WANTED: Not-quite-bright teachers.
September 9, 2008 - A lawsuit brought by a handful of students and parents and supported by 100 of the state’s 168 school districts, alleges the state substantially underfunds school districts and violates a constitutional provision guaranteeing all children access to a free, adequate and quality education. The plaintiffs hope to show that teacher shortage is due to South Dakota’s consistent ranking as the state with the nation’s lowest teachers’ salaries.
Testifying was Ann Wilson of South Dakota State University who said that South Dakota has set passing scores lower than some surrounding states in a number of teaching disciplines. That apparently was done at least partly to deal with a teacher shortage, she said.
Wilson explained Monday that college graduates seeking to become teachers have had to take the competency tests for several years. The tests measure prospective teachers’ knowledge of how to teach and their knowledge of their chosen subject areas, such as math, biology or English.Wilson said the tests would provide at least some information about a person’s ability to teach.
South Dakota has consistently set passing scores at lower levels than Minnesota, North Dakota and Kansas, nearby states that require the same tests, the professor said. For many academic disciplines, South Dakota has set the cutoff scores lower than national averages, she said.
For example, 4 percent of those who took the elementary education competency test one year failed in South Dakota. If they had been measured by the Minnesota cutoff score, 14 percent would have failed, she said.
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tt- Such lawsuits are end runs around the responsibility of the legislature to determine spending. Plaintiffs are hopeful that they will bypass the legislature and get some anonymous, unelected, and, ultimately, unaccountable-to-the-public judge to determine how tax dollars will be spent.
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September 26 - At the lawsuit trial, Michael Wolkoff of the University of Rochester in New York , an economist testified that consistently ranked as having the nation’s lowest average teachers’ salary, but he said South Dakota also ranks near the bottom in average wage when taking into account all occupations.
South Dakota’s average teachers salary also is competitive with salaries paid in other occupations that might attract the same people, Wolkoff said.
He said South Dakota has a stable work force of teachers, with about 87 percent staying in the same school district from one year to the next. While 4 percent move to another South Dakota school district in a typical year, about 9 percent quit teaching or take jobs in other states, he said.
However, Wolkoff said only a small portion of South Dakota’s teachers move to other states to take teaching jobs. Most wind up teaching near where they grew up, he said.
