The leaders of St. Thomas More and Rapid City Christian schools took a moment at halftime at last night’s basketball game for a political message to the gathered crowd about something important to them. Getting taxpayer dollars. (Starting at 46:56):
“This is about getting money from our state for non-public schools. We need your support.”
The most recent write up I can find notes Rapid City Catholic School System is a highly rated, private, Catholic school located in Rapid City. For grades 9-12, $225 registration fees, and $7,342 tuition (in 2023) for good catholics, and $9152 for bad catholics (inactive) and the non-believing heathens. Rapid City Christian is a bit steeper.. $50 application fee, $400 annual registration fees, and a $9,000 annual tuition for grades 9-12. Not sure if they charge differently for non-christians..
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they are good schools, and well worth the money. If I was in Rapid City, I would probably have my kids enrolled in STM, if I could afford it. With 7 kids though, that answer would probably be a NO. And, I’m not sure they would have taken my child with a disability.
But, again, it’s a private school. And as far as they’re concerned, the voucher plan is about “getting money from our state for non-public schools.” For people whom sending their kids to those schools now is not a financial stretch. As the correspondent who sent it to me noted, “The parking lot was full of shiny Tahoes, Lexus and Teslas. The last time I’ve seen this many upper class white people was at a Richard Marx concert I attended in High School.“
The battle lines are being drawn. Keep watching the debate.
At least they’re being honest about their pilfering.
These schools like to tout higher outcomes (SAT / ACT scores), but their teaching methods are not much different. They kick out the “non-conforming” kids from the school. I can share this from first-hand experience. I would like to see how this will not create a division in good vs. bad schools. If we are paying for all schools, then everyone should get a choice as to where they want to go, no kicking out kids who don’t have two parents to ride them to get their homework done. Failures should statistically occur in both schools (public and religious).
I graduated from a sister South Dakota Catholic School system. Drug use was rampant and so was bullying. The problem is that despite parents pleading with principles to deal with the known abusers who disrupted classes and created an unsafe learning environment nothing was done with some in administration and teaching staff looking the other way. These abusers came from prominent families either very active in the church, school board, or school and or were wealthy too. Keep in mind this is a private school system and especially the high school which almost closed for financial reasons critically dependent on tuition and donations so some kids and families were sacrificed and considered expendable.
A number of my classmates who were abused on a daily basis passed away at young ages after graduation which I suspect was due to the abuse. Some dealt with substance abuse prior to passing.
Not sure what that has do with school funding…
Pat I have personally visited with and have read posts by those advocating for taxpayer funded vouchers for private schools and homeschooling demonizing public school systems while promoting private schools for example as being perfect and not having any issues like that. Private schools have their own unique issues which can lack transparency, accountability and safeguards.
Thanks. Much clearer point.
Essentially these voucher advocates are setting up unrealistic expectations to secure taxpayer funding for church schools. There are risks.
From the SD Constitution on Public Education.
“Uniform system of free public schools. The stability of a republican form of government depending on the morality and intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all; and to adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.”
How is any of what is being proposed constitutional? I’m sure the proponents for HB1020/1009 have lawyers backing them up with the language and hanging their hats on the last sentence, but the key word in the last sentence is “and” and not “or” so all language would have to apply. Wouldn’t HB1009 and HB 1020 be unconstitutional?
Anon at 12:22 where in the state constitution does it say the legislature can’t fund private education in addition to free, public education? They aren’t mutually exclusive, they can fund both..
So you’re saying one of the states with the worst teacher pay should shovel funds off to private, well-to-do schools? To hell with that.
I didn’t say they should do it, I said they COULD do it. It would not violate the state constitution if they did both.
That clause of our constitution also appears in several other state constitutions. It is commonly referred to as the Blaine Amendment. It was an attempt to inhibit the growing influence of Catholic immigrants in the late 19th century. Recently, the US Supreme Court has declared that language is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the US Constitution. It essentially is invalid. Recent court cases rejecting the Blaine language include Trinity Lutheran Church v. Corner in 2017 and Espinoza v Montana Department of Revenue in 2020. Any court test of these bills would also be rejected. Blaine had political ambitions and tried to fuel religious bigotry to his advantage. This is a remnant of that.
One HUGE gap in this legislation is rural South Dakota. How many thousands of children live outside the realistic bounds of being able to travel to/from a private school every day? I would also be willing to bet that greater majority of those kids have parents that both work and can’t even come close to losing one income to make home schooling work, even with the voucher program.
Private schools are not obligated to accept everyone. They get to pick and choose who is accepted. Your child doesn’t have straight A’s, not getting in. Your child has been to the principals office a few too many times, not getting in. Your child has any kind of developmental/learning disability, not getting in. This program sets up a system where only the best and brightest will be accepted to private schools, the “haves” may you, while leaving those that are more in need of a diversified educational system behind, the “have nots” in this case. We will have an already advanced group of children exceed, while an already behind group of students falls further back.
