Say Anything Blog

This is completely new information to me, but let me provide an analysis that I am sure I will be lambasted for.

Anyway, while the North Dakota constitution clearly requires the state legislature to provide for a system of public school it does not state how that system should be provided for.

In legal terms, “provide” is not a process but the actual payment. 

Apparently, when this Article and Section was written, they did not believe in local control.

This section must be amended, likely through a constitutional ballot measure, just to bring what has been the way things have been done into compliance with what seems to be a long ignored section of the constitution.

Parents are required by law to provide for their children.

That does not mean the parent is required to come up with a way for the child to make money, it means literally provide for the child.

The context of this entire arguement is wrong, and while I won’t call anyone else stupid, my understanding of the system was based on an ignorance of the law/constitution.

This must be changed, we cannot have the constitution giving full control to the state, as this does.

Furthermore, The conservatism that I subscribe to says to respect the Constitution until you can succeed in amending it.

I disagree with this section of the constitution, but having just a slight understanding of how law in general works, I am not arrogant enough to dismiss the fact that the law is what it is. 

It’s badly written and in my opinion not in the best interest of the students as it grants zero local authority to parents and the community - that said, it’s still the law.

A couple things… Have you noticed how you went from praising the hard work of authors of a constitution at 3:17 this afternoon, to dismissing the work of authors of a constitution at 11:00 pm?  It only took about 7 hours for you to go from a “strict constructionist” and constitutional defender to being a “lenient interpretationist.” I don’t point this out to say either way is wrong.  I just point it out to show how easy it is—even for me—to switch from being one to the other when we like or don’t like what a constitution says. 

Also, I don’t think bloggers write stuff nasty to be nasty.  We write it to be interesting enough to read and, occasionally, funny.  You might not find the stuff on BismarckDems.com to be funny, and that’s fine.  You probably aren’t the intended audience.  Snarkiness is a part of modern political dialogue, and it doesn’t make bloggers bad people.  You aren’t a bad person or blogger for calling the guy in your last post “a moron” (in the title of your post, no less).  Isn’t it a little harsh to go around calling people “morons?” On the flip side, doesn’t it seem fair to point out, in a snarky way, that so few people - dems and reps - take the 30 seconds it takes to look at the document where your whole discussion should have started? 

Lastly, Democrats aren’t advocating for state control of education.  They seem to be honoring the words in the constitution.  The constitution doesn’t say anything about “control” of education.  It talks about “providing for” it.  I understand money and control oftentimes go hand in hand.  But if you read the editorial in this morning’s forum—http://www.in-forum.com/Opinion/articles/153162—it talks about how the Democrat’s plan supports local control and more state funding.  Don’t you think it’s possible to honor our state’s founders’ words AND honor peoples’ support for the idea of local control of schools.  Maybe you don’t think so.  That’s fine.  But shouldn’t the conversation have started by looking at the constitution first rather than last (or never)?

The cities are a creation of the state.  So requiring the cities (or more properly localities as there are plenty of rural districts) to set up their own funding mechanism and their own schools.

I guess if the state’s going to get stuck with the bill they have to control how much the local school boards can spend. 

I don’t think that’s the best.  They should provide an equal amount of funding for each student.  They should have minimum requirements for the schools.

Over and above that the schools should be able to innovate and add in bells and whistles if they wish.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Whistler,

Do you know the historical linkage of property tax being used to fund education?

Charles Barkley (yes, the basketball player) makes a good argument as to why property taxes should not be used to fund education.  (I am sure he “borrowed” it from somewhere) The argument goes that because property taxes from rich cities pay for the schools there, obviously the schools will be better; and because poor cities have little property of value, their local tax base can only afford bad schools.

I didn’t think that this applied to ND so much as Alabama where he is from, but I am starting to wonder if we want to retain the notion of taxing wealth via the property tax maybe the answer is abolishing local sales tax for education and establishing a state property tax - obviously this could be revenue neutral, but it would be a way to “provide for a uniform system.”

This is well within the bounds of conservatism as it is the responsibility of current generations to conserve the knowledge of the past and educate future generations with that knowledge.

Regardless, I think we need to look at constitutional amendments to protect local control of education.

A couple things… Have you noticed how you went from praising the hard work of authors of a constitution at 3:17 this afternoon, to dismissing the work of authors of a constitution at 11:00 pm?  It only took about 7 hours for you to go from a “strict constructionist” and constitutional defender to being a “lenient interpretationist.”

I fail to see how acknowledging that the state is “providing” for public schools by delegating it to local government is overly interpretive of the state constitution.

