Several days ago, Dr. Newquist's post on Aaron Huey's Pine Ridge photo essay in the New York Times sparked a fair amount of discussion (review also here and here) in the South Dakota blogosphere about the state of our Indian reservations.

More than tangential to that discussion, this good news: the Little Wound High School oral interp team won the Class A team championship at last weekend's Karl E. Mundt Dakota Invitational here at Dakota State University.


Mundt Dakota Invitational Class A Team Champs, 2009: Little Wound High School Mustangs. Pictured, left to right:

• Back: Coach Dan Snethen, Joe Bear Heels, Kyle Clifford, Wiyaka His Horse Is Thunder, Tressa Featherman, Elizabeth Charging Crow, Tyler One Horn, Chuck Good Voice Elk; DSU Foundation Development Officer for Endowments and Scholarships Beth Knuths.
• Middle: Melissa Hernandez, Harley Ferguson, Shyla White Lance, Tara Dull Knife, Fern Chase Alone, asst coach Crystal Apple, Tara One Horn, Kayla Hernandez
• Front: Liandra Young Bear, Halana Richards, Helene Stilson, Elaina Pourier

[Photo credit: Toby Uecker]

The Little Wound team distinguishes itself just by making it to the contest: their six-hour drive was the longest trip made by any of our contestants this year. For ten years, coach Dan Snethen has been rounding up busloads of speakers and student assistants to make the long trip to DSU. When he first brought kids to the contest, Snethen's interpers struggled just to place higher than fifth in preliminary rounds. In recent years, the team has gotten stronger, placing individuals and readers theater teams in finals against traditional interp powers like Sioux Falls Lincoln and Sioux Valley.

And this year, for the first time, they won the Class A team championship. Nice work, kids. And kudos to coach Dan Snethen for the time and effort he devotes to giving these kids some great opportunities.

...comments always on at the Madville Times...

Brookings can produce some spectacular citizen journalism: Amy Dunkle graces the pages of The Post with a wide-ranging assessment of the cost of higher education in South Dakota.

There are lots of important lessons in Dunkle's report. South Dakota students and voters should pay particular attention to these numbers: while our governor and Legislature (and candidates for those jobs) may claim South Dakota has increased its funding for higher education, the truth is we citizens have been derelict in our duty.

Since 1999, the state's contribution (read: we taxpayer's contribution) to higher education has increased from $112 million to $174 million. That's about a 4.5% annual rate of increase. Not bad, right? Well, Board of Regents data (page 33 of this PDF) indicate that over the past decade, higher education's share of the state's general fund appropriations has stayed almost flat, actually slipping just a tick from 15.89% in 1998 to 15.33% in 2008. Sure, more tax dollars are going toward our universities, but the increase barely keeps up with the general inflation of the state budget.

In other words, when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is, South Dakota has not given higher education any higher priority than it did ten years ago.

Our universities are spending more and doing more, but the cost is increasingly borne by students and faculty. Tuition and fees are going up faster than the taxpayers' share. AsDunkle points out from BoR data, " the state’s support level was about 58 percent in 1999, leaving 42 percent for the student body. Today, that margin has shifted to about 52 percent for the students and 48 percent for the state."SDSU President David Chicoine calls that a "dramatic reversal" in higher ed funding in our state. Faculty are also bearing a greater share of the funding burden, as they face greater pressure to hustle research grants for their campuses.

Lacking the responsibility to pay our own way, we the taxpayers of South Dakota continue to believe we can rely on someone else—our students and the feds—to pay for the public good of education. Former SDSU president Peggy Miller calls us out on that irresponsibility:

“We have got to make the investment. You do not reap what you do not sow,” Miller said. “If we continue to fail to sow, we aren’t going to get the future we deserve.”

Simply put, Miller said, “We grownups are going to have to step up to the plate and pay our fair share” [Amy Dunkle, "State Universities’ Enrollments Rising Without Much Financial Help from the State," ThePostSD.com, 2009.10.27].

