune was in Madison Thursday, and he didn't hold a town hall meeting. When he dropped in to give his pal DeLon Mork a pat on the back for another job well done raising money for the Children's Miracle Network, Thune probably didn't take any questions on health coverage reform or anything else political. Am I outraged? No. Had I been at the Dairy Queen Thursday when Thune came in for his Blizzard, I wouldn't have raised my voice or tried to co-opt the event to serve my political purposes. There is a time and a place for everything. Politicians are obliged to be open to public, but they are also entitled to attend special events like Miracle Treat Day and give attention to groups like the Young Professionals or the Red Hatters or whomever else without undue distraction.

South Dakota's right-wing bloggissariat will have its fun with the public disinvitation snafu, and I won't try too hard to defend the Rapid City Chamber or SHS's office or whoever else caused it. Remember, I'm as interested in getting a chance to ask SHS (and Johnson and Thune) some pointed questions about health coverage reform and other issues as anyone else.

But it's also important to see this snafu for what it is: a bureaucratic failure to communicate between two offices, not a nefarious plot to hide from one's constituents.

Black Hills Cyclists Expand Rapid City Trails

Eager reader Tony Amert sends photos of trails he's been helping the Black Hills Mountain Bike Association build in Rapid City. The view from the new trails at Hanson-Larsen Park on M-Hill:

Zowie! I like Madison's bike trail, but we just can't compete with climbing and scenery like that. (Well, hang on: Tony's dad could probably hook us up with some payloaders... pile up some spare dirt... heck, Lake County could build some biking hills!)

Tony reports Rapid City now has "over 40 miles of challenging single track/technical riding within 1 mile of downtown." How's that for giving the young people something to do?

These trails are evidently built and maintained by local volunteers. Funding thus far has come from grants, not the city, though Tony says the National Forest Service has recently gotten on board and obtained federal grant money for trails in National Forest land.

Can Madison replicate this kind of bike trail success as it seeks to expand its current asphalt ribbon into a winding network of two-wheel trails? Our granola–spandex demographic is admittedly smaller than Rapid City's, so we probably won't see a lot of screaming single-track. Still, as we look for more routes for nice asphalt paths, perhaps we should also include some more rugged paths for the dirt-and-gravel riders among us.

Where might we make some fun mountin bike trails around Madison? One logical area would be a dirt spur north off the existing bike trail that would loop around the creek and lead into the southeast corner of town. Another possibility: with a trail extension planned to run south along Highway 19 to the federal wildlife area, it's not too much of a stretch to envision going a little further to connect with the old poor farm, where there just happens to be an old gravel pit that we could knock into shape for some hardy riders. It wouldn't be M-Hill or Skyline Drive, but it would be fun!

McDonald's Recalls Custer Toys from Lakota Country Happy Meals

Hat tip to AllGov.com!

Marketing rule #1: Know Your Customers. That might include knowing your history. It might stop you from doing silly things like handing out General George Armstrong Custer dolls in Happy Meals in Rapid City, where Native Americans constitute 10% of the population. The figurines are a tie-in with the new Night at the Museum movie. Tim Giago reports from the metropolitan hub of the Republic of Lakota:

Bobbie DuBray, Administrative Assistant for the Lakota Peoples Law Project was not only shocked by this apparent display of racial insensitivity, but also angered by it.

DuBray says, "I went through the drive thru at McDonalds on East North Street to get a Happy Meal for my five-year-old son. I got home and my brother opened the meal and found the Custer doll." She said he then asked her to come and look at what he found. To her shock it was Custer toy. Her son wanted the toy and she told him, "No. that's a bad toy." She said that her 10 year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad. She and her mother, Betty Handley, then gave the girl a history lesson "My daughter was not taught about this in school. What are they teaching our children?" she asked.

DuBray, visibly upset by this experience, said, "I think it's insulting. It's like handing out KKK dolls in the south where there are a lot of Blacks" [Tim Giago, "Custer Rides Again in McDonald's Happy Meal," Huffington Post, 2009.06.09].

Interestingly, one observer lays blame on the very East Coast elites we like to think are the big liberals:

[Oglala Lakota Jason Wolters] added, "Most advertising agencies are in the east and the people who put the ads and flyers together have absolutely no idea about the demographics out here in Indian country. We Lakota never see an Indian in the flyers of Kohl's, J. C. Penney's or Wal-Mart. They never stop to consider that our Lakota children never see people like themselves in the flyers and ads they send out here and yet you can go to Chicago or San Francisco and see ads with African Americans and Asian Americans" [Giago, 2009.06.09]

McDonald's appears to have quietly pulled the figurines, which feature Custer riding a motorcycle, from Rapid City stores.

E-Voting Snafu in Rapid City Doubles Vote, Shows Need for Paper Backup

If you've seen Terminator, you know you shouldn't trust machines. An eager reader points us toward a story of election machines gone awry that I should have caught sooner. In last week's municipal election in Rapid City, the vote-counting software somehow turned 5,613 actual ballots into 10,488 reported votes. For the most part, the results stayed the same: Mayor Hanks, for instance, beat challenger Bonnie Redden 71% to 29%, not 70% to 30% as initially reported (so Bonnie Redden's Tea Party principles could only roust 1,600 people from their chairs, not 3,000—pretty weak!). But the initial computer count would have given Ward 4 City Council challenger John Roberts a shot at taking out incumbent Ron Kroeger in a run-off. The corrected count put Kroeger over the 50% mark and cancelled the run-off.

Machines can do much more much faster than humans. That includes screwing up. We need to look at e-voting the way Reagan looked at the Soviets: trust but verify.