If we have more students in private schools, those schools will also need more teachers. Which is something our state is already having a hard time keeping up with. But where do you think the best of the best teachers will want to be? Certainly not in public schools.
If memory serves me right, Mr. Odenbach has been one of the leading voices against the Summit Pipeline. One of the reasons why is because it would use taxpayer money to enrich a private company. How is this any different?
The State is constitutionally obligated to provide public education. Let’s make sure the wheels of that program are running smoothly before we try to hook the horse up to a different carriage.
Who cares, think of the churches missing out on this sweet taxpayer money!
To answer your question on the rural affect, this was exactly why Governor Burgum in North Dakota vetoed a similar bill in ND last year. That fact and the fact there is no accountability after the money flows to the voucher parents.
so because some students are more academically inclined than others, they need to be held down and not allowed to excel?
And so what if some kids live too far away to commute to a private school? If their parents choose to live in a remote location, & they really want to send their kids to private school, they can send them to a boarding school. There’s about 200+ of them around the country, (the best one is Phillips Andover.) Problem solved!
The issue isn’t about preventing the cream from rising to the top, homogenizing student achievement so nobody is better educated than anyone else, it’s about using state money to help pay for it. That’s the whole issue, nothing more.
Don’t get bogged down in pointless arguments about how some children are more intelligent than others, or live too far away from a private school.
That argument is ridiculous. There is no limit to a student’s achievement. The most valuable skills can be learned with all sorts of different avenues. It isn’t going to be realized by a few extra dollar sign from the coffers.
the argument that there is no limit to a student’s achievement is just silly. Of course there are limits! Some people are more gifted than others. Not everybody can become a chemical engineer, an airline pilot, or a neurosurgeon. Some people struggle, just learning to read.
Yeah! Don’t get bogged down in details about where the money is going and who gets it versus who doesn’t! Don’t worry about things like oversight! JUST SPEND! MONEY PWEEEEZ!
The issue is whether the state should help out the students who opt for private school. The issue is how much money does it save the taxpayers every time a kid opts out of public education? We pay a lot for the public schools. The lower the enrollment, the more money the taxpayers save.
It is not about how you wanted to go to a private school and you weren’t accepted, so now you don’t want anybody to go. Got it.
This is one of the most out of touch, egotistical, and arrogant statements I’ve seen on this website.
Maybe the bill should be amended to tax religious institutions that engage in political activities?
Why not just tax them in general?
I can’t see how this is good for any of the small towns in SD.
This is short sited and misses the mark completely on bettering education in SD
If my tax dollars are going to fund private religious based schools then I want the IRS in their business.
Start taxing these church schools and the churches affiliated with them.
Serious question- how can a school that receives state funding, still be considered a “private school”?
possible ultimate goal: miring high school kids in massive high school loan debt.
When you see the financial sector folks line up on that side of the issue it’s hard to ignore that possibility.
Without being banished from this forum, I can’t say enough bad words to describe the 80% of voters who didn’t vote in the primary.
You are all fussing about nickel and dime stuff, low-rent parochial schools. I don’t think any of you know what a real private school is.
I looked up my alma mater, to see what they are charging now, and it is $66,390/year
The school both my brothers went to is now $67,315/year.
Now those are REAL private schools. Needless to say, none of us sent our own kids to any private schools. That shit blows.
Hi Pat,
This is the Kid from South Carolina who worked with Pennington, now the Chairman of the Oklahoma Federation of College Republicans. I attended Saint Thomas More while I was in Rapid City, assisting Pennington with IT and communications. I truly cherished my time at STM and consider it the best of the three high schools I attended. A good portion of the students there benefited from scholarships, and contrary to some misconceptions, the student body is not made up of affluent individuals.
I still read South Dakota War College for fun and think South Dakota should take a closer look at how Oklahoma introduced School Choice. The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit, created in 2023, has significantly helped students and provided families with more educational options. If South Dakota’s public schools continue to struggle with funding and fail to deliver quality education, it will be vital for the state to either raise taxes, expand charter schools, or face the consequences of students leaving the system in search of better opportunities.
oklahoma is trying to hand out bibles in public school classrooms too. defunding and proselytization are original, unique and brave school reform ideas. truly.
Why on earth would we want to emulate anything from Oklahoma. A long and storied history of poor education, it’s an example more so of what not to do.
I think what everybody needs to catch on to is that the worse the public schools get, the more people with the means are going to opt out.
If people are desperate to escape a public school, there’s a reason, and it’s not about the money.
If parents are dissatisfied, the school board should find out why. Just watching them walk away and not asking why isn’t going to solve anything..
That clip is super cringe worthy. The Public Address announcers voice is like fingernails on the chalkboard. The Superintendents leading a cheer for School Choice when people didn’t even stop and pay attention. It seemed from the video like 10 people clapped and I thought I heard some boos. Super awkward.
Most of the Private School families that I know and talk to don’t want anything to do with these vouchers. That’s probably why the crowd was disinterested. The 2 Superintendents are obviously seeing $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.