By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

PIERRE, S.D. – There they go again.

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Another teachers union is attempting to roll back education reforms through public referendum.

On Monday, the South Dakota Education Association turned in 30,000 petition signatures – almost double the necessary amount – to put the state’s new education reform laws up for a public vote this November, reports PublicNewsService.org.

Under the new laws (commonly referred to as HB 1234), teacher tenure would be phased out, beginning July 1, 2016. Teachers who have already have tenure would be “grandfathered in,” but new teachers would not be eligible for the antiquated job protection.

The reform laws also provide “a $15 million investment in the teaching profession,” reports a South Dakota government website. The new funds would be used to recruit “potential teachers into critical need areas” by offering student scholarships in return for a five-year teaching commitment.

Some of the new money would also be given to districts to award cash bonuses to their math and science teachers, as well as their most effective teachers, reports KeloLand.com.  The most effective teachers would be determined through a statewide evaluation system that puts a heavy focus on student test scores.

Despite all the efforts to increase earnings for high-quality teachers and treat them as valued professionals, the state’s teachers union opposes the laws, which will be suspended until the November vote, once the necessary number of petition signatures is validated.

“I think there’s still a lot of misconceptions out there and misunderstandings of what really is in HB 1234,” union President Sandy Arseneault told the Public News Service. “So I think our job now begins to educate the people, and hope that we get the ‘no’ votes that we need to stop the legislation.”

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The SDEA is representative of the new approach teacher unions are using to fight education reform. Unions in Idaho and Michigan are also trying to undo promising new reforms at the ballot box, without offering any kind of intelligent counter-proposals about how to improve public education.

The teachers union in Wisconsin tried to undo reforms through an indirect method, by attempting to recall Gov. Scott Walker from office. Voters rejected that effort earlier his month. Teachers unions in California and Louisiana have bypassed the taxpayers and are fighting reforms through the courts.

The unions’ only proposal for improving K-12 education is to raise taxes, even though Americans have spent the last 40 years pumping ever greater amounts of money into public schools without seeing any meaningful improvements in student achievement.

All of this illustrates how intellectually barren the nation’s teachers unions have become. All they do is shout “NO!” at any proposals that challenge the status quo (which is failing children), while begging for more money from the taxpayers. Hopefully taxpayers are wise enough to see through these pathetic, worn-out arguments.