When I heard that Circuit  Judge Lori Wilbur had ruled that school children in South Dakota have no constitutional right to a quality education, I have to confess that while I wasn’t particularly surprised by the ruling, I was surprised by the language. No right to a quality education?  No right to be prepared for college when they graduate from high school? That is so pathetic.

Why in hell would it seem reasonable to anybody that her children have no right to a quality education? The only possible explanation I can concoct at this moment is that any parent who thinks an “adequate” education is an acceptable outcome for her child is a parent who received the poor education that is created by the expectation of adequacy (and, it bears mentioning, didn’t have parents who were motivated enough to fill in the gaps). People and systems that only seek to be good enough never achieve excellence or even, generally, adequacy.

As disturbing as I find it that there are parents who consider a poor-t0-adequate education good enough for their kids or worse yet, parents who don’t know the difference, I know they are out there. I have sat at school functions with them. I have overheard them talking. I have seen their letters in the paper. They are out there and they vote. They are also in the majority because, sadly, too many of our smart kids grow up, go to college and leave the state in their dust on the way to good paying jobs, often just over our borders.

A bigger problem in this state is our governing body — a bunch of people who prove again and again that we are not necessarily concerned with sending our best and brightest to represent us in Pierre. If these people would do their jobs even “adequately” this issue would never have become a court battle. They do the same crap year after year. But, as my husband says, we get the government we deserve. These people debate banning or further restricting abortion every year. I wonder if anyone ever told them that better  educated women have fewer abortions. So, there’s one reason to provide a better education, abortion prevention.

Those things being said, there is one big mental block– for lack of a better word– that we are going to have to overcome before we can have a rational, progressive discussion and modification of our educational funding system in  this state.

We are going to have to wrap our heads around the truth that teaching is not less valuable than the work of other professionals. We have this mindset because traditionally teaching, at least here in SD, was the arena of women and we always have paid women less (this, unfortunately, is a worldwide problem, I blame St. Paul). And since women were either married or looking to get married and so have a man provide the main income for the family, that was okay (not, but we did it anyway). News flash! Teaching is not just for the girls anymore and, even married women are expected to bring a meaningful paycheck to the table. We need to start paying and treating teachers like college educated professionals or eventually the majority of teachers will be people who can’t sell insurance.