I hope every gubernatorial candidate will read Dunkle's full report and weigh in on whether they think the status quo is acceptable, or whether they are willing to call South Dakotans back to their common responsibility to invest in higher education.

...comments and proposals for responsible funding mechanisms welcome at the Madville Times!

..wherein I disagree with the boss...

Dr. Douglas Knowlton, president of the fine university at which I work and study, addresses the seemingly inevitable legislative discussion of closing a university campus. He tells my neighbor and MDL reporter Elisa Sand that such talk is "absurd" and that closing any one of our campuses would be a net loss for the state.

Dr. Knowlton offers this bit of advice to our friends at Northern State on how to strengthen their case against the budget ax:

If the NSU campus has a weakness, Knowlton said, it's the fact that it lacks an identifying program, but the campus in Aberdeen is making efforts to market the new programs that have recently been created.

"Any school needs to find more of a niche," he said [Elisa Sand, "Knowlton Calls Discussion to Close One S.D. College Campus Narrow-Sighted," Madison Daily Leader, 2009.10.09].

I appreciate my boss's expertise in business and marketing. I recognize the practical value of distinguishing one's product or brand by doing something no one else does.

But for all my understanding of the market and political realities of higher education, I question whether niche marketing is the proper paradigm for our university system. Consider Northern specifically: what Dr. Knowlton identifies as a weakness, others might deem Northern's strength. Might not a university want to argue that it's "identifying program" is a broad liberal arts education? Might not a university distinguish itself by offering lots of diverse majors and minors?

The university should address the universe (yes, the words are related) of ideas and possibilities. They should assemble a universe of scholars—both professors and students, seekers of all kinds of knowledge—who will interact in the lively brew of diverse views and interests that spur creativity and strengthen society. My SDSU education in my math and history majors was enriched by the opportunity to take Russian and philosophy. My SDSU experience was enriched by rooming with a range and wildlife science major and living with the cowboys in Hansen Hall. So was my appreciation for the work of our conservation officers and our farmers.

Even MIT, with its "niche" as the mad scientist capital of the world, makes room for majors (majors!) in foreign languages, philosophy, and theater. Granted, neither NSU nor DSU is MIT... but does it hurt to measure ourselves against the biggest and best?

My conception of the university is perhaps out of step with the prevailing business needs of society. We can't just sit back and think grand thoughts; the university needs to be relevant to business and society, needs to give communities bang for their buck. But it is possible that a university can deliver that bang as effectively by reaching for more of the universe, not less.

...comments always welcome at the Madville Times!

Remember last weekend when I steamed up over KELO's biased coverage of President Obama's propsoed student loan reforms? I thought maybe we could find some balance to Senator John Thune's pro-usury propaganda by turning to one of our leading Democrats, a supporter of President Obama, someone like, oh, maybe, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

Nope. Thursday SHS was one of four Democrats in the U.S. House to vote against H.R. 3221, the Student Aid and Financial Responsibility Act of 2009. She voted against increased funding for Pell Grants, construction money for public schools and community colleges, environmental and energy efficiency upgrades in schools, lower interest rates for student borrowers, simpler financial aid forms, and $87 billion dollars in savings for taxpayers, all because she buys the Thune/Rounds banker propaganda:
 

"The enactment of this bill in this form could result in the loss of hundreds if not thousands of jobs in South Dakota during a period of higher unemployment," she told reporters Thursday, mentioning Student Loan Corp. in Sioux Falls, a subsidiary of Citi. "I have concerns about completely eliminating a role for private sector and the relationship that private lenders in South Dakota have with our universities and colleges, and any potential disruption and access to loans for students that could occur during the proposed transition to a new system." [Ledyard King, "Student Loan Reform Could Cost S. Dakota," that Sioux Falls paper, 2009.09.18]

Enactment of this bill would also result in hundreds if not thousands of South Dakotans finding college more affordable and being able to get the training they need for new jobs during a period of higher unemployment. But evidently SHS and Thune alike would prefer to see $87 billion of wasteful government spending subsidize a few South Dakota banking jobs (specific numbers on which Citi VP Public Affairs Mark Rodgers declines to give).

