SHOT/CHASER: Republicans Deny Teacher Shortage

SHOT:Survey: 30 Percent of SD Teaching Positions Open; Keloland.com, 6.19.2014

CHASER:SD Senate Rejects Resolution on Teacher Shortage; Rapid City Journal, 1.22.2014

It’s official – if you ever had any doubt: The South Dakota Republican Party is out of touch. When it comes to the crisis in education in fact, they have lost grasp of reality. Case in point: the critical teaching shortage facing South Dakota schools. South Dakota already had the lowest paid teachers in the country. But when the state legislature convened a summer study on the topic and recommended a bipartisan resolution to merely acknowledge the obvious, Republican leaders killed the resolution. Now, the obvious emerges again with the summer flying by: 30 precent of our schools can’t find teachers across all subjects, including the science & math fields Republicans are always extolling. It leads us to wonder:

How can we fulfill our children’s promise if we can’t even find the teachers to educate, train, and inspire them in the classroom?