BROOKINGS The Brookings School Board unanimously passed a resolution Monday night opposing Gov. Kristi Noems Educational Savings Account plan.
Noem asked the legislature to authorize a $4 million program to give $3,000 per student to families opting out of the public school system and choosing private schools or homeschooling instead. House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish, introduced House Bill 1020 to establish the new program. Noem said it will not impact public school funding. However, she proposed a 1.25% increase in public education funding less than half the 3.2% rate of inflation reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
The Brookings School Boards resolution states, The proposed program will be implemented by using millions in public taxpayer dollars to fund non-public schools that may pick and choose who they admit while also charging tuition and raising millions of dollars in scholarship funds, or to fund homeschool programs with no transparency or accountability measures to prove success similar to those required of public schools.
Superintendent Summer Schultz asked the board to adopt the resolution.
We know there are bills beginning to drop that go along with the voucher bill, Schultz said. Theres those perceptions that they want to pit public schools against homeschool and private school, and thats very far from the truth. I think parent choice, I think competition is great. But you have to fund public schools to begin with.
She said if the state cant afford to fund public schools at the rate of inflation then it cant responsibly fund a new program to support private schools.
What the correlating increase should be is 3%. In the governors budget address that increase is only (1.25%), Schultz said. That tells me we currently dont have the finances to cover the current system. So Im not sure without new revenue coming in where the additional money is. Its $4 million to start, but thats to start. And the governor made that very clear.
The boards resolution states, The school voucher program will not stop at the initial amount, as the intention to grow school voucher funding has already been stated even before it has been adopted.
State Secretary of Education Joseph Graves has thrown his support behind the governors plan. In a news release dated Jan. 10, he wrote, The education status quo is simply not good enough. Improving it requires something new. Decades of new educational programs and increased spending have not done the trick, unless the trick is increasing taxes and ballooning federal budgets. On behalf of children and parents who currently feel left without viable options, I absolutely support ESAs.
Schultz said the state does not have money to support this new program.
Without additional revenue, how we will fund a secondary system of education in South Dakota without significantly impacting potentially cities, counties, schools collectively, she said. That is a much greater worry for me.
The boards resolution states, With lower than expected revenue collections creating a lean state budget, the introduction of a new, ongoing funding system for a school voucher program will eventually lead to an unbalanced state budget or a decrease in funding for public education.
Board President Teresa Binkley said their resolution is simply about being responsible.
I feel like our board supporting that is the right thing to do, Binkley said. We need to do that to be responsible as a district.
The current legislative session began Jan. 14 in Pierre.
Email Jay Roe at [email protected].
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