Parents Decide. Teachers Teach. Where I Stand on Education.

My son is nine. When I pick him up and ask what he learned at school today, I get the same answer every parent in District 32 gets: "Nothing." We laugh about it. It's a game every dad knows. But behind that joke sits a real question, and it isn't funny anymore. What exactly are our kids being taught, who decided, and why does a parent have to play detective to find out?

I'm running for the South Dakota House in District 32, downtown and North Rapid City. Education comes up at almost every door. It comes up from parents, from teachers, from grandparents raising grandkids. The frustrations sound different house to house, but they trace back to the same root. The people closest to the kids have the least say. The people furthest from the classroom have the most.

My education plan fits in four short sentences. Parents decide. Teachers teach. Students learn. Bureaucracy steps aside.

Here is what that means when it becomes law.

Curriculum transparency, required by statute

Not a portal nobody can find. Not a records request that takes six weeks. Transparency written into state law, so any parent can see what their child is being taught without asking permission. You pay for these schools. You send your kids to these schools. Seeing the curriculum is not a favor the district grants you. It's your right, and I will fight to put it in statute.

Cap administrator pay. Pay teachers what they're worth.

Teachers are underpaid. Everybody says it, every year, and every year the money seems to find its way somewhere other than the classroom. Meanwhile administration keeps doing fine. I want a cap on administrator pay in taxpayer-funded districts, and I want teacher pay treated like the priority everyone claims it is. The adults who actually stand in front of our kids should not be at the back of the line.

No taxpayer-funded political lobbying by school districts

Right now tax dollars meant for classrooms can end up paying for political influence in Pierre. Think about what that is: the government using your money to lobby the government for more of your money. End it. Superintendents can testify. Board members can advocate. Teachers and parents can call their legislators like every other citizen. But the lobbying bill should not land on the taxpayer.

Funding follows the student: true school choice

Education money exists to educate a child, not to fund a building. When funding follows the student, every family gets the option that wealthy families have always had: pick the school that fits your kid. Public, private, somewhere in between. The family decides.

The honest objections

These positions draw fire. Good. The objections deserve straight answers, not talking points.

"School choice will gut public schools."

A good public school has nothing to fear from a family with options. Most families will keep choosing the school down the street, because it's close, it's familiar, and when it's doing its job there is no reason to leave. Choice doesn't punish good schools. It holds the bad ones accountable, because for the first time the family can do something about it besides write an angry Facebook post. The money serves the child. That's the whole principle.

"Curriculum transparency is an attack on teachers."

It's the opposite. A teacher who is proud of a lesson has nothing to hide, and transparency isn't aimed at the teacher anyway. It's aimed at the layers between the parent and the classroom, where curriculum decisions get made without either of them in the room. Transparency actually protects teachers. When the curriculum is public, a teacher is never left standing alone defending a decision that was made above their pay grade.

"Capping pay is government overreach."

If a private company wants to pay its executives a fortune, that's their business. A public school district runs on tax dollars, and the public gets a say in how those dollars are spent. That's not overreach. That's ownership. When administrator pay climbs while teacher pay stalls, that is a priorities problem, and the legislature sets the rules for how public education money flows. Cap the top. Pay the classroom.

"Districts need a voice in Pierre."

They have one, and nobody is taking it away. Testify. Advocate. Show up. I spent two sessions at the Capitol fighting for family legislation as a citizen advocate, and nobody handed me a taxpayer-funded lobbyist. What ends is the practice of billing taxpayers for professional political lobbying. If an argument for more school funding is strong, it can win on its merits without a paid lobbyist making it on your dime.

"School choice is a handout to families who already have options."

Backwards. Wealthy families have always had school choice. They buy it with a tuition check or a mortgage in the right neighborhood. The family renting in North Rapid has no such lever. When funding follows the student, every parent in this district holds the same power wealthy parents have always had. And nobody gets forced anywhere: if the public school down the street is the right fit, the funding follows your kid right there. Choice that only money can buy is not choice. It is a privilege. I want the version every family gets.

Why this matters at my kitchen table and yours

I'm a dad before I'm a candidate. Every position on this page comes back to one test: does it put parents, teachers, and students first, or does it feed the bureaucracy? District 32's kids don't belong to a system. They belong to their families. The system works for them, not the other way around.

Strong families build strong schools, and strong schools build a strong South Dakota. If this lines up with what you believe at your own kitchen table, read the full Education Reform plank and the rest of the platform at zac4sd.com.