Gov. Kristi Noem needs to clarify her stance on school choice
Gavin Furrey
Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Recently, yet another effort to gain state funding for Lakota immersion schools has failed despite strong evidence of the efficacy of language-immersion education for Native American students. It is the third time in five years, and yet, opponents are repeating the same concerns about funding and governance, and the same promises that they are working to support Indigenous students in public schools. Education is clearly a priority for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, just not for Native students. Indeed, just last April she demonstrated her commitment to educational issues by unilaterally passing by executive order what failed in the Senate Education committee: banning Critical Race Theory, which she understands to be "a distorted view of the U.S. and its institutions". However, distortedly she uses the term, it is beside the more crucial point: Noem has made it clear that she is not willing to work with state lawmakers, educational leaders, and tribal leadership despite the fact that education, notably "patriotic" education, is one of her primary agenda items. Additionally, she clearly does not trust locally-elected school boards to be able to handle questions of curriculum themselves. This can easily be interpreted as government overreach.
Noem's commitment to harder state control of curriculum and her vague stance on school choice is a combination that highlights what is really going on: Noem is not committed to freedom of choice for South Dakotans, but to a state monopoly of education. While many Republican lawmakers across the country are vehemently supporting school choice, South Dakota remains one of five states that still do not allow charter schools. Efforts to make schools more accountable to their population by enabling public funds to be diverted to alternative educational options, notably charter schools, has been embraced by leading organizations such as the NDN Collective and the Native Indian Education Association as a pathway towards educational sovereignty for tribal nations. But as we know, Noem has little regard for tribal sovereignty or tribal relations. By analyzing the larger scope of this issue, however, we can also see that she has little regard for the freedom of educational choice, or for the democratic responsibility of collaborating with lawmakers and trusting local school boards and communities to shape the education of their children. This seems at odds with her conservative platform that values limited government.
Noem's "no" to Lakota immersion schools is a "no" to school choice in South Dakota, just as her executive order is a rather autocratic tactic in a state that values local independence. It is time for Noem to clarify her stance on school choice. It will say a lot about her level of trust in South Dakotans to govern their local schools, her commitment to preserving the choices available to individual citizens, her commitment to improving the education of Indigenous students, and her willingness to acknowledge the sovereignty of tribal nations.
Read More
This opinion-editorial essay does not reflect the views of ICT; voices in our opinion section represent a variety of reader points of view. If you would like to contribute an essay to ICT, email opinion@ictnews.org.
More information about our guidelines: Submission guidelines.
