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?
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!
Maybe the bill should be amended to tax religious institutions that engage in political activities?