Inspired by the extraordinary events happening in Wisconsin, yesterday I took to Pierre for the Stand Up for Education rally, ready to do my damnedest to stop the proposed 10% cut to education funding proposed by South Dakota's Governor Dennis Daugaard (Dewey to his friends). You may have seen my beautiful face on eastern South Dakota's NBC affiliate, KDLT. I'm famous!
The "protest" did accomplish one important goal--it got coverage on all the local news shows, and space in area newspapers. This is no small accomplishment and it deserves respect. However, what the protest did not do, was adequately demonstrate the anger of the electorate over the decimation of our already chronically underfunded schools. It was exactly the sort of polite, coffee and pie in the church basement kind of affair that makes very little impact on policy-makers. Education proponents have been nicely asking for funding for 30 years with no success. I don't understand what makes them think they can ask nicely for these cuts to be undone and get any results.
Here's what we did: sat in committee hearings (though the organizers had us trying to attend hearings that were not even happening on the day of the event), tried to find our local representatives to make our views known (this was close to impossible as legislators have no offices as far as I can tell and you had to simply hope to run into them in the hallways), and, in the one well-orchestrated part of the day, listen to a dozen or legislators that were already on our side.
What we did not do: show up in any kind of impressive numbers. There were about 100 people present, rather than the 1000 that could have started to be heard. 100 people at a protest tells legislators that hardly anyone cares enough to show up. We did not march, have signs, chant or in any way visably demonstrate our displeasure. No one knows how the situation in Wisconsin is going to turn out, but the protesters there, with their relentless application of political pressure, have given themselves substantially better odds of winning their fight than we did. Politicians are under no obligation to respond to well-reasoned argument or a reasonable alternative. The one thing they are obigated to listen to is overwhelming political pressure that they sense impedes their ability to continue to wield power. We are not producing anything close to that right now.
Of particular note was a conversation between Matt Groce and our own District 8 State Senator and fratboy tool Russell Olson. Olson suggested that school districts should have no problem handling cuts because their reserves are too large. When asked to envision how he sees the education funding issue being resolved "in a perfect world" he essentially said that Dewey's proposal in fact represents a perfect world. Deep cuts to education are perfect. At no time during the 10 minute conversation did he express any worry that deep cuts to education funding would result in worse outcomes for students. In committee the same day, he was the only vote against a bill that allow for a public vote on raising taxes to pay for education (he is so anti-tax that he won't even let his idiot constituents raise taxes on themselves, you see). This was the first time I had ever met Olson, but he certainly met the descriptions I had heard of him--dishonest, incurious, unwilling (or perhaps not imaginative enough) to consider proposals other than the one his party has handed him. He is a local George Bush Jr.
The ultimate fate of education funding in this year's budget remains to be seen, and it's still possible that education advocates might rally enough votes to avert disaster. But South Dakotans that care about this stuff need to get over their fear of offending those in power or making a ruckus of any sort. Quietly passing around a petition isn't going to do it. Politics is the clash of powerful interests, and the defeat of anti-education interests will require a lot of South Dakotans standing up and loudly declaring their opposition. I didn't see that yesterday.
Okay, the fact that his name is Dewey is just wrong. Ugh. http://dewey.pragmatism.org/
ReplyDeleteThere's a book by Nancy Welch--Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World--that I think you would really like because it addresses these very issues. She argues that we live in a such a privatized world that we've forgotten the power of public acts like demonstrations and protests. It's academic-y, but great.