Bill Harlan has this report on yesterday’s Senate Education Committee hearing On SB26, a bill:
The South Dakota Department of Education would get the power to regulate and accredit pre-kindergarten schools under a bill a legislative committee approved Thursday.
The Senate Education Committee approved Senate Bill 26 by a vote of 6 to 1, but only after long testimony by opponents.
A similar measure was defeated last year in the House.
Sen. Sandy Jerstad, D-Sioux Falls, a sponsor of the bill, said 50 percent of babies born in South Dakota received Medicaid benefits in their first year. "Just think of those people who can't afford any kind of decent child care," she said.
Parents would still decide whether to send children to pre-kindergarten programs, she said, but state accreditation would help ensure the programs were well run.
Chris Hupke of the South Dakota Family Policy Council said he opposed including pre-kindergarten programs under the umbrella of the state's K-12 program.
He also said there were better ways to help "at-risk" children.
"This is a sledgehammer coming to take care of what a flyswatter could take care of," Hupke said after the hearing.
Conservative activist Steve Sibson of Mitchell said the bill could lead to the Department of Education funding mandatory pre-kindergarten programs for all children.
"We don't know what the end game is," he said.
Sen. Ken McNenny, R-Sturgis, cast the lone vote against the bill, which now goes to the House.
Earlier this week, Dave Kranz did not report on the pre-K portion of my response to Mike Vehle’s announcement to run for the Senate. Now again the MSM does not report that what the bill wants, we already have. I testified to the fact that the taxpayers have already paid for the standards that they want. I also provided the committee a list of South Dakota pre-schools that have been accredited by the NAEYC (Pick "SD" for state and hit "Search for Programs") after showing the huge amount connection to the standards by that organization.
Senator Jerstad admitted that there would be taxpayer funding needed. How can we move to expand K-12 by adding two more years of students while being sued for under funding the current K-12 system? None of this is getting press coverage. As much as the press harps about open government, they are letting the government get a way with a dishonest back door approach to add more financial obligations to the taxpayers. There is little if no transparency as to what the end game is. And all the media does is say a "conservative activist" points this out. Seems like the media will not cover the negative aspects of issues that they support as they ride shotgun and perform drive-bys on the detractors.
Rest assured that this blogger will fight this tooth and nail. Look for more coverage and analysis including how this is an example of the plutocracy of public-private partnerships with Democrats like Jerstad and Nesselhuff agreeing to provide poor mothers free government daycare so they can become cheap labor for big business. Nesselhuff calls that "family choice"...the child becoming the parent of big government while the mother is cheap labor for big business. Such is the "economic development" plans of Governor Rounds. And he has many useful idiots on his bandwagon. And in this case, they are Democrats.