I'd suggest that SHS is letting donations from the fiannce industry sway her vote, but I'm sure she'd find such a suggestion "ridiculous".

Perhaps fellow Dems can take heart: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin still votes with the Democratic majority 94.1% of the time. By that measure, she's as Democratic as Reps. Eric Cantor, Dan Burton, and Dan Lungren are Republican.

But when I can look back over this summer and rattle off votes and positions—student loan reform, American Clean Energy and Security Act, Food Safety Enhancement Act, health care reform—where Rep. Herseth Sandlin sounds a lot more like a big-business Republican than a Democrat, I can't help hoping for a nice primary challenge from a good Wellstone Democrat, a McGovern Democrat, a Democrat who will be a Democrat on the hard issues.

...comments and nominations for draft movements and primary challengers welcome at the Madville Times!

Given some conservatives' vociferous efforts to keep President Obama from fomenting Marxist revolution in the classroom, I'm surprised I still have a job.

I'm also surprised that I haven't heard those same conservatives raise the red flag about some other intrusions on the sanctity of the classroom:

• South Dakota gubernatorial candidate sends out a press release trumpeting Constitution Day (that's tomorrow) as a celebration of "free enterprise and individual initiative"—words that appear nowhere in the Constitution, which created a stronger central government to solve the problems that the individual states under the flimsy Articles of Confederation could not. Munsterman fails to decry Constitution Day as a faux non-holiday enacted by the federal government in 2005 and mandating specific educational programs at all schools. This isn't just an optional speech from the President; this is required curriculum, demanded by Washington! Where's the outrage?
• I've heard some conservatives argue that ethanol is bad fiscal policy, bad food price policy, bad wildlife policy. I'm waiting to hear conservatives scream about the ethanol lobby's efforts to indoctrinate our kids in the classroom. The Renewable Fuels Association, Renewable Fuels Foundation, and National FFA are putting an ethanol-focused curriculum into our schools. They're even offering money to bring kids to Orlando, Florida, for further brainwashing. Oh, our poor kids!
• And last I checked, our schools are still rife with corporatist propaganda, as Coke, Pepsi, et al. take advantage of our stingy funding of schools to insert their advertisements into gyms, hallways, classrooms, and school signs to subject captive audiences of impressionable youths to their marketing. I await the explanation of how President Obama's call to homework does more damage in the classroom than corporate America's call to consume.

If I hear even half the ruckus over any of these intrusions into our kids' education that I heard over President Obama's speech last week, I'll be happily flabbergasted.

...comments and further callings-out of manufactured distractions from real problems welcome at the Madville Times!

Let me check: is KELO still a CBS affiliate? Or did Fox buy them?

Senator John Thune and the GOP just got a lengthy and free political advertisement from KELO. Angela Kennecke put together a 3-minute-37-second feature on President Obama's proposed direct student loan program. (When Angela or Don steps out from behind the anchor desk, you know it's a big story.)

Is this program a good idea? Well, from the KELO story, I really can't tell. Kennecke mentions that the plan might save $90 billion that could be directed toward increasing Pell grants, but we get no sources on that side of the story. All of her sources are people who don't like the President's plan: Senator Thune, Augustana financial aid officer Brenda Murtha, and an oddly anonymous laid-off Citibank worker. And they're all convinced President Obama and those darn Democrats are going to drop the other shoe on us and hurt competition and college kids and, as usual, cost us South Dakotans thousands of good jobs in the usury industry.

(By the way, Credit CARD Act of 2009 has been in effect for three weeks, and still no mass layoffs.)

In an abdication of good journalistic practice, KELO doesn't cite one source on the "pro" side of the student loan issue. They might as well be bloggers, right?