Also, I don’t think bloggers write stuff nasty to be nasty.  We write it to be interesting enough to read and, occasionally, funny.  You might not find the stuff on BismarckDems.com to be funny, and that’s fine.  You probably aren’t the intended audience.  Snarkiness is a part of modern political dialogue, and it doesn’t make bloggers bad people.  You aren’t a bad person or blogger for calling the guy in your last post “a moron” (in the title of your post, no less).  Isn’t it a little harsh to go around calling people “morons?”

Well, the guy is a moron.  Did you read the post?  With the Christ killers stuff?  Moron.

I just call ‘em as I see ‘em.

Lastly, Democrats aren’t advocating for state control of education.  They seem to be honoring the words in the constitution.

So...you’re saying that currently we aren’t honoring the state Constitution?  That’s a load of bunk.

You admit yourself that with funding comes control.  I want control of education to stay at the local level.  You may want that too, but the Dem plan puts us on a path away from that.

Just because your Dems propose something doesn’t mean you have to support it, Chad.  I think just about all the commentary I’ve done on the state legislature this session so far has been critical of Republicans.

You should try being critical of your own party out some time.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Swap “sales tax” in the 3rd paragraph for “property tax”.

Unfortunately.......the real issue of high property taxes is getting lost in the debate of who should have control over the issue.....in the end....our property taxes will still be high and nothing will have been done about them.....and this state wonders why no one young stays in the state and why people leave here all the time

There are a good number of small town/community schools in ND that are in economic trouble.  The tax base is insufficient to fund all the education requirements and the salaries that go with it.  Many of these schools willnot/cannot merge as the school is the only thing left that holds the community together--when it goes it is curtains for the town.  No one in those school districts will step up to the obvious until the money is gone.
I do not advocate closing or consolidating those schools, but when there is no money there is no money.  The state can supply money to keep this kind of condition going until, who knows when?  Or, they can step up to the condition and provide a way to fix it--it won’t be easy nor will it be pretty.
We can argue about the constitution till hell freezes over, but that does not address the problem--there are schools out there that should be closed/consolidated/merged and they aren’t doing it as long as they can get enough tax money to get by another year.
It is clear that there are very few legislators that will touch this issue--this has been festering for years and years.
I grew up in a small town and see the controversy in the school issue.  The term controversy is mild in describing the strong emotions and positions the local people have.  The direction has to come from the outside--like it or not.

good point halatbis.

One thing to consider is the difference between Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

In the last 10 years both schools have lost a lot of students.  Grand Forks is getting less from the state due to that but spending more money from the locals and overall.

EGF wanted to raise property taxes last November which failed on the ballot to make up the difference.  They also have been getting less money due to declining enrollments.

One thing we have to face is that when there’s less kids (less families in those child rearing years who are having less kids) we don’t need the same number of schools and teachers.

The thing I don’t want to see is paying for the schools at the state level and then having the locals still taxing because they can and “it’s for the kids.”

The people deciding on what get’s spent (the voters) should pay the taxes that get spent.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

That’s an interesting point about school spending going up as enrollment declines.  That’s not something that should be happening.

Fewer students means less need for funding.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob,

Think of it like the cost to produce a new drug.  That first pill costs a couple billion dollars, but each one after it costs a penny. 

If we think about education in terms of production, the cost of producing educated students should go down the more there are and up the less there are.

Which is why minimizing input cost is the key!

Free...we don’t manufacture students.  Schools aren’t factories.

Graduating a bunch of kids one year doesn’t make it any less expensive to graduate a bunch of kids the next year.  If you’re talking about starting a brand new school yeah you’re going to save some money in that you don’t have to buy all new textbooks every single year or build a new building every year...but you do have to pay teachers and administrators and janitors as well as do maintenance and replace some education materials, etc.

I don’t think you have a very firm grasp on the issue.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

No, we don’t manufacture students, but we should approach education with the same QA/QC methodology.

I think we should approach education by looking at cost per student expenses rather than simply “how much money is this school getting.” It seems like we’re always in a race to see how much money we can spend on education, and we almost never ask ourselves how efficiently that money is being spent.

Tie the money to the student is what I say, and then let the parents send their kids wherever.  Money would be spent more efficiently that way and a lot of these funding shortages would go away.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Tie the money to the student is what I say, and then let the parents send their kids wherever.

Agreed, but then we get into a debate over what a “uniform system” is and while a fixed voucher system as you propose is “equal” there is nothing “uniform” about it.

Does anyone think that “uniform system” where uniform means exactly the same for every student.

If that’s the case then the state should just eliminate local school districts altogether and make the entire system a creature of the state.

That’d be less bad than what the liberals are proposing.

Does the fact that the federal government is supplying a lot of the money for education make us in violation of the “state shall provide?” No of course not.

We can’t have a situation where the locals get to spend whatever they want and are able to send the bill to the state to be paid.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.