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• Kirby said no single event had prompted Hagel to take action. Rather, Hagel had taken notice of a string of news reports about problems in the ICBM force, including AP reporting that "made an impact on his thinking," Kirby said.
• With an eye toward avoiding further surprises, Hagel's planned Pentagon summit meeting with top officers, as well as other actions announced Thursday, include participation by Navy officials responsible for their portion of the nuclear arsenal. The Navy has not suffered any recent reported lapses or failures within its nuclear submarine force, but Kirby said Hagel believed it would be imprudent for him not to examine the entirety of the arsenal.
• "What the secretary wants to know is, what else don't I know" about problems inside the force, Kirby said.
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SD educators say schools need more state aid
CHET BROKAW, Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota's school districts need more state financial aid to keep effective teachers, restore programs that have been cut and prevent a decline in student achievement, representatives of local schools said Thursday.
• The lobbyists for school boards and school administrators said they appreciate Gov. Dennis Daugaard's recommendation to boost state aid to schools by 3 percent next year, nearly double the inflationary increase required by law. But they said they would prefer to have the Legislature set the increase at 3.8 percent, which would put spending per student back where it was before budget cuts were made three years ago.
• "Our message today is we need your help," Wade Pogany, director of the Associated school Boards of South Dakota, told the Joint Appropriations Committee.
• Senate Appropriations Chair Deb Peters, R-Hartford, said lawmakers will hold hearings soon on bills seeking to increase school aid. A final decision will be made when the Joint Appropriations Committee finishes the state budget in March.
• Pogany said school boards have cut technical classes for high school students because of the 2011 budget cuts. Schools also are having trouble attracting and keeping teachers because of low salaries, he said.
• Local school boards want to provide students with world-class educations, but they are frustrated because schools don't get enough money to meet high expectations, Pogany said.
• Rob Monson, director of the School Administrators of South Dakota, said districts have cut about 500 teachers and other staff since the budget cuts, an average of about 3.3 teachers per district. He said he anticipates about a 30-40 percent turn (Continued on page 25)
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