I guess that's why we have bloggers: to offer information to balance the bias in the corporate media:

President Obama's push for direct student loans is actually an effort to expand a program created by President Clinton and end a government subsidy to private lenders. Think about this: if the government is offering a service, why subsidize a middle man to skim some profit off the deal? Why not save the subsidy and just get the job done? Sounds like a great way to save students and taxpayers money and send more people to college. According to USA Today, some colleges agree. The number of colleges doing direct government loans last year jumped 50% as the credit crunch made lots of private lenders decide they weren't terribly interested in promoting the general welfare and taking on student borrowers.

The New America Foundation thinks eliminating subsidized federal student loans and moving to the direct lending program is a good idea, though it will be a hard fight in the Senate to get it past the private student loan lobbyists (Senator Johnson, pay attention!). President Obama's plan is a gutsy proposal that creates a less costly, more stable student loan program and strengthens Pell grants... without raising taxes!

Sounds like a heck of a deal... and a side of the story we sure didn't hear last night from our professional journalists.

...counterbalance the balance with your own comments at the Madville Times!

Somehow, I don't think we'd be having this discussion if Carrie's kids' teachers invited John Thune to talk to the class.

Hello, Carrie Pederson of Sioux Falls. I'm sure you'll find this post unfair, insulting, and mean. But when you use the public airwaves to say stupid things, you must expect public criticism.

What stupid thing did you say? In reference to President Barack Obama's upcoming speech to America's schoolkids, you offered this utterly silly argument:

"I don't like the idea that he's going to speak directly to the children and we don't know what's going to be said," Sioux Falls parent Carrie Pederson said.

Um, Carrie? Do you know what happens in school? There are a bunch of scary adults called teachers who speak directly to your children every day. And you probably have less idea of what those teachers are going to say on any given day than you do of what the President plans to say Tuesday. (Quick quiz: tell me what your kids' teachers will say in school Wednesday.) At any moment, one of those teachers could start spouting off propaganda to turn your defenseless children into Darwinists or anarchists or (horrors!) docile employees who don't challenge authority.

And what sort of accountability is there for these so-called teachers? Unlike the President, teachers don't have reporters following them everywhere they go. Unlike the President, who is selected in an excruciatingly long and brutal public selection process, teachers are reviewed and hired behind closed doors by a handful of people.

What kind of a parent are you to surrender your children to these dangerous teachers? How can you get through each day knowing you've left your children unsupervised in the grip of such unchecked potential brainwashing?

Letting teachers speak directly to your children—unbelievable! unconscionable! I'll bet you're the kind of parent who lets other adults speak directly to your kids without any supervision, like Sunday school teachers, police officers, and giant corporations (how many ads for Pepsi, Coke, Nike, Hollister are your poor brainwashed children subjected to every day?). You might as well tell your kids to run with scissors while you're at it.

----------------------
By the way, Carrie, David Brooks considers your concerns over the upcoming Presidential address "totally unrealistic and insane."

...comments welcome—if you bring a note from your parents—at the Madville Times...

Amidst the thronging masses at Prairie Village this weekend, I saw Madison Central School Board member Tammy Jo Zingmark. She was working the gate as part of a fundraiser for the MHS band (throw a successful signature event, wealth trickles out to non-profits... heck of a deal!).

I asked her when we might see her lead the school district into Web 2.0 and start a school board blog. I paraphrase TJZ's response:

Oh, I don't know I don't know much about blogs or Twitter or any of that.

Five minutes, I say, and I can have you set up and blogging.

Well, the board would have to authorize something like that.

What, authorize a board member to express an opinion?

You know, we take an oath saying we'll work as a team. People call me and ask about issues, and I have to tell them, "Come to the board meeting." And then they never do.

Wait a minute. So if I want to find out what's coming up on the school board agenda or talk pros and cons with a board member, I can have that conversation once a month, during the public comment period at each official board meeting?

Let's review that oath:
 

[Madison Central Policy BBBB-E] Do you solemnly swear, or affirm, that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of South Dakota, and that you will faithfully and impartially perform your duties as a member of the school board of the Madison Central School District, Lake County, South Dakota, to the best of your ability, and in accordance with the laws now in effect and hereafter to be enacted, during your continuance in said office, and until your successor is elected and qualified?

And do you further swear to:

1. Observe and enforce state laws and regulations pertaining to education.
2. Accept office as a board member as a means of unselfish service.
3. Transact school business only in regular sessions.
4. Represent the entire community without fear or favor.
5. Remember at all times that I am one of a team.
6. Accept all board decisions once they are made and assist in carrying them out effectively.
7. Delegate action to the chief school administrator as the board executive and to confine board action to policy making, planning and appraisal.
8. Employ only competent, trained personnel and these only on the recommendation of the chief school administrator.
9. Preserve the right and obligation of teachers to teach controversial issues fairly and without bias.
10. Adhere to the School Board Member Code of Ethics.
11. Govern the school in accordance with the school board adopted polices for the school district. (The answer is: “I do”.)

MCSD oath word count: 232. Presidential oath word count: 35.

Now help me out: which clause of that weighty vow supersedes the First Amendment? More specifically, which clause of that oath says that the board must authorize any public communication that a board member may issue relating to school matters?

For contrast, consider the city commission of Portland, Oregon. Here is a board like our school board, empowered to act only as a body, not as individuals. Yet the mayor and three of the four commission members maintain separate blogs to keep their constituents informed. They don't wait for a phone call and then say, "Come to the meeting." They actively push information online for anyone interested.

A school board blog would be a wonderful channel for information flowing in both directions: observations, opinions, and questions from board members and from citizens. And I see no policy clause that prohibits any school board member from opening a blog, saying "Here's what I think," and inviting fellow citizens to some healthy public online discourse.

...if they want to engage in such open conversation. If they believe regular public communication is part of their sworn duty to "unselfish service." If.

...if the school board won't do it, I sure will: comments always welcome at the Madville Times!

It takes guts for a high school administration to throw its support behind a good debate program. Principals and superintendents know that, for all the unparalleled educational benefits a good debate program delivers, it also trains kids to speak out publicly and speak out well against injustice anywhere... including in their own schools.

This week's cheer for debaters engaging in civic activism is a shout-out to Aberdeen, where Richard Marmorstein, Central HS senior and Nationals-qualifying debater, puts his training to work to create Aberdeen Orchestra Defense, a website documenting air quality troubles in the high school orchestra room and calling on parents and the community at large to rally to action.

According to the website, students and teachers have noticed a strange smell in the Central HS orchestra room since fall 2007. The director, Dan Witte, actually became ill on several occasions, and found that if he left the orchestra room, he recovered. Quite logically, Witte moved orchestra rehearsal to the theater.

The school responded by testing the air in April and August of 2008. Writes Marmorstein, "Though none of the contaminants tested for were determined to be at an unacceptable level, the tests still strongly indicated potential problems with the air control system." The school administration first ordered the orchestra back into the orchestra room, then decided the problem wasn't the air but the teacher. Superintendent Dr. Gary Harms transferred Witte to the middle school... at least until some parents raised a ruckus and got him brought back to the high school.

A winter 2009 round of air tests showed the air quality in the orchestra room did indeed violate EPA standards. The school board has ordered some preventive measures, like requiring garbage and delivery trucks to keep their distance from the building during class time so their fumes aren't drawn into the school ventilation system, but the board won't be spending any money on filtering or other upgrades to the ventilation system yet. The school will keep testing, but they are also sending Witte and his students back into that classroom come fall.

Marmorstein is reasonably uncomfortable with sending a good director and musicians in as canaries in the coal mine, and he's putting the Web to work to call for action. He offers an archive of Aberdeen American News articles on the issue. He's built a discussion forum to encourage public conversation. And he's doing it all with free tools, using 000webhost.com's hosting service. If you can make it to the library and log onto a computer, you too can be an activist: that's why I love the Internet.

There's definitely a debate to be had over this issue. Aberdonians, one of your best and brightest is calling you to conversation and action. Get to it!

By the way, you can tell Marmorstein is a Lincoln-Douglas debater, as he invokes Martin Luther King Jr.'s line about injustice anywhere threatening justice everywhere. Good quote!

...comments welcome Aberdeen Orchestra Defense and the Madville Times!