Update 2009.06.09 07:59 CDT: no word yet on any connection between Rapid City's voting machines and ACORN. Get on that, Bob!

Hanks Mayoral Landslide Suggests Weakness of Tea Party Movement

Rapid City Mayor Alan Hanks won easy re-election to a second term yesterday, defeating his only challenger, Bonnie Redden, 70%–30%.

The race might be the first electoral test of the Tea Party platform in South Dakota. Redden, a fan of Dakota Voice, ran (in RCJ's Emilie Rusch's words) "on an anti-establishment platform, advocating extremely limited government, drastic cuts in city spending and the end of tax increment financing districts." She wore a pin proudly declaring herself a "right-wing nut." She's also one of the "Obama is a socialist!" criers.

Interestingly, she also campaigned on the promise to eliminate tax increment finance districts (TIFs):

She'd like go to Pierre and get TIFs erased from the books. She sees their use as "corrupt":

"When a developer wants to build something, he needs to pay for his own endeavor, out of his own pocket," Redden said. "He has no business doing it on the backs of the taxpayers and property owners in Rapid City."

The city can encourage economic development by making the business permit and license process easier -- not by luring companies like Cabela's into town with incentives.

"What we need, there will be a niche for it, and it will come," Redden said. "I will make sure there are measures in place to make it convenient and simple to get businesses started in Rapid City, but only after they come to us. It's not the city's business to pay someone to come here under any circumstance" [Emilie Rusch, "Hanks v. Redden: Stark Differences in Low-Key Mayoral Race," Rapid City Journal, 2009.05.30].

Redden also told Rapid City voters that city government should spend money on three things: police, fire, and infrastructure. "All this other stuff they waste our city money on is just that—waste," Redden told Rusch. She wanted to privatize the ambulance service, put police on horses, and cut all social programs.

Sounds very "Tea Party" to me. Rapid City and the Black Hills are a hotbed of Tea Party activity. Even I can find some things to like in what Redden said, like her suspicion of TIFs and her demand for more budget transparency.

But voters dropped her by more than a 2-to-1 margin.

So perhaps the lesson the right-wing anti-government radicals should draw from the Rapid City mayoral election can be boiled down to two words: permanent minority.

RC Stevens Debate Program Threatened by Budget Cuts

As Madison High School continues to scale back its support for speech activities by ending its 40+ years of hosting the Karl E. Mundt Debate Tournament, our neighbors in Rapid City are preparing to scuttle the Stevens High School debate program. To eke out a 5% in the district budget, Rapid City administrators are considering a 50% cut in the Stevens debate budget. The cut would eliminate a teaching position and the beginning and advanced debate classes from the curriculum.

I highly recommend reading the comments section to the RC Journal story. A number of Stevens debate alums have joined parents and other interested parties to state their support for a strong, vigorous debate program. There appears to be a general recognition that debate provides one of the most challenging and profitable educational experiences that our kids can get in high school. When effective communication skills are critical to almost every good job in every field, it defies explanation that school administrators continue to treat debate as an expendable frill (and debate tournaments as an "overwhelming" bother).

For years Stevens debate was a powerhouse. in the late 1980s and 1990s, coaches like Kim Maass, Ron Grimsley, and Steve Bartholomew led Stevens debaters on grand marches across the state to come beat up on us East River debaters. But in the past few years, rapid coaching turnover (three coaches in three years, and one this year who resigned two months in) has left the team in decline.

A strong debate team requires a strong coach. Without lots of home games and arena spectacles to give the activity prominence, debate teams require a vocal, dedicated coach to be their advocate before the administration and school board. Without such a voice, the debate program becomes an easy target for budget cuts by administrators who fail to grasp how vital debate and debate tournaments are to the best education possible.

The Stevens debate program has already done its part to save money, making significant cuts in travel to East River tournaments (thus reducing its competitive advantage at big tournaments against its rivals from Sioux Falls et al.). Asking Stevens debate to shoulder another 50% cut and eliminating the curricular component of the program is unfair and unwise.

Rapid City Schools Promote Blogging

In a state where the K-12 server blocks some of the finest local citizen journalism, the Rapid City School District is demonstrating an anomalous grasp of the interactive, participatory power of the Internet. The Rapid City Journal reports that the school district is using its new website to encourage teachers to blog:

“Our goal is that everyone becomes a publisher.... This will reflect that new energy in education – the way people communicate" [emphasis mine; RCAS IT director Rick Bates, quoted by Kayla Gahagan, "New Web Site Lets Teachers Blog," Rapid City Journal, 2008.09.04].

Will students also be allowed to blog? Gahagan's report is a little unclear on this point: "Teachers and staff will be given the discretion to post and monitor student posts," she writes, leaving me uncertain whether students have direct publishing access with staff able to censor after the fact or whether all student text goes to staff for approval pre-publication.

Either way, I hope this experiment takes off and opens the doors for all members of the school community, staff and students, to make the school Web their own. The power of the Web is not simply the vast amount of information it can bring to us. The Internet is not just TV, where we sit glassy-eyed and flip channels. The real power—the power we need to teach our kids to use—is the power to publish, to participate.

"The Web can be a dangerous place," says Bates. Well, you can cut your finger off with a saw, too, but we don't send kids to shop class to learn how to buy shelves at Home Depot. The good teacher demonstrates how to use the tools, then puts them in the students' hands and says, "Start building."

The same goes for blogging and all the tools of the Web. Rapid City teachers, start blogging. Show the kids what you're doing and how you do it, then hand the keyboards to the kids and say, "It's your Web: make it what you want it to be."