Sibby and the Mitchell Republic bring us this story first; that Sioux Falls paper and DWC come toodling after: State Senator Frank Kloucek (D-19/Scotland) is proposing legislation to put some serious limitations and oversight on the ability of our university presidents to serve as highly paid corporate board members. Senator Kloucek is responding specifically to SDSU president David Chicoine's appointment to the Monsanto corporate board and the mondo bucks he'll get for that gig ($400K in cash and stock options, $80K more than he makes as SDSU president). Kloucek's concerns sound very much like criticism we've heard from the SDSU Collegian and from this very blog: Big Ag buying influence, threat to public perception of the quality and independence of SDSU research, etc.:

“It’s just totally inappropriate to give that money to an individual rather than to the university for research,” Kloucek said. “It appears pretty clear-cut that they’re trying to buy influence at the university by buying influence with the president.”

...“There will be at least one bill,” Kloucek said. “I just think it’s better … to make it clear the we’re not in that kind of game at South Dakota.”

The appointment of Chicoine to the Monsanto board negatively affects the credibility of the university, Kloucek said, since crop research reports from SDSU could easily be assumed as skewed.

“This research must not be tainted in any way, shape or form and this certainly taints that research,” Kloucek said. “It … jeopardizes the integrity because it makes it look like we’re in the hip pocket of Monsanto” [Austin Kaus, "Senator to Regents: Fix SDSU Conflict," Mitchell Daily Republic, 2009.06.19].

It doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics to reason that if a guy has two bosses, and Boss M pays more than Boss S, then when push comes to shove, Boss M will probably have more pull. (Remember the Golden Rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.) Of course, Dr. Chicoine, who has a Ph.D. in economics, doesn't see it that way:

"My value to them comes as an economist," [Chicoine] said. "It comes from independence.

"If you don't perform to the criteria that is required for your appointment as an independent member, your appointment is not maintained. If you're not fulfilling your independent director's business, you'd be lacking of integrity, and you're of no value either to the company or to your own profession."

..."I'm in compliance with regents policy," he said. "It is standard for the industry. There is a disclosure process and transparency process in place in this state and every other state for presidents serving in this regard. So I'm comfortable with it" [Steve Young, "College–Corporate Links Targeted," that Sioux Falls paper, 2009.06.21].

Kloucek's fellow Democratic Catholic farmer (and my neighbor!) Senator Gerald Lange (D-8/Madison) isn't comfortable with it:

"I see a conflict," Lange said. "So, yes, I think Frank's onto something. I would support any bill he brought on the issue" [Young, 2009.06.21].

Strangely, the main blog voice from the seat of Monsanto's purchased power in South Dakota finds it more important to hurl personal insults at Kloucek (and surely, shortly, at Lange) than to address the actual issue:

Frnak [sic] Kloucek is proposing legislation.

Good for Frank. He can propose. Too bad it’s likely misspelled, and written in crayon... [Pat Powers, "Monsanto Job... Legislation to Be Utterly Ignored, Considering the Source," Dakota War College, 2009.06.20].

(I wonder if the Munsterman campaign Powers manages will be relying on such playground rhetoric. Powers could take a lesson in class from Kloucek, who criticizes the Chicoine–Monsanto deal without any such demeaning personal attacks.)

Should a university president, as Kloucek tells Young, "be living, breathing and eating SDSU 24 hours a day, seven days a week"? I'll grant a guy a sabbath... but I'll also note that DSU expects me to put DSU first, and I'm just a lowly graduate assistant. My contract explicitly forbids me from taking other full-time employment. That doesn't restrict me from serving on a corporate board (and I'll certainly consider offers to attend a few meetings for $400K a year... or even $40K a year!), but it does set a threshold at which DSU would consider me not to be putting sufficient emphasis on my research and teaching.

Public discussion of a similar threshold for our state university presidents is a fine idea. Senator Kloucek is to be commended for his willingness to raise this issue in Pierre.

...comments and offers of corporate board membership welcome at the Madville